Hans von Dohnanyi
Encyclopedia
Hans von Dohnanyi was a German
jurist
, rescuer of Jews, and German resistance
fighter against the Nazi régime
.
composer
Ernő Dohnányi
and his wife, the pianist
Elisabeth Kunwald. After his parents divorced, he grew up in Berlin
. He went to the Grunewald
Gymnasium
there, becoming friends with Dietrich
and Klaus Bonhoeffer
. From 1920 to 1924, he studied law
in Berlin. In 1925, he received a doctorate
in law with a dissertation on "The International Lease Treaty and Czechoslovakia's Claim on the Lease Area
in Hamburg Harbour".
After taking the first state exam in 1924, he married Christine Bonhoeffer, sister of his school friends, in 1925. About this time, he began putting the stress on the "a" in his last name (which is of Hungarian origin, stressed on the first syllable). He and his wife had three children: Klaus von Dohnanyi
, (mayor of Hamburg from 1981 to 1988), Christoph von Dohnányi
, (a musical conductor
) and Barbara von Dohnanyi.
to several justice ministers. In 1934, the title was changed to Regierungsrat ("government adviser"). Meanwhile, in 1932, he was adjutant to Erwin Bumke
, Imperial Court President (Reichsgerichtspräsident; at this time, Germany was still officially the German Empire, Deutsches Reich.) In this capacity, he put together Prussia's lawsuit against the Empire, which Prussia had brought after the Preußenschlag
, Franz von Papen
's dissolution of the Prussian social-democratic government through an emergency decree in 1932.
As an adviser to Franz Gürtner
from 1934 to 1938, von Dohnanyi got to know Adolf Hitler
, Joseph Goebbels
, Heinrich Himmler
and Hermann Göring
. He also had access to the justice ministry's most secret documents.
, "legitimised" murders carried out on government orders, without trial or sentence
, Dohnanyi began to seek out contacts with German resistance
circles. He made records for himself of the régime's crimes, so that in the event of a collapse of the Third Reich, he would have evidence of their crimes. In 1938, once his critical view of Nazi racial politics
became known, Martin Borman had him transferred to the Reichsgericht in Leipzig
as an adviser.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II
, Hans Oster
called Dohnanyi into the Abwehr
of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
. Led by Wilhelm Canaris
, it quite quickly became a hub of resistance activity against Hitler.
In 1942, Dohnanyi made it possible for two Jewish lawyers from Berlin, Friedrich Arnold and Julius Fliess, to flee with their loved ones to Switzerland
, disguised as Abwehr agents. Altogether, 13 people were able to leave Germany without hindrance, thanks to Dohnanyi's forgeries and operation known as U-7. Dohnanyi secretly went to Switzerland to make certain the refugees would be admitted.
In late February 1943, Dohnanyi was busying himself with Henning von Tresckow
's assassination
attempt against Hitler and the attendant coup d'état
. The bomb that was smuggled aboard Hitler's plane in Smolensk
, however, failed to go off.
On 5 April 1943, Dohnanyi was arrested at his office by the Gestapo
on charges of alleged breach of foreign currency violations. He had transferred funds to a Swiss bank on behalf of the Jews he had saved. Among the transactions in question were ones with Jauch & Hübener. His trial was deliberately delayed by army judge Karl Sack
. In 1944, Dohnanyi was delivered to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
. In addition, his involvement in the July 20 Plot
came to light after the plan failed. On Hitler's orders, on April 6, 1945, Dohnanyi was condemned to death by an SS
drumhead
court and executed two or three days later (depending on the source), hanged
with piano cords.
, and the prosecutor, Walter Huppenkothen
, were accused in West Germany
of being accessories to murder. After the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) had at first quashed a lower court's two acquittals, it changed its mind in 1956 during the third revision of the case, quashed Thorbeck's and Huppenkothen's sentences, and acquitted them of the charges of being accessories to murder by their participation in the drumhead trial on grounds that the court had been duly constituted and the sentence had been imposed according to the law then in force, without either of the accused having perverted justice. It was particularly incomprehensible that the ruling approved the accused's involvement in carrying out the drumhead court's sentence, since they had failed to secure the approval of the highest legal official (that is, Hitler) of the sentence before they executed Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wilhelm Canaris and Karl Sack. Huppenkothen was acquitted of carrying out the sentence of execution against von Dohnanyi, as there was a reasonable doubt as to whether Hitler did not approve the sentence.
On the occasion of Hans von Dohnanyi's hundredth birthday in 2002, Günter Hirsch
, president of the BGH, called those who had sentenced Dohnanyi to death "criminals calling themselves judges". Hirsch said the 1956 ruling was shameful because as a result, not a single one of the Nazi-era judges who sentenced 50,000 Nazi opponents to their deaths were themselves found guilty after the war.
