Walter Strauss (politician)

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Walter Strauss (1947).

Walter Strauss (born June 15, 1900 in Berlin ; † January 1, 1976 in Baldham , Vaterstetten municipality ) was a German CDU politician .

Life and work

Walter Strauss grew up in Berlin in a Jewish family; he was the son of the well-known internist Hermann Strauss (1868–1944) and his wife Elsa, b. Isaac. Strauss studied after graduation Law and received his doctorate in 1924 in Heidelberg a doctorate in law. He was initially an assistant judge at Berlin courts and entered the service of the Reich Ministry of Economics in 1928 . Because of his Jewish origins, Strauss, who himself was a Protestant, was retired in 1935 without any pension payments. Initially working as an economic consultant, he later had to work as a worker in the arms industry. Walter Strauss' parents were born in 1942Ghetto Theresienstadt deported and murdered there by the Nazis .

After the Second World War he was State Secretary for Federal Affairs in the Hessian State Ministry , since 1946 a member of the board of directors of the State Council of the American Occupation Area in Stuttgart, from 1947 to 1948 deputy director, then from 1948 to 1949 head of the legal office in the administration for the economy of the United Economic Area . He then became a member of the Parliamentary Council (1948–1949) and from 1949–1963 State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice. After the Spiegel affair, Strauss was dismissed in the spring of 1963 because he had withheld information from his minister Wolfgang Stammberger . After his departure, he was appointed as a judge at the European Court of Justice .

politics

Strauss took part in the founding of the CDU Berlin in 1945 , but soon switched to the State Association of Hesse . In 1947/1948 he was a member of the regional council of the Bizone and was a member of the board of directors. He was a member of the Parliamentary Council in 1948/1949 . There he was deputy chairman of the committee for the delimitation of competences. Strauss ran in vain for the 1st German Bundestag in 1949.

Public offices

Strauss was State Secretary in the Hessian State Ministry in 1946/1947 . From 1949 to 1963 he was a permanent state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ). During these years the Justice Ministers were:

Strauss had considerable influence on the BMJ's personnel policy since 1949. In 2016, the report of an independent scientific commission was published which examined the way in which the BMJ dealt with the Nazi past in the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany [ “The Rosenburg Files” ]. The study documents that in the Federal Ministry of Justice, civil servants and employees who were active in the Reich Ministry of Justice, in special courts and as military judges before 1945 played a decisive role in the spirit of the office. In the context of recruitment practice for lawyers accused of Nazi exposure and its consequences, the role of Walter Strauss in the study is subjected to a critical appraisal.

After the Spiegel affair , Strauss was retired because he had not informed Federal Justice Minister Wolfgang Stammberger ( FDP ) about the investigation against the Spiegel and in particular not about the information he received from Franz Josef Strauss ( CSU ) - with which he did not was related - had received.

literature

  • Apostolow, Markus: The "everlasting State Secretary". Walter Strauß and personnel policy in the Federal Ministry of Justice 1949-1963 , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2019 (Die Rosenburg; 1), ISBN 978-3-525-35694-4 .
  • Manfred Görtemaker , Christoph Safferling : The Rosenburg files. The Federal Ministry of Justice and the Nazi era. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69768-5 .
  • Friedemann Utz : Prussian, Protestant, pragmatist. State Secretary Walter Strauss and his state. Dissertation. University of Tübingen 2001/2002. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-16-148106-2 .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Manfred Görtemaker, Christoph Safferling: The Rosenburg files. The Federal Ministry of Justice and the Nazi era. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69768-5 , pp. 93ff.
  2. ^ Manfred Görtemaker, Christoph Safferling: The Rosenburg files. The Federal Ministry of Justice and the Nazi era. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69768-5 , p. 240f.
personal data
SURNAME Strauss, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CDU), State Secretary
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1976
Place of death Baldham , Vaterstetten Parish