Schiffer, Eugen

Descended from a Jewish family converted to Lutheranism . He studied from 1877 to 1880 at the universities of Breslau , Leipzig , Tübingen and again Breslau, where he passed the trainee exams in the field of jurisprudence. After the period of internship and training in 1885, he passed a large state legal examination for the “good” mark. From 1888 to 1889 he worked as a district judge in Zabrze ( Upper Silesia ), then until 1906 as a district judge and a land judge in Magdeburg . In 1906 he was redirected to the Berlin Court of Appeal. In 1910, a member of the Supreme Administrative Court.

After retiring from politics in 1924, Schiffer continued his law practice, periodically publishing his thoughts on the state of German justice in various publications. For example, in a letter in Die Deutsche Justiz (German Justice), published in 1928, he argued that the current state of affairs in Germany corresponds to the term “hypertrophy of law” when there is a mass of regulations and rules that It is hardly foreseeable even for specialists, combined with separation from