On October 23, 2003, Israel
honoured Hans von Dohnanyi by recognizing him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations
for saving the Arnold and Fliess families, at risk to his own life. His name has been inscribed in the walls at the Holocaust remembrance centre Yad Vashem
in Jerusalem.
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
, rescuer of Jews, and German resistance
German Resistance
The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
fighter against the Nazi régime
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
Early life
Hans von Dohnanyi was born to the HungarianHungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Ernő Dohnányi
Erno Dohnányi
Ernő Dohnányi was a Hungarian conductor, composer, and pianist. He used the German form of his name Ernst von Dohnányi for most of his published compositions....
and his wife, the pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
Elisabeth Kunwald. After his parents divorced, he grew up in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He went to the Grunewald
Grunewald
Grunewald is a locality within the Berliner borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Famous for the homonymous forest, until 2001 administrative reform it was part of the former district of Wilmersdorf.-Geography:The locality is situated in the western side of the city and is separated from...
Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
there, becoming friends with Dietrich
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr to assassinate Adolf Hitler...
and Klaus Bonhoeffer
Klaus Bonhoeffer
Klaus Bonhoeffer was a German jurist and resistance fighter against the Nazi régime who was executed after the July 1944 plot to kill Hitler....
. From 1920 to 1924, he studied law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
in Berlin. In 1925, he received a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in law with a dissertation on "The International Lease Treaty and Czechoslovakia's Claim on the Lease Area
Moldauhafen
Moldauhafen is a lot in the port of Hamburg, Germany, which has been leased since 1929 pursuant to the Treaty of Versailles to Czechoslovakia. In 1993, the Czech Republic succeeded to the rights of Czechoslovakia, and the lease is set to run until 2028.The lot of about is not an exclave, since it...
in Hamburg Harbour".
After taking the first state exam in 1924, he married Christine Bonhoeffer, sister of his school friends, in 1925. About this time, he began putting the stress on the "a" in his last name (which is of Hungarian origin, stressed on the first syllable). He and his wife had three children: Klaus von Dohnanyi
Klaus von Dohnanyi
Klaus von Dohnanyi is a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party . Dohnanyi is the son of Hans and Christine Dohnanyi, and thus a nephew of Dietrich Bonhoeffer...
, (mayor of Hamburg from 1981 to 1988), Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor of Hungarian ancestry.- Youth and World War II :Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to jurist Hans von Dohnányi and Christine Bonhoeffer. His uncle on his mother's side was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian/ethicist...
, (a musical conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
) and Barbara von Dohnanyi.
Career
Dohnanyi worked at the Hamburg Senate for a short time and in 1929, began a career at the Reich Ministry of Justice, working as a personal consultant with the title of prosecutorProsecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
to several justice ministers. In 1934, the title was changed to Regierungsrat ("government adviser"). Meanwhile, in 1932, he was adjutant to Erwin Bumke
Erwin Bumke
Erwin Konrad Eduard Bumke was the last president of the Reichsgericht, Germany's old Imperial Court....
, Imperial Court President (Reichsgerichtspräsident; at this time, Germany was still officially the German Empire, Deutsches Reich.) In this capacity, he put together Prussia's lawsuit against the Empire, which Prussia had brought after the Preußenschlag
Preußenschlag
In 1932, the Preußenschlag, or "Prussian coup", was one of the major steps towards the end of the German inter-war democracy, which would later greatly facilitate the "Gleichschaltung" of Germany after Adolf Hitler's rise to power...
, Franz von Papen
Franz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...
's dissolution of the Prussian social-democratic government through an emergency decree in 1932.
As an adviser to Franz Gürtner
Franz Gürtner
Franz Gürtner was a German Minister of Justice in Adolf Hitler's cabinet, responsible for coordinating jurisprudence in the Third Reich. Detesting the cruel ways of the Gestapo and SA in dealing with prisoners of war, he protested unsuccessfully to Hitler, nevertheless staying on in the cabinet,...
from 1934 to 1938, von Dohnanyi got to know Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
, Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
and Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
. He also had access to the justice ministry's most secret documents.
Resistance
Spurred by the murders of alleged plotters of the 1934 Night of the Long KnivesNight of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives , sometimes called "Operation Hummingbird " or in Germany the "Röhm-Putsch," was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders...
, "legitimised" murders carried out on government orders, without trial or sentence
Summary execution
A summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...
, Dohnanyi began to seek out contacts with German resistance
German Resistance
The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
circles. He made records for himself of the régime's crimes, so that in the event of a collapse of the Third Reich, he would have evidence of their crimes. In 1938, once his critical view of Nazi racial politics
Nazism and race
Nazism developed several theories concerning races. The Nazis claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy of human race; at the top was the master race, the "Aryan race", narrowly defined by the Nazis as being identical with the Nordic race, followed by lesser races.At the bottom of this...
became known, Martin Borman had him transferred to the Reichsgericht in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
as an adviser.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Hans Oster
Hans Oster
Hans Oster was a German Army general, deputy head of the Abwehr under Wilhelm Canaris, and an opponent of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He was a leading figure of the German resistance from 1938 to 1943.-Early career:...
called Dohnanyi into the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was part of the command structure of the armed forces of Nazi Germany during World War II.- Genesis :...
. Led by Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral, head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944 and member of the German Resistance.- Early life and World War I :...
, it quite quickly became a hub of resistance activity against Hitler.
In 1942, Dohnanyi made it possible for two Jewish lawyers from Berlin, Friedrich Arnold and Julius Fliess, to flee with their loved ones to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, disguised as Abwehr agents. Altogether, 13 people were able to leave Germany without hindrance, thanks to Dohnanyi's forgeries and operation known as U-7. Dohnanyi secretly went to Switzerland to make certain the refugees would be admitted.
In late February 1943, Dohnanyi was busying himself with Henning von Tresckow
Henning von Tresckow
Generalmajor Herrmann Karl Robert "Henning" von Tresckow was a Major General in the German Wehrmacht who organized German resistance against Adolf Hitler. He attempted to assassinate Hitler in March 1943 and drafted the Valkyrie plan for a coup against the German government...
's assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
attempt against Hitler and the attendant coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
. The bomb that was smuggled aboard Hitler's plane in Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...
, however, failed to go off.
On 5 April 1943, Dohnanyi was arrested at his office by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
on charges of alleged breach of foreign currency violations. He had transferred funds to a Swiss bank on behalf of the Jews he had saved. Among the transactions in question were ones with Jauch & Hübener. His trial was deliberately delayed by army judge Karl Sack
Karl Sack
Karl Sack was a German jurist and member of the resistance movement during World War II....
. In 1944, Dohnanyi was delivered to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
. In addition, his involvement in the July 20 Plot
July 20 Plot
On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government...
came to light after the plan failed. On Hitler's orders, on April 6, 1945, Dohnanyi was condemned to death by an SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
drumhead
Drumhead court-martial
A drumhead court-martial is a court-martial held in the field to hear urgent charges of offences committed in action. The term is said to originate from the use of a drumhead as an improvised writing table, altar for religious services, and a traditional gathering point for a regiment for orders...
court and executed two or three days later (depending on the source), hanged
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
with piano cords.
Proceedings after the war
After the fall of the Nazi régime, the chairman of the drumhead court, Otto ThorbeckOtto Thorbeck
Dr Otto Thorbeck was a German lawyer and Nazi SS judge.In 1941 Sturmbannführer Thorbeck was appointed the chief judge of the SS and police court in Munich for which SS Standartenführer Walter Huppenkothen was the prosecutor...
, and the prosecutor, Walter Huppenkothen
Walter Huppenkothen
Walter Huppenkothen was a German lawyer and Nazi SS prosecutor.Huppenkothen attended school in Opladen and studied Law and Political Science at the University of Cologne and University of Düsseldorf and then qualified as a lawyer. On May 1, 1933, he joined the Nazi Party and the Allgemeine SS...
, were accused in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
of being accessories to murder. After the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) had at first quashed a lower court's two acquittals, it changed its mind in 1956 during the third revision of the case, quashed Thorbeck's and Huppenkothen's sentences, and acquitted them of the charges of being accessories to murder by their participation in the drumhead trial on grounds that the court had been duly constituted and the sentence had been imposed according to the law then in force, without either of the accused having perverted justice. It was particularly incomprehensible that the ruling approved the accused's involvement in carrying out the drumhead court's sentence, since they had failed to secure the approval of the highest legal official (that is, Hitler) of the sentence before they executed Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wilhelm Canaris and Karl Sack. Huppenkothen was acquitted of carrying out the sentence of execution against von Dohnanyi, as there was a reasonable doubt as to whether Hitler did not approve the sentence.
On the occasion of Hans von Dohnanyi's hundredth birthday in 2002, Günter Hirsch
Günter Hirsch
Günter Hirsch is a German legal scholar and a former president of the Federal Court of Justice of Germany.-Biography:Günter Erhard Hirsch was born in Neuburg an der Donau, the second child of Erhard and Anni Hirsch. After primary school, he attended gymnasium in Neuburg, graduating with his abitur...
, president of the BGH, called those who had sentenced Dohnanyi to death "criminals calling themselves judges". Hirsch said the 1956 ruling was shameful because as a result, not a single one of the Nazi-era judges who sentenced 50,000 Nazi opponents to their deaths were themselves found guilty after the war.
On October 23, 2003, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
honoured Hans von Dohnanyi by recognizing him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
for saving the Arnold and Fliess families, at risk to his own life. His name has been inscribed in the walls at the Holocaust remembrance centre Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
in Jerusalem.
External links
- German Historical Museum official website