Rolf Grabower

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Rolf Grabower

Rolf Grabower (born May 21, 1883 in Berlin ; † March 7, 1963 in Munich ) was a German lawyer in the financial administration. As a tax lawyer and judge at the Reichsfinanzhof , he became the “father of sales tax” and “architect of the tax audit”. After surviving the Holocaust as a “three-quarter Jew” , he was Chief Financial Officer of the Nuremberg Regional Tax Office .

Life

Grabower was the son of a Prussian judiciary and notary. From 1889 to 1900 he attended the French Gymnasium in Berlin , where he graduated from high school in 1901. He had "not belonged to any youth movement".

Education

Grabower as Masure (1902)

He began to study law at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , but already switched to the Albertus-Universität Königsberg in the second semester . There he joined the Corps Masovia in the winter semester of 1901/02 . He took excellent care of the offspring. In 1903 he went to the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . In 1905 he passed the first state examination in law. At the University of Leipzig he was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD . After he also economics had studied, he was in 1910 in Berlin to Dr. phil. PhD. In 1911 he passed the second state examination in law.

As an assessor , he was a five-month trainee at the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at the trade association for the chemical industry . From April 1, 1912 to March 31, 1914 he was an unskilled worker at the Prussian Higher Administrative Court . He then entered the administration of direct Prussian taxes and was in Mülheim an der Ruhr “from May 1914 until the 2nd day of mobilization” .

Soldier and civil servant

As an officer he took part in the First World War, most recently as captain of the reserve. He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st class.

In October / November 1918 he was a clerk in the Prussian War Ministry . In 1921, he followed Johannes Popitz as head of the sales tax department in the Reich Ministry of Finance . Ministerialrat since 1922 , and in 1923 he was commissioner of the Reich Finance Administration during the Ruhr War. His childless first marriage to a granddaughter of Rudolf Virchow was divorced in 1924. In 1926 he took over the accounting and auditing department. In 1932 and early 1933 he was Ministerialrat in the Reich Ministry of Finance. He also taught at the Berlin Commercial College and the Berlin Administrative Academy .

His historical thinking flowed into the scientific penetration of sales tax , which was expressed in his collaboration on comments (1928 and 1955 Hübschmann, Grabower, Beck, v. Wallis, Schwarz).

Supreme judge

The National Socialists transferred him as a "three-quarters Jew" according to the law for the restoration of the civil service in April 1934 to the (politically uninfluential) Reichsfinanzhof in Munich . There he met his second wife.

After the Nuremberg Laws came into force on January 1, 1936, he was “retired as a campaign participant with full salary for racial reasons”. Until April 2, 1941 he operated "private scientific studies in the field of tax history".

Theresienstadt ghetto

According to his own admission, he was from “3. April 1941 to July 1945 earthworkers, unskilled masons, head of a factory, labor judge, administrative judge, head of the Jewish labor operation in the Milpertshofen camp, in a flax roaster in Lohhof ” . Since June 19, 1942, he spent 37 months in the Theresienstadt ghetto . In November 1941, Hans Heinrich Lammers and Franz Willuhn prevented his deportation to an extermination camp literally at the last minute . "Grabower carried his fate philosophically and calmly and remained on friendly terms with the corps". In Theresienstadt he belonged to the influential group of prisoners around Philipp Manes . As a so-called celebrity , he was employed in the work center and was a member of the bank advisory board. He sent Leo Baeck his weekly report of March 29, 1945 . It says:

“As in these three epochs, I try to act in such a way that objective correctness and human consideration, the strictest support of the community interest and avoidance of any petty harshness can be brought into harmony in individual cases so that my work is not only in front of my conscience, but also can later exist in front of historical retrospect, which is never usually benevolent. "

In the cover letter he expressed the fear of anti-Semitism:

“I can tell you that my remarks are dictated by the great concern about the second anti-Semitism. It is impersonal because, given my age, this worry of a movement that may be feared in 20 or 30 years' time no longer worries me. It is very personal; because, as you know, I have suffered severely from anti-Semitism since 1899 due to the special circumstances described to you at the time. "

- Rolf Grabower

At the beginning of May 1945 Grabower was liberated in Theresienstadt by Red Army soldiers . He voluntarily stayed in Theresienstadt for two more months to help run the camp.

