Rudolf Suthoff-Groß (administrative lawyer)

Rudolf Suthoff-Groß (born July 7, 1894 in Unna ; lost in a Soviet prisoner-of-war) was a German lawyer and from 1925 to 1929 mayor of Lüttringhausen and from 1933 to 1945 district mayor in the Berlin district of Wedding , who from 1933/34 was also the persecution of " Gypsies " operated. In 1941, he successfully submitted a thesis to become a doctorate from Carl Schmitt and Reinhard Höhn. jur. habil. in the field of public law .

Weimar Republic

In 1925 he became mayor of Lüttringhausen, which was independent until 1929. Since both the local history publications from his time in Lüttringhausen and his publication from 1938 have a doctorate, he is likely to have received his doctorate in the Weimar Republic .

National Socialism

Suthoff-Groß was one of the Nazi functionaries who took up their posts in 1933 as part of the “ Gleichschaltung ”. In 1933, he replaced his predecessor Karl Leid ( USPD / SPD ) , who was suspended on March 14, as district mayor in Wedding . Until 1933, the district was a bloody left stronghold. Suthoff-Groß remained in office until 1945. Shortly after taking office, on March 31, 1933, he resigned after denouncing a stenographer whom a colleague had called a "Nazi".

In Berlin-Wedding he was the driving force to drive "Gypsies" out of their self-chosen quarters and the public space. This policy ended in the establishment of the Berlin-Marzahn compulsory camp , which was occupied with men, women and children in the Berlin area in mid-1936 after a wave of arrests. For Suthoff-Groß, “Gypsies” generally represented a strong “impairment of residents, street passers-by, visitors to cemeteries, school children […], people seeking advice in the counseling centers for genealogical and racial questions and those who need to relax in parks”; the damage caused by them in “racial, moral and health relationships” is “irreparable at all.” He does not prove any specific damage.

In 1938 he published together with the Berlin magistrate Ernst Luther on the constitution and administration of the Reich capital Berlin. The basis was a National Socialist reorganization of the constitution and administration of the Reich capital Berlin from 1936. The foreword was written by Julius Lippert , who was the main protagonist in bringing the Berlin administration into line . The law commented on by Suthoff-Groß had broken Berlin out of the old Prussian administrative structure. Berlin was upgraded to a kind of independent province, whose management function was subordinated to a state commissioner , known as the city ​​president , who was also mayor. This went hand in hand with expansion of responsibilities (e.g. with regard to higher education). Lippert filled this post from 1937 to 1940 and was then drafted because of disagreements with the NSDAP Gau leadership. In Kriminalistik , the official journal of the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt , this work is rated by Kriminalrat Sommerfeld as being of great benefit to the criminal police .

The doctoral regulations of the Berlin law faculty were also redesigned in order to enable a larger number of lecturers from practice to do their doctorates. This opportunity was used, which was awarded to the Dr. jur. habil led, mainly by old fighters and deserving functionaries of the NSDAP ; the level of work fell. Suthoff-Groß completed his habilitation with a thesis: The legal status of the mayor: in his relationship to the state and to the other civil servants of the community. The first reviewer was Carl Schmitt , the second reviewer was Reinhard Höhn . The work was published in 1941, but it certainly had a lead time; Correspondence between Schmitt and Suthoff-Groß, such as an invitation to Schmitt's seminar and the announcement of part of the work by Sutthof-Groß from June 1939, has been received. Schmitt reviewed the "book" (sic!) In 1942 in the magazine for the entire political science , it was for the understanding of the changes in the position of the mayor, which were created in 1936 and 1937 by changes in the law, fundamental and useful, the consequences of these changes were so far not really understood yet.

“The author now comes to the point of view according to which the mayor is completely" nationalized "with his own personal position as a civil servant as well as with his position as superior and supreme service authority of the community officials. This means that the core of communal self-administration, communal personnel sovereignty, seems to have been nationalized and the self-administration has been deprived of its essential substance. The author thus places himself in open opposition to the view that prevails in practice and in literature. This is all the more noticeable as he himself, as the district mayor of Berlin-Wedding, is part of the municipal self-administration and already has a name here as an expert. The work will therefore have to reckon with violent contradictions. It seems to have the odor of a "statist" and anti-self-administration tendency. "

- Carl Schmitt (1942)

The realpolitical background is the conflicts between the ideological guidelines of the Führer principle , the relative autonomy of the cities with their mayors, who had no superiors, and the parallel NSDAP Gauleitungen, which saw their influence limited. The year of the habilitation is given in the literature as 1943.

Fonts

• With Ernst Luther: Constitution and administration of the Reich capital Berlin on the basis of the law on the constitution and administration of the Reich capital Berlin of December 1, 1936. C. Heymann, 1938 (479 pages).
• The legal status of the mayor: in his relationship with the state and with other civil servants in the municipality. Carl Heymanns, 1941 (379 pages; Diss. + Habil.).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Hans Jürgen Roth: History of our city: Remscheid with Lennep and Lüttringhausen. RGA-Buchverlag, 2008, pp. 64, 70 ( online ).
2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Berlin Jewish doctors in the Weimar Republic. Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein, 1996, p. 71 ( online, sniplet ).
3. ↑ Under the National Socialists. The NSDAP conquers Wedding. ( Memento of the original from May 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On http://www.berlinstory-verlag.de 
4. ↑ Wolfgang Ribbe: Berlin research, volume 2. Colloquium Verlag, 1987 p. 129 ( online, sniplet ).
5. ^ Michael Wildt, Christoph Kreutzmüller: Berlin 1933–1945: City and Society under National Socialism . Siedler Verlag, January 24, 2013 ( online, full text without page numbers ).
6. ↑ Patricia Pientka: Life and Persecution in the Berlin-Marzahn Forced Camp 1936–1945 . In: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial: The persecution of the Sinti and Roma under National Socialism . 2012 p. 55 f. Pientka is referring to Suthoff-Groß's correspondence with the Berlin police.
7. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ^ Sommerfeld: Review of the constitution and administration of the Reich capital Berlin. In: Kriminalistik, 1939, issue 3, p. 72.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Anna-Maria von Lösch : The naked spirit: the law faculty of the Berlin University in the upheaval of 1933. Mohr Siebeck, 1999, p. 337f. ( online )
10. ^ Michael Stolleis: History of Public Law in Germany: Weimar Republic and National Socialism. CH Beck, 2002 p. 260.
11. ↑ Reinhard Mehring: Carl Schmitt: Rise and Fall. CH Beck, 2009, especially p. 683 f. ( online )
12. ↑ Carl Schmitt: Review of the legal status of the mayor in his relationship to the state and to the other civil servants of the community by Rudolf Suthoff-Groß . In: Journal for the entire political science Vol. 102, H. 2. (1942), P. 386-391 ( online, Jstor ).