Wilhelm Trouble

Wilhelm Eduard Robert Heinrich Mühe (born May 24, 1882 in Freiburg im Breisgau ; † April 28, 1966 in Karlsruhe ) was a German ministerial advisor and director in the Baden Ministry of Finance and Economics.

Life

Wilhelm Mühe grew up as the son of a businessman and a teacher in Freiburg im Breisgau. He attended the Bertholdsgymnasium in Freiburg, where he passed his Abitur on July 18, 1900. He then studied law at the Grand Ducal Albert Ludwig University of Baden , where he passed the first state law examination in April 1904. In 1906 he obtained his doctorate with a thesis entitled The Right of Women to Intervene in Her Husband's Trial according to matrimonial property law . The second state examination followed in November 1908. He then became a court assessor and worked as a notary's assistant .

In 1912 he moved to the Customs and Tax Directorate and was promoted to tax office shortly afterwards. In 1915 he was promoted again and was now chief tax inspector, in 1918 he became finance advisor. On March 1, 1920 he was finally appointed Ministerial Councilor. At just 37 years of age, he was Baden's youngest ministerial advisor. He took over the management of the economic department. Before coming to power , he was a member of the left-wing liberal German State Party . After the National Socialists took power, he reoriented himself. On May 1, 1937, he joined the NSDAP . He was also a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare Association (NSV), the National Socialist Legal Guardian Association (NSRB), the Reich Association of German Civil Servants (RDB), the National Socialist German Lawyers Association (NSDJB) and the Reich Air Protection Association (RLB).

Joining the NSDAP was well considered, as it was at the height of his career. On November 13, 1939, he was transferred to the Baden Ministry of Finance and Economics and headed the ministry until the end of the Second World War . He thus succeeded Ludwig Sammet , who was not a party member until 1937. As a manager, he was removed from office on August 25, 1945 by the US military government.

Subsequently, his denazification proceedings began before the Spruchkammer I in Karlsruhe, in which he was mainly accused of his numerous memberships in National Socialist organizations and a donation to the SS over several years . In his trial, Ernst Walz , who was considered a half-Jew, testified that he trusted Mühe and that he had even saved his mother, who was considered a full Jew, from being transported to the Theresienstadt ghetto . Further testimony confirmed an above all politically inconspicuous, hardworking official. Nevertheless, on February 28, 1947, an application was made to classify Mühe as the main culprit. He managed to avert this and finally on June 5, 1947 he was recognized as a “fellow traveler”. In a second trial of the Freiburg Spruchkammer, which was under French jurisdiction, he was also convicted of being a follower.

literature

• Rebecca Wöppel: Dr. Wilhelm Mühe: “I was a civil servant without any political influence” . In: perpetrators, helpers, free riders. Nazi victims from the south of what is now Baden-Württemberg . Kugelberg Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-945893-08-1 , pp. 210-219 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Roland Peter: Armaments Policy in Baden: War Economy and Labor Deployment in a Border Region in the Second World War . Walter de Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-59427-0 , p. 17 ( google.de [accessed on January 28, 2019]).