Theodor Seidel

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Theodor Seidel (born July 29, 1931 in Bischofswerda ) is a German lawyer , judge and former escape helper. He was the presiding judge of the large criminal chamber of the Berlin regional court and became known nationwide as presiding judge in the first wall rifle trial and in the trial against the former Stasi chief Erich Mielke .

Life

Seidel was born in Saxony and lived in Großharthau near Bischofswerda until 1950 ; his father was an authorized signatory in a shoe factory. He left family and friends in 1950 at the age of 19 and came to West Berlin as a refugee from the Soviet occupation zone. There he studied law at the Free University of Berlin and also worked as an escape helper. He received his doctorate in Cologne in 1963 with the dissertation The right of the accused to be heard in criminal proceedings for Dr. jur. Since 1969 he was a judge in Berlin. There he became the presiding judge of the Grand Criminal Chamber of the Berlin Regional Court. His brother was persecuted and imprisoned by the Stasi in 1964 in the GDR for attempting to flee the republic .

Trials against GDR officials

Seidel became known nationwide as a judge in the first wall rifle trial ( Chris Gueffroy trial) after German reunification and as the presiding judge in the murder trial (1992-1993) against Erich Mielke because of the murders on Bülowplatz . His legal argumentation in the wall rifle trial, in particular his appeal to natural law arguments, was discussed controversially, both in Germany and in international specialist literature.

War crimes in Saxony

Memorial plaque in Niederkaina

Seidel lost his father on April 22, 1945 in Niederkaina near Bautzen. In 2005 Seidel published a book, War Crimes in Saxony (Leipziger Universitätsverlag), which deals with this case, among other things. A third expanded edition was published in 2013. According to the book and the city administration of Bautzen, 195 Germans were locked in a barn by soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army and burned alive. A plaque commemorates the victims.

Works

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d "Aid to escape". In: Upright: Courageous citizens before the fall of the Berlin Wall and today , pp. 47–49, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
  2. ↑ “Who shoots at people like that” in Der Spiegel
  3. ^ 2 East German Guards Convicted Of Killing Man as He Fled to West in The New York Times
  4. ^ On Trial For Death At Berlin Wall in The Washington Post
  5. ^ East German Guards Convicted in The Washington Post
  6. ^ Gary Bruce, "East Germany", in: Lavinia Stan (ed.), Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: Reckoning with the communist past , pp. 15-36, Routledge , 2009, ISBN 9780415776714
  7. ^ "Border service is combat service" in Der Spiegel
  8. ↑ Student judges punish severely in: Der Spiegel
  9. ^ German Ex-Police Chief Is Guilty in 1931 Murders in The New York Times
  10. ^ A. James McAdams, Judging the Past in Unified Germany , p. 31, 2001
  11. ↑ Jiří Přibáň, Legal Symbolism: On Law, Time and European Identity , Ashgate Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781409493372
  12. ↑ Rainer Frenkel: "Killing in the interests of the authorities": How a West German court tried to come to terms with the East German past , in: Die Zeit
  13. ^ War crimes in Saxony , Brandenburg State Center for Political Education
  14. ↑ Vera Lengsfeld : Theodor Seidel, War Crimes in Saxony (3rd edition 2013) , book review, memorial library in honor of the victims of communism
  15. ^ Commemoration of the victims of Niederkaina , Bautzen city administration
personal data
SURNAME Seidel, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and judge
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Bischofswerda