Werner Weber (lawyer)

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Werner Weber, 1959

Werner Weber (born August 31, 1904 in Wülfrath ; † November 29, 1976 in Göttingen ) was a German lawyer . He was co-editor of the magazine Der Staat and is considered an important constitutional and constitutional lawyer in Germany. For many years he was a member of the State Court of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and the Lower Saxony State Court as well as head of the expert commission for administrative and territorial reform in Lower Saxony ( Weber commission ).

Life

Weber was the youngest son of the school principal August Weber and his wife Maria Weber nee. Ricken. After graduating from high school, he studied law at the Universities of Marburg , Berlin and Bonn and completed his legal clerkship at courts and the Prussian administration of justice up to the assessor exam. In 1930 he received his doctorate as a student of Carl Schmitt with a thesis on parliamentary incompatibilities .

From 1931 to 1937 Weber was a consultant in the Prussian Ministry for Science, Art and Public Education, from 1934 Reich Ministry of Culture . He worked in the clerical department and in the popular education, music and nature conservation departments.

On May 1, 1933 he became a member of the NSDAP and from 1936 he was a member of the Academy for German Law . In 1935 he was appointed to the chair for public law at the Berlin Business School , but was still working in the ministry at the same time. He tried to enforce internal resistance against the increasing politicization. B. for personalities who were persecuted by the NSDAP , among them Paul Hindemith , Kurt Huber , Hermann Abendroth , until he asked in 1937 to be released from his position in the ministry.

Weber's appointment as prorector of the Berlin Business School was prevented for political reasons. In 1941 he received calls to Breslau and Halle, which he refused. However, Weber accepted an offer at the University of Leipzig and in 1942 received a chair at the law faculty of the University of Leipzig , although there was resistance, especially from Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann , who said he would arrest Weber if he came to Leipzig.

At the same time there was a conflict between Weber and the Reich Security Main Office and its head Reinhard Heydrich over a critical discussion of a Reich court ruling, which Heydrich described as "impertinence". Heydrich literally: “I have already found on several occasions that you are systematically trying to protect denominational concerns under the guise of an allegedly neutral and objective legal assessment…. For the time being, I have refrained from taking state policy measures. However, I expressly point out that in the case of repetition, I will take suitable measures to prevent further undesired activity on your part ”. Nevertheless, the family moved to Leipzig in 1943.

Weber was born in 1932 with Marta Weber. Hoffmann from Trier married. Four children were born from the marriage, of which the third, a son, died in 1946 of an epidemic that raged across Leipzig. Weber's brother Prof. Dr. phil. Hans Weber died in the war on July 9, 1942 near El Alamein . In December 1943, the family home and the house of the law faculty were destroyed in a bomb attack. Work at the university continued until the end of the war and was resumed in 1946.

After the end of the Second World War , Weber was ousted by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) in 1945 because of his membership in the NSDAP . In 1946, however, he was initially able to work in research and administration with an emergency service contract, and from 1947 with a regular contract in teaching again. However, there were political attacks, including a. by Lord Mayor Erich Zeigner (SED), who said that during the Nazi era Weber "constantly worked against the political system that was in place at the time, in an elusive, but very effective form," and that he is now acting against the current regime.

In 1948 Weber accepted a call to the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen for a chair in public law - also giving way to pressure from the Soviet occupying power. The family relocated in 1949 at the time of the Berlin blockade via the airlift in a coal plane. Weber worked at the University of Göttingen until 1972. In 1957 he turned down calls to Bonn and Berlin. It was something special for a constitutional law teacher to work in four different German government epochs. A time followed with diverse tasks in research and teaching. Approx. He led 300 doctoral students to doctorate. From 1956 to 1958 he was rector of the University of Göttingen. His special efforts were directed towards the structural and budgetary design of the university as well as the scientific foreign relations with other universities and the foreign students, especially from Asia and Africa (Afro-Asiaten-Union). After the association of German constitutional law teachers was re-established in 1949, Weber was elected to the board for three years, in 1964 and 1965 as chairman.

Weber was also a member of the University Association, the Königsteiner Kreis , the Academy for Spatial Research and State Planning , the Working Group for Railway Law, the Walter Raymond Foundation , the Working Group for the Promotion of Scientific Research in Lower Saxony and the like. v. a. He contributed to the creation of the Lower Saxony constitution .

Weber was particularly interested in the idea of ​​the reunification of divided Germany. Based on the Königsteiner Kreis and supported by Weber's public law seminar, Weber and Werner Jahn published the synopsis on reunification policy with documents from 1945 to 1957. The synopsis on Germany policy with documents from 1941 to 1973 appeared in 1973. Weber held a speech in the plenary hall of the Bundestag on June 17, 1966 the speech The Federal Republic of Germany and Reunification .