New beginning in Bavaria

From July 11th to mid-October 1945 he was again the highest Reich judge at the now Bavarian Supreme Finance Court in Munich. On October 18, 1945 he was appointed Chief Finance President in Nuremberg . He issued measures to record the black market . At the end of March 1952 he retired.

In 1948 the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen appointed him honorary professor . There he was called the "Little Popitz". From 1951 he was visiting lecturer at the Academic Federal Finance School in Siegburg .

He loved literature, especially Goethe , about whom he gave well-attended lectures. “Not the undisputed expertise, but human personalities characterized this man who, on a seldom broad intellectual basis, was able to integrate the ungrateful tax law into an overall view of economy, people and justice. His word of the 'courtesy of the heart' was meant for the employee, who should carry it out. "

He had "never belonged to a party as a civil servant". The Corps Palaiomarchia awarded him the ribbon in 1960.

Honors

Works

  • with Johannes Popitz : The history of sales tax and its current structure at home and abroad . Carl Heymanns Verlag , Berlin 1925.
  • Tax administration and ethics
  • The ethical approach in tax law
  • Prussia's taxes before and after the Wars of Liberation . Liebmann-Verlag , Berlin 1932.
  • The accounting and tax audit of the Reich Finance Administration . Spaeth & Linde , Berlin Vienna 1932.
  • Handbook of Criminal Tax Law and Criminal Tax Procedure Law . Stoytscheff, Nuremberg 1949.
  • with Theodor Eschenburg : Rules of prudence in administration. Office patronage in the party state . Political Studies ( Hanns Seidel Foundation ) 61 (1956)
  • Bismarck and the taxes. At the same time a contribution to the teaching of the tax tradition . FinanzArchiv 1962.

literature

  • Martin Friedenberger, Klaus-Dieter Gössel, Eberhard Schönknecht (eds.): The realm finance administration in National Socialism. Presentation and documents. Temmen, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-86108-377-9 ( publications of the Memorial and Educational Center House of the Wannsee Conference 1).
  • Werner Nigbur (Ed.): When in office, work, when dismissed, hide yourself. Prof. Dr. iur. Dr. phil. Rolf Grabower "three-quarter Jew", survivor of the Shoah, Theresienstadt. In certificates from the financial history collection of the Federal Finance Academy . A reading book and material volume. Federal Finance Academy in the Federal Ministry of Finance, Brühl 2010.
  • ofd currently. News from the Oberfinanzdirektion Nürnberg. No. 2/83.
  • Alfons Pausch: Rolf Grabower - architect of the tax audit service in the interest of the uniformity of taxation. Tax and Studies 1992, ISSN  0173-1599 , p. 43 ff.
  • Erich Stockhorst: 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 (unchanged reprint of the first edition from 1967).
  • Christian Scheer: Grabower, Rudolf. In: Harald Hagemann , Claus-Dieter Krohn (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of the German-speaking economic emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Adler – Lehmann. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11284-X , pp. 195-197.
  • Johanna Rakebrand: “Grabower | Popitz. Two ambiguous Germans ”, Myops 30 (2017), Munich, CH Beck, pp. 61–71.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener corps lists 1910 , 141/906
  2. ^ List of all members of the Corps Masovia 1823 to 2005 . Potsdam 2006
  3. ↑ Legal dissertation: In §§ 463, 480 BGB, is compensation for non-fulfillment synonymous with damages for non-fulfillment of the seller's entire liability?
  4. ^ Philosophical dissertation: The financial development of the stock corporations in the German chemical industry and their relationship to the banking world .
  5. ↑ a b Grabower in a weekly report (Federal Finance Academy)
  6. ↑ The transfer certificate was issued by President Paul v. Hindenburg and the Reich Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin v. Krosigk signed it.
  7. ↑ Hans Lippold, January 10, 1973
  8. ↑ a b Entry Rolf Grabower on ghetto-theresienstadt.info
  9. ↑ ghetto-theresienstadt.info: Celebrities ; The list of celebrities A was published in 1945 by Ralph Oppenhejm .
  10. ↑ a b Letter from the Federal Finance Academy (Werner Nigbur) to the Corps Masovia, January 15, 2010.
  11. ↑ ofd aktuell, news of the Oberfinanzdirektion Nürnberg, No. 2/83
  12. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 113/576
personal data
SURNAME Grabower, Rolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German tax lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 1963
Place of death Munich