Wilhelm Martens (judge)

Wilhelm Adolf Erich Martens (born July 2, 1889 in Konstanz , † December 31, 1974 in Karlsruhe ) was a German lawyer. He was the first president of the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court after the Second World War .

Life

Martens was the son of the historian and grammar school director Wilhelm Martens (1858-1935) and grew up in a liberal-conservative environment in Constance. After studying law in Geneva and Heidelberg , which was supplemented by historical and philosophical studies, he passed the first state examination in 1912 . The following preparatory service was long interrupted by the First World War. He was wounded several times, received the Iron Cross 1st Class and finally reached the rank of Lieutenant Infantry. In 1920 he passed the second state examination in law and then worked for the judicial authorities in Freiburg im Breisgau . He then worked at the district courts of Offenburg and Mannheim . In 1932 he became the first public prosecutor in Offenburg.

Since Martens continued to support his Jewish wife, he was downgraded by the National Socialists in 1934 to the District Court Counselor in Mannheim and in 1937 also transferred to the Mannheim District Court . During this time, together with other Mannheim judges, he formed a discussion group critical of the regime, which also maintained contacts with the Durlacher Kreis , who was close to the resistance, around the district judge Gerhard Caemmerer. Despite the difficulties he had in the course of the war due to his resolute rejection of the Nazi regime, he succeeded in saving his wife in the Lake Constance area from arrest by the Gestapo towards the end of the war .

After the end of the Second World War , the US military government commissioned the politically unencumbered judge as "State Director for Justice" to set up the judiciary in the districts of Mannheim, Heidelberg and Mosbach and appointed him President of the Mannheim and Heidelberg districts . In December 1945 he became Vice President of the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart (Karlsruhe branch) and was thus permanent representative of the Württemberg-Baden Minister of Justice for the North Baden region from 1946 . Martens found displaced lawyers abroad and formally invited them to return to Baden. In April 1949 he was appointed President of the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court, which was initially only responsible for North Baden and, from the formation of the State of Baden-Württemberg in 1953, for the whole of Baden. He held this position until his retirement at the end of 1954.

As a farewell, he was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit. Martens received an honorary doctorate from the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in 1955 for his services in rebuilding the administration of justice in Baden, and in 1961 he was made an honorary senator. He spent his retirement in Karlsruhe until his death.

literature

• Ortwin Henssler, Werner Münchbach: The presidents after 1945 . In: Festschrift 200 years of the Badisches Oberhofgericht. Müller, Heidelberg 2003, p. 189.
• Detlev Fischer: 150 years of the Baden district courts . Series of publications by the Legal History Museum Karlsruhe, Issue 12, Karlsruhe 2007, ISBN 3-922596-70-3 , p. 26.
• Detlev Fischer: Wilhelm Martens . Look into history, contributions to the history of the city of Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe, June 18, 2010. p. 1.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Angela Borgstedt : The repression and disenfranchisement of Jewish lawyers in the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court district 1933–1940. In: Minutes of the working session on June 25, 2004. Working group for historical regional studies on the Upper Rhine eV, accessed on January 21, 2016 . 
2. ^ Repertories of the Heidelberg University Archives .