Theodor Korselt

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Ernst Julius Theodor Korselt (born November 24, 1891 in Buchholz ; † August 25, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German lawyer, genealogist and local history researcher. The government council was sentenced to death for undermining military strength after publicly expressing its opinion on Adolf Hitler's resignation as the only alternative to an inevitable defeat in the war.

Life

Korselt comes from a long-established Mittelherwigsdorf family. His father Prof. Dr. Ernst Julius Korselt was the rector of the Realgymnasium in Zittau . The mother Elisabeth, née Koch, was a daughter of the Saxon lawyer and politician Heinrich Theodor Koch .

Theodor Korselt was the oldest of four siblings and the only son in the family. He grew up in Buchholz and attended the secondary school in the neighboring town of Annaberg, where his father had taught since 1886. After finishing school, he began studying law and economics at the universities of Leipzig , Geneva and Rostock . After the father's appointment as high school principal in Zittau, the parents and his sisters moved back to their father's homeland in 1911.

After his doctorate as Dr. jur. pole. At the University of Leipzig he trained as an infantryman in Zittau and fought as a volunteer on the Western Front during the First World War , where he was seriously wounded in 1914. Korselt was later used in the administrative service. After the end of the war, the lawyer worked as a civil servant in various administrative offices in Berlin , Leipzig, Chemnitz , Dresden , Freiberg and Rostock , where he was a councilor in the war damage office .

In addition to his professional activity, Korselt has devoted himself intensively to family and home history since he was a student and published numerous writings. In 1911, Korselt joined the successful student union Zittavia, to which his father was already a member. For the fiftieth anniversary of the connection in 1918, he dedicated a chronicle he wrote to it.

After the takeover of the Nazis he was the entry into the interests of his career NSDAP advised. In his application for membership in 1934, he stated that he assumed "to continue to represent his conservative, aristocratic view of the state and the promotion of individualism". They were not accepted into the party. After the occupation of France , he was deployed in the war administration service, from which he was soon recalled on charges of fraternizing with the population.

After Mussolini's dismissal on July 25, 1943, Korselt openly stated that “the salvation of the German people and fatherland from the current difficult situation can only be achieved in a similar turnaround as in Italy…”. This was brought to the attention of Rostock's Lord Mayor Walter Volgmann , who, as Korselt wrote, “got to his post as a 'pure' party man”, who then summoned him, announced his replacement and declared that he “belonged in the concentration camp ”.

Theodor Korselt was arrested by the Gestapo in July 1943 and transferred from the Rostock court prison to the Berlin-Moabit prison on August 18, 1943 . On August 23, 1943, the main hearing in the criminal case for degradation of military strength took place in front of the 1st Senate of the People's Court under the chairmanship of President Roland Freisler and the judges Regional Court Director Storbeck, Lieutenant General Cabanis, SA Group Leader Aumüller and Senior Area Manager Bodinus as well as the Prosecutor Regional Court Director Schultze. Because of his statement made in the Rostock tram about the necessary resignation of Hitler because of the improbability of a victory in the war, Korselt was punished with loss of honor and death . On August 25, 1943 at 7.15 p.m. the sentence was carried out in Plötzensee .

Honors

After the end of the war, the previous Georgstrasse in Zittau was renamed Theodor-Korselt-Strasse in August 1946 . In Annaberg-Buchholz , too , a road and a hiking trail in the Zittau Mountains bear his name. In Rostock , also in the Reutershagen district, a street was named after him.

literature

  • Peter Gleißner: Theodor Korselt. Study of a German genealogist . Mitteldeutsche Familienkunde, No. 2 (1971) pp. 169–172
  • Theodor Korselt: The Korselt and the Förster: two German farming families self-published, Zittau 1912.
  • German Resistance Memorial Center: ... Forever Dishonorable "- From the practice of the People's Court (PDF; 3.0 MB) , Wilhelm Möller KG Druck und Verlag, 4th edition, Berlin 1985.
  • Theodor Korselt and Hans-Dieter Meirich: Village book for Mittelherwigsdorf . A historical townscape from the beginning to the 19th century. Based on unpublished manuscripts by Theodor Korselt. Leipzig: AMF 1999 (= AMF 80 series)
  • Theodor Korselt: The Ballenstedter Erbpachtmüller Koch and their descendants. Relationship study on a middle German middle class family. Berlin 1922.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the entry of Theodor Korselt's matriculation in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ^ Rudolf Wagner (ed.): 100 years of gymnastics in the CC Zittavia Lipsiensis in Düsseldorf. Self-published, Dortmund 1968.
  3. ↑ Theodor Korselt: The connection Zittavia to Leipzig. The business her 50 years Best. 1868-1918. Self-published, Leipzig 1918.
  4. ^ Adolf Laufs : Rechtsentwicklung in Deutschland , 5th edition. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1996, p. 390.
personal data
SURNAME Korselt, Theodor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Korselt, Ernst Julius Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, genealogist and local researcher
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Buchholz , Saxony, Germany
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1943
Place of death Berlin , Germany