Weber's work included membership in the State Court of Bremen and the State Court of Lower Saxony, as well as working for Lower Saxony's administrative and regional reform. He represented several federal states before the Federal Constitutional Court and acted as an expert.

Werner Weber's directory contains around 400 writings and was published in 1964 by his son Eckart Weber on his 60th birthday and in 1974, supplemented, published in the Festschrift for Weber: Im Dienst an Recht und Staat . In 1978 a collection of his essays from four decades on the subject of state and church in the present was published . The preoccupation with this topic began in the clerical department of the Ministry of Culture in Berlin.

Werner Weber family grave, Junkerberg park cemetery, Göttingen.

Weber's written estate and its main holdings are in the Koblenz Federal Archives .

Honors

  • In 1961 he was awarded the State Medal of Lower Saxony.
  • In 1969 he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .
  • In 1984 two speeches from the Lower Saxony state parliament with an introduction by Christian Starck were published on Weber's 80th birthday .
  • In 2004, Christian Starck gave a laudation for the unveiling of the plaque on Weber's former home in Göttingen on Weber's 100th birthday.

Font selection

  • Parliamentary incompatibilities , 1930.
  • Legal contributions to the 25th anniversary of the Handels-Hochschule Berlin , 1931 (together with Carl Schmitt, Paul Gieseke, Karl August Eckhardt , Hermann Krause and Friedrich Kessler).
  • with Franz Wieacker : Property and Expropriation , 1935.
  • The political clause in the Concordats. State and Episcopate , 1939.
  • The corporations, institutions and foundations under public law. A representation of their current order , 1940, 2nd edition 1943.
  • The Proclamation of Legislation , 1942.
  • The Legislation of the Occupying Powers, Soviet Zone , 1946.
  • The replacement of state services to religious societies , 1948.
  • Administrative Acts , 1948.
  • Weimar Constitution and Bonn Basic Law , 1949.
  • The question of the all-German constitution, lecture in the Königsteiner Kreis , 1950.
  • Administrative laws of the former Prussian territories with the supplementary law of the new states , 1951.
  • The professional civil service in a democratic constitutional state , 1952.
  • The legal status of the German university professor , 1952.
  • The present state of church law , 1954.
  • Self-government in state planning , 1956.
  • The political power system in the welfare state mass democracy , 1956.
  • Basic Law and Traffic , in: Weber - Haustein: Legal foundations of German and interstate traffic , 1956.
  • Synopsis on reunification policy , 1957.
  • The Constitution of the Federal Republic on Probation , 1957.
  • Tensions and forces in the West German constitutional system , 2/1958, 3/1969.
  • Festschrift for Carl Schmitt , (edited together with Hans Barion and Ernst Forsthoff ), 1959.
  • Freedom of Association , 1961.
  • The German Concordats and Church Treaties of the Present , 1962 and 1971.
  • Neighborhood and State Communities , 1962.
  • Legal issues of the dairy market system , 1962.
  • Lower Saxony finance and tax law , 1963.
  • The state in the lower administrative level , 1964.
  • The denomination of teacher training from a legal perspective , 1965.
  • Freedom of association and collective bargaining as a constitutional problem , 1965.
  • The political clause in the Concordats. State and Episcopate , reprint 1966.
  • Address on the Day of German Unity in the plenary hall of the German Bundestag on June 17, 1966.
  • The present state of German federalism , 1966.
  • State and self-government in the present , 1967.
  • The division of powers as a contemporary problem , 1968.
  • The German citizen and his state , 1968.
  • New Aspects of Freedom of Research and Teaching , 1969.
  • Problems of administrative and territorial reform , 1969.
  • The cities belonging to the district under administrative reform , 1970.
  • Tensions and forces in the West German constitutional system , 1970.
  • The power system in the welfare state mass democracy , 1972.
  • Internal freedom of the press as a constitutional problem , 1973.
  • "General Law" and "Law Applicable to All" , in: Festschrift für Ernst Rudolf Huber , 1973.
  • Synopsis on Germany Policy 1941–1973 , with W. Jahn, 1973.
  • Can you rely on our constitution? , 1975.
  • Constitutional lawyer at work , lecture at the Rotary Club Göttingen on March 1, 1976.

literature

  • Peter Badura : Werner Weber 70 years. In: Public Administration (DÖV) 1974.
  • Wilhelm Henke : Werner Weber on his 70th birthday. In: Archives of Public Law (AöR) 99 (1974), pp. 481–483.
  • Hans Schneider / Volkmar Götz (ed.): In the service of law and state. Festschrift for Werner Weber on his 70th birthday , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974 (with list of publications).
  • In memoriam Werner Weber. Commemoration ceremony on May 6, 1977 in the auditorium of the University of Göttingen with a commemorative speech by Hans Schneider and memorial speeches by Hans-Jürgen Beug . Göttingen 1977 (= Göttinger Universitätsreden , 62).
  • Jörg Winter: The Science of State Church Law in the Third Reich , 1979.
  • Volkmar Götz: Administrative law studies in Göttingen . In: Loos, Law in Göttingen. Göttingen lawyers from 250 years , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987.
  • Hans Schneider: Obituary Werner Weber. In: Archives of Public Law (AöR) 102 (1997), pp. 470–473.
  • Josef Isensee : Book review on: The doctrine of constitutional law in the post-war period . In: Journal of Public Law , Volume 53, 1998.
  • Franz J. Bauer: History of the German University Association , KG Saur, Munich 2000.
  • Henning Frank: Studied at the Law Faculty of the University of Leipzig in the late 1940s , Leipzig 2001 (= Leipzig Legal Lectures , Issue 52).
  • German constitutional law in the time of National Socialism . In: Publications of the Association of German Constitutional Law Teachers , de Gruyter, Berlin 2001.
  • Christian Starck : Appreciation - Memory of Werner Weber (born 1904) . In: The Public Administration (DÖV) 57 (2004), Issue 23, pp. 996–1000, and in: Göttinger Jahrbuch , 2004.
  • Martin Otto : Werner Weber - a victim of the political cleansing after 1945. In: Sächsische Verwaltungsblätter 12 (2004), pp. 201–205, ISSN  0943-2442 .
  • Klaus Lange: The importance of Werner Weber for Lower Saxony. For Werner Weber's 100th birthday . In: Lower Saxony administrative sheets 9/2004.
  • Thomas Marschler : Canon law under the spell of Carl Schmitt: Hans Barion before and after 1945. Nova and Vetera publishing house, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-936741-21-2 .
  • Eva Schumann : The Göttingen Law and Political Science Faculty 1933–1955 . In this. (Ed.): Continuities and caesuras , Wallstein, Göttingen 2008.
  • Jörn Ipsen : 60 years of the Lower Saxony constitution. In: Lower Saxony administrative sheets. 5/2011.
  • Michael Stolleis : History of Public Law in Germany , Volume 4, Beck, Munich 2012.
  • Helmuth Schulze-Fielitz : Theory of Constitutional Law as a Microcosm , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2013.
  • Eberhard Schmidt-Assmann : Werner Weber . In: Constitutional law teachers of the 20th century . Edited by Peter Häberle u. a., de Gruyter, Berlin 2015.
  • Ulrich Dieter Oppitz :  Weber, Werner. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 38, Bautz, Nordhausen 2017, ISBN 978-3-95948-259-2 , Sp. 1461-1470.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Eberhard Schmidt-Aßmann: Constitutional law teacher of the 20th century. Edited by Peter Häberle u. a., Verlag De Gruyter, Berlin, Boston 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-030377-3 , p. 672.
  2. ^ Franz Bauer: History of the German University Association . Edited by the German University Association, Verlag De Gruyter, Berlin, Boston 2000, p. 101, ISBN 3-598-11440-0 .
  3. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 658.
  4. ↑ a b c Martin Otto: Werner Weber - a victim of the political cleansing after 1945 / As a professor of public law, he left the University of Leipzig in 1949. In: Saxon administrative sheets. Journal of Public Law and Administration , 9/2004, p. 202.
  5. ^ Michael Stolleis : History of Public Law in Germany. Vol. 3: Constitutional and administrative law in the republic and dictatorship 1914–1945. CH Beck, Munich 1999, p. 287.
  6. ↑ Werner Weber: Tensions and forces in the West German constitutional system . 3. Edition. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1970, p. Dedication .
  7. ^ Sächsisches Staatsarchiv / Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden : Holdings 11401 State government of Saxony, Ministry for National Education. No. 1528: Personnel documents Prof. Dr. Werner Weber. Extract from the order of the state administration of Saxony of November 3, 1945; Rector of the University of Leipzig, letter of dismissal dated November 14, 1945; Rector of the University of Leipzig, letter dated November 19, 1945; Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Leipzig, letter dated April 9, 1946.
  8. ↑ Göttingen City Archives : Werner Weber memorial plaque .
  9. ^ Hans Schneider: In memoriam Werner Weber . Commemoration ceremony on May 6, 1977 in the auditorium of the University of Göttingen with a commemorative speech by Hans Schneider and memorial speeches by Hans-Jürgen Beug. Göttingen 1977 (= Göttinger Universitätsreden , 62).
personal data
SURNAME Weber, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Wuelfrath
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1976
Place of death Goettingen