Wolfgang Lauinger

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Wolfgang Lauinger during an event in the Chagall Hall of the Frankfurt Opera, May 2015

Wolfgang Leopold Lauinger (born September 5, 1918 in Zurich ; † December 20, 2017 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a contemporary witness who was persecuted as a swing kid , homosexual and " half-Jew " under National Socialism . Even after Germany's liberation from National Socialism, the persecution did not end for him: in 1950 he was imprisoned again for a suspected violation of Section 175 . Since the 1990s, he has been honored several times for his social commitment, including the Federal Cross of Merit . The rejection of an application for compensation for the pre-trial detention suffered in 1950/51 shortly before Lauinger's death in 2017 was criticized in the media and in politics at national level.

Live and act

Origin and early years

Wolfgang Lauinger was the second son of Jewish journalist Artur Lauinger and his Christian wife Mathilde in the Swiss born Zurich. The family lived in Frankfurt am Main. The parents' marriage ended in divorce in 1924. The sons grew up with their father, who married Emilie Moos in 1928.

Artur Lauinger had worked as a business editor for the Frankfurter Zeitung since 1906 . In 1937 he was dismissed as a Jew; he himself suspects in his memoirs that he was the last Jewish journalist who was able to work “ in the Reich ” up to this point . After the night of the pogrom he was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp . Although he was released after four weeks, however, with a circulation of emigration into exile forced. His eldest son Herbert had already emigrated to Argentina in 1937 after he had been dismissed as an apprentice from Deutsche Bank as a “half-Jew” .

Second World War

Wolfgang Lauinger was drafted into the Wehrmacht in January 1940 , but released as a “half-Jew” in May. In Frankfurt am Main he joined the “ Harlem Club”, a loose association of “ Swingkids ”. With their long hair, their unusual clothing, the conversations , some of which were conducted in English , and their love of swing , the young people of Frankfurt's swing scene had already attracted the attention of the Gestapo several times . The “Harlem Club”, which met in public, was also observed. In autumn 1941, the then 16-year-old Franz Kremer was the first of the group to be arrested. He was interrogated and beaten for two months: he was supposed to confess that the “half-Jew” Wolfgang Lauinger was homosexual, but did not reveal his friend. After the death of his grandfather, Franz Kremer was released from prison. At the beginning of December 1941, other young people from the “Harlem Club” were summoned to the Gestapo, including Wolfgang Lauinger. They were investigated for listening to " enemy broadcasters " and Anglophile tendencies. Until his trial in March 1942, Wolfgang Lauinger was in solitary confinement in the prison on Frankfurter Klapperfeldgasse and was repeatedly interrogated. Since neither the interrogations nor house searches led to a “useful” result, he was eventually sentenced to three months in prison for illegal gambling and possession of a piece of leather . If you add in pre- trial detention , he spent a total of seven months in prison.

After his release in June 1942, Wolfgang Lauinger went into hiding: the Gestapo wanted him again. In August he confided in his birth mother, who lived in Baden-Baden and whose partner found him a job in Pforzheim .

Persecution in the early Federal Republic

After the end of the Second World War , Wolfgang Lauinger lived again in Frankfurt am Main. In 1950 he was arrested again on the basis of the testimony of the stick boy Otto Blankenstein on suspicion of violating Section 175 (see also Frankfurt homosexual trials ). He was held in solitary confinement for six months without charge. While in custody, he turned to his father, who had returned from emigration, and the then Federal President Theodor Heuss : Both refused to help him. In February 1951 there was a trial in which he was acquitted.

Political and social engagement from the 1970s

Wolfgang Lauinger was one of the founders of the Balduinstein Youth Castle in the 1970s . He held numerous events, especially with young people, in which he reported on his experiences. He saw education as a means to promote and maintain democracy . Above all, he called for the rehabilitation of the men convicted under Paragraph 175 and for a discussion of the role of National Socialists and National Socialist ideas in society as a whole, especially in the judiciary of the early Federal Republic.

Refusal of compensation by the Federal Republic of 2017 and death

At the beginning of December 2017 it became known that Lauinger's application for compensation for the several months imprisonment in 1950/51, which he had made after a law passed at the beginning of 2017 on the compensation of 175 victims, had been rejected by decision of October 2017 because Lauinger was ultimately acquitted was.

Federal Minister of Justice Heiko Maas , the initiator of the law, told the online magazine Buzzfeed about the Lauinger case "concerned that the law can not be applied in this case" and announced that he would get in touch with Lauinger. However, this apparently did not happen; a letter sent by Lauinger in October 2017 after receiving the rejection notice remained unanswered until Lauinger's death.

Wolfgang Lauinger died in his sleep on the night of December 19-20, 2017. The Hessian State Secretary and Commissioner for Integration and Anti-Discrimination, Kai Klose , regretted that it had not been possible to “rehabilitate Lauinger before his death and to compensate him for his pre-trial detention”. The Bundestag member of the Greens, Sven Lehmann , told the Frankfurter Rundschau that he was "very sad and angry" that Lauinger had been denied compensation "until his death".

Awards

Wolfgang Lauinger was the recipient of the Johanna Kirchner Medal of the City of Frankfurt am Main (since 1993) and the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon, which was awarded to him on November 28, 2008. Since 2005 he has been an honorary citizen of his long-standing home community of Balduinstein .

literature

  • Bettina Leder: Lauingers. A family story from Germany. (= Jewish Memoirs , Volume 26.) Verlag Hentrich and Hentrich, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-95565-080-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Tilmann Warnecke: Victim of §175 dies without being rehabilitated. In: tagesspiegel.de. December 20, 2017. Retrieved December 21, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Anke Hillebrecht: contemporary witness Wolfgang Lauinger (96) "I wanted to be free". In: taunus-zeitung.de. January 28, 2015, accessed December 21, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b Lewentz presented the Cross of Merit to Wolfgang Lauinger from Balduinstein and badge of honor to Ludwig Müller from Bad Ems. In: mdi.rlp.de. Ministry of the Interior and Sport of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, November 28, 2008, accessed on December 21, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b Juliane Löffler: He was persecuted as a homosexual and imprisoned. To this day he has not received any compensation for this. In: buzzfeed.com . December 2, 2017, Retrieved December 27, 2017 (with an update of December 20, 2017).
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Lauinger: Law on the criminal rehabilitation of persons convicted of consensual homosexual acts after May 8, 1945 (StrRehaHomG). Letter to the Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, Heiko Maas. In: documentcloud.org. October 30, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg: Homosexual Paragraph: Greens demand compensation for homosexual victims. In: fr.de . December 22, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2017 .
  7. ^ Johanna Kirchner Medal. In: frankfurt.de. City of Frankfurt am Main, accessed on February 27, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Dear citizens of our community. Community Balduinstein an der Lahn, accessed on 27 December 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Lauinger, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lauinger, Wolfgang Leopold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German toolmaker and victim of Nazi persecution
DATE OF BIRTH September 5, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH 20th December 2017
Place of death Frankfurt am Main