Franz Gürtner
This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2010) |
Franz Gürtner | |
---|---|
Reich Minister of Justice | |
In office 2 June 1932 – 29 January 1941 | |
President | Paul von Hindenburg (1932–1934) Adolf Hitler (1934–1941; as Führer) |
Chancellor | Franz von Papen (1932) Kurt von Schleicher (1932–1933) Adolf Hitler (1933–1941) |
Preceded by | Curt Joël |
Succeeded by | Franz Schlegelberger (acting) |
Bavarian Minister of Justice | |
In office 8 November 1922 – 6 June 1932 | |
Preceded by | Hugo Graf von und zu Lerchenfeld auf Köfering und Schönberg |
Succeeded by | Heinrich Spangenberger |
Prussian Minister of Justice | |
In office 17 June 1934 – 1 April 1935 | |
Preceded by | Hanns Kerrl |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | National Socialist German Workers' Party (from 1937) | 26 August 1881
Spouse |
Luise Stoffel
(m. 1920) |
Children | 3 |
University of Munich | |
Profession | Lawyer |
Franz Gürtner (26 August 1881 – 29 January 1941) was a German Minister of Justice in the governments of Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher and Adolf Hitler. Gürtner was responsible for coordinating jurisprudence in Nazi Germany and provided official sanction and legal grounds for a series of repressive actions under the Nazi regime from 1933 until his death in 1941.
Biography
Early life and career
Gürtner was the son of Franz Gürtner (locomotive engineer) and Marie Gürtner, née Weinzierl.[1] After the graduating from the gymnasium in 1900 in Regensburg, he studied law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. After eight semesters he passed in 1904 his university examination. His preparation for Bavarian civil service was interrupted for the military service in the Königlich Bayerisches 11. Infanterie-Regiment "von der Tann". After passing his second Staatsexamen in 1908 he worked as syndic for a Munich brewery association. On 1 October 1909, he entered the higher civil service of the Bavarian ministry of justice.[2] On 7 August 1914 Gürtner was drafted as a reserve officer for military service in First World War. He served with the 11th Infantry Regiment on the Western Front. He rose to deputy battalion commander and received the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class and the Military Merit Order (Bavaria) IV class with swords. From September 1917 he took part with the Bavarian Infantry Battalion 702 (with Asia Corps) in the campaign in Palestine region of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, he received the House Order of Hohenzollern with swords and the Gallipoli Star. His appointment as battalion commander on 31 October 1918 was the day of the surrender of the Ottoman Empire. He led the battalion back to Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) and arrived on 17 March 1919 in Wilhelmshaven, where he was demobilized.
After the war, Gürtner pursued a successful legal career, being appointed Bavarian Minister of Justice on 8 November 1922, a position he held until 1932.[1] Though a Roman Catholic, Gürtner joined the largely Protestant German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP), which was unusual as German Catholics usually supported the Centre Party or its Bavarian counterpart, the Bavarian People's Party. However, Gürtner was a staunch conservative and nationalist who rejected the Weimar Republic, as he associated democracy with "weakness", which led him into the radical conservative DNVP.[3]
Gürtner's nationalist sympathies made him sympathetic to right-wing extremists such as Hitler. During the 1924
Minister of Justice
On 2 June 1932, Gürtner was nominated as Reich Minister of Justice under Chancellor Franz von Papen. After serving in the cabinets of Papen and Kurt von Schleicher, Gürtner was retained by Hitler in his post, and made responsible for coordinating jurisprudence in Nazi Germany. Although Gürtner was not a Nazi, he shared the increasingly authoritarian bent of most of his DNVP colleagues. He fully supported the Reichstag Fire Decree, which effectively wiped out civil liberties in Germany. Indeed, on the day before the Reichstag fire, he proposed a bill that was almost as heavy-handed as the Reichstag Fire Decree; it would have instituted severe restrictions on civil liberties under the pretense of keeping the Communists from launching a general strike.[5] He also merged the German judges' association with the new National Socialist Association of Legal Professionals (Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund), and provided a veil of constitutional legality for the Nazi State.[6]
At the end of June 1933, the DNVP was dissolved under pressure from the Nazis, and the DNVP Chairman
), under the jurisdiction of local SA leaders, provoked a sharp protest from the Ministry of Justice. Gürtner observed that prisoners were being beaten to the point of unconsciousness with whips and blunt instruments, commenting that such treatmentreveals a brutality and cruelty in the perpetrators which are totally alien to German sentiment and feeling. Such cruelty, reminiscent of oriental sadism cannot be explained or excused by militant bitterness however great.[8]
On 2 October 1933, Gürtner was made a member of Hans Frank's Academy for German Law at its inaugural meeting.[9] Also in 1933, Gürtner came into conflict with one of his subordinates in the Justice Ministry, Roland Freisler, over the issues of Rassenschande (literally: "racial disgrace"), or sexual relationship between an "Aryan" and a "non-Aryan", which Freisler wanted immediately criminalized.[10] Gürtner, in a meeting, pointed out many practical difficulties with Freisler's proposal.[11] This did not, however, stop the passage of the Nuremberg Laws two years later, criminalizing Rassenschande.
In June 1934, Gürtner succeeded
From the beginning of the Nazi regime, Gürtner became involved in the Nazification process of the institutions of the state and society as it applied to the realm of legal jurisprudence, and he is even credited for coining the term for this process: Gleichschaltung.[15] In a series of laws, first the individual state ministries of justice were eliminated in December 1934 and state judicial officials reported to Gürtner. The work culminated when the "Third Law to Transfer the Administration of Justice to the Reich" (24 January 1935) became effective on 1 April 1935. All justice authorities and officials in the sixteen German states were nationalized. This resulted in the Reich taking over 65,000 officials and 2,000 state offices. All state judicial revenues and expenditures were assumed by the Reich Ministry. The administration of justice was thus placed solely in the hands of one great, unified national department for the first time.[16]
In July 1935, Gürtner amended Paragraph 175 of the German penal code to extend its scope and increased the penalties. By the end of 1935, it was already apparent that neither Gürtner nor Frick would be able to impose limitations on the power of the Gestapo, or control the SS camps where thousands of detainees were being held without judicial review.[17][18] Instead of resigning, Gürtner again stayed on. To mark the fourth anniversary of the Nazi regime on 30 January 1937, Hitler determined to enroll all the remaining non-Nazi ministers in the Nazi Party and to confer personally upon them the Golden Party Badge.[19] By his acceptance, Gürtner officially joined the Nazi Party.
During
Gürtner died on 29 January 1941 in Berlin.
See also
Citations
- ^ ISBN 978-0-87436-965-6.
- ^ Reichshandbuch der deutschen Gesellschaft. Band I, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, S. 398.
- ^ Grimm 2017, p. 267.
- ^ William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Touchstone Edition, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990
- ISBN 978-0-14-100975-9.
- ^ Austin Cline, "When National Interests Take Precedence Over the Rule of Law" (PDF) Website on the rule of law. Retrieved 12 May 2010
- ISBN 0-582-49200-9.
- ^ Wistrich 2002, p. 92-93.
- ^ Hans Frank (Ed.): Jahrbuch der Akademie für Deutsches Recht, 1st Edition, 1933-1934. Schweitzer Verlag, München/Berlin/Leipzig, p. 254.
- ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- S2CID 147621323.
- ^ Evans (2005), p. 72. "After the 'Night of the Long Knives,' [Reich Minister for Justice Franz Gürtner] nipped in the bud the attempts of some local state prosecutors to initiate proceedings against the killers."
- ^ a b Grimm 2017, p. 268.
- ^ Zentner & Bedürftig 1997, p. 940.
- S2CID 147621323.
- ISBN 0-691-05255-7.
- ^ "Concentration Camps 1933–1939". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 13 May 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-09-952369-7.
- ^ Kershaw, Ian. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis. Vol. II. p. 254.
- ISBN 978-1-4408-5897-0.
References
- ISBN 978-0-415-26038-1.
- Grimm, Eve (2017). "Franz Gürtner". In Bartrop, Paul R.; Dickerman, Michael (eds.). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Santa Monica: ABC-CLIO. pp. 267–268. ISBN 978-1-4408-4084-5.
- Zentner, Christian; Bedürftig, Friedemann, eds. (1997) [1991]. ISBN 978-0-306-80793-0.
External links
- Franz Gürtner in the German National Library catalogue
- Franz Gürtner in the files of the Reichskanzlei(in German)
- Franz Gürtner in the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte (in German)
- Biographie des Deutschen Historischen Museums Archived 11 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine (in German)
- Newspaper clippings about Franz Gürtner in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW