Wolfgang Siebert

Wolfgang Siebert (born April 11, 1905 in Meseritz ; † November 25, 1959 in Heidelberg ) was a German law scholar and university professor . He belonged to the Kiel School , which was important during National Socialism .

biography

Siebert's father Theodor Siebert was the district court director. After graduating from high school in Danzig , he studied law in Munich and Halle , passed the legal state examinations and finally obtained his doctorate and habilitation in Halle in 1932. During his studies he became a member of the Ascania Halle singers .

Siebert belonged to the staff of the Reich Youth Leadership and had the rank of Bannführer in the Hitler Youth himself . In May 1933 he joined the NSDAP .

In 1935 he became associate professor for private law and labor law at the University of Kiel and became deputy head of the youth rights committee at the Academy for German Law . He took the view that there could be no judicial review right against decisions by Adolf Hitler that were in the form of statutes or ordinances. The same applies to the program of the NSDAP: "The National Socialist party program is the generally binding legal basis of our nationwide life, and no legal decision may contradict any of its points." In 1938 he became a full professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin . In 1940 he became head of the youth rights committee of the Academy for German Law and from 1941 he was the editor of the “Writings on youth law” with Friedrich Schaffstein and Franz Wieacker .

On October 12th and 13th, 1935, headed by Carl Schmitt , a conference of the "Reichsfachgruppe Hochschullehrer" ( Reichsfachgruppe Hochschullehrer) took place in the Association of National Socialist German Jurists (from 1936: "Rechtswahrerbund"; also called NS-Juristenbund). Siebert and Ulrich Scheuner , supported by many others, voted for the following resolution against legal equality : “1. The legal term 'man' within the meaning of § 1 BGB obscured and distorted the diversity of fellow-citizens of the Reich, Jews , etc. 2. The same is true of the term ' natural person '. "The words were by ethnic replace defined terms. This demand was made shortly before major anti-Jewish laws on November 14, 1935, the final definition of the term “Jew” according to Globke's drafts and the prohibition of “mixed marriages”. These were clarifications and tightening of the so-called Nuremberg Laws .

After the end of the Second World War , Siebert initially became a tutor . After he was classified as "exonerated" in his denazification process in 1948 , he was given a teaching position at the University of Göttingen in 1950 despite his past . In 1953 he became a full professor and doctoral supervisor of the future Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker . From 1957 he took a chair at the University of Heidelberg . His current fame is due to the co- editing of the well-known BGB commentary Soergel in the post-war period. Under his influence, the commentary was expanded from two to six volumes and operated under the name “Soergel / Siebert” for two editions. In the field of labor law, he and Hans Galperin were one of the first to comment on the Works Constitution Act .

Siebert was a partner in the publishing house “Recht und Wirtschaft” in Heidelberg, which publishes the business consultant and other specialist literature.

According to the historian Norbert Götz , Siebert is one of the “ terrible lawyers ” who made a career in the Federal Republic despite an active role in National Socialism.

literature

Hans-Peter Haferkamp : Siebert, Wolfgang. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 325 ( digitized version ).
Christoph Mies: Wolfgang Siebert: Employment relationship and youth employment protection in the Third Reich and in the early Federal Republic . Dissertation, University of Cologne 2007.
Wolfgang Siebert , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 07/1960 from February 8, 1960, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Association of Alter SVer (VASV): Address book and Vademecum. Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1959, p. 116.
↑ Siebert's comment on the Youth Protection Act in 1938, quoted in: Schlüter: Man speaks Greek. In: Der Spiegel 26/1958. June 25, 1958, pp. 32-34 , accessed October 21, 2018 .
^ German Judaism under National Socialism. Volume 1: Documents on the history of the Reich representation of German Jews 1933–1939. S. 591. About the conference: Christoph Müller : Carl Schmitt's friend-foe theorem. In: Rainer Eisfeld , Ingo Müller (ed.): Against barbarism. Essays in honor of Robert W. Kempner. Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 978-3-610-08537-7 , p. 168 f.
↑ Norbert Götz: Unequal Siblings. The construction of the National Socialist People's Community and the Swedish People's Home. Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2001, ISBN 978-3-7890-7410-3 , p. 281.

personal data
SURNAME	Siebert, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German lawyer, professor of law and member of the Kiel School
DATE OF BIRTH	April 11, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH	Międzyrzecz
DATE OF DEATH	November 25, 1959
Place of death	Heidelberg

[1] Association of Alter SVer (VASV): Address book and Vademecum. Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1959, p. 116.

[2] Siebert's comment on the Youth Protection Act in 1938, quoted in: Schlüter: Man speaks Greek. In: Der Spiegel 26/1958. June 25, 1958, pp. 32-34 , accessed October 21, 2018 .

[3] German Judaism under National Socialism. Volume 1: Documents on the history of the Reich representation of German Jews 1933–1939. S. 591. About the conference: Christoph Müller : Carl Schmitt's friend-foe theorem. In: Rainer Eisfeld , Ingo Müller (ed.): Against barbarism. Essays in honor of Robert W. Kempner. Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 978-3-610-08537-7 , p. 168 f.

[4] Norbert Götz: Unequal Siblings. The construction of the National Socialist People's Community and the Swedish People's Home. Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2001, ISBN 978-3-7890-7410-3 , p. 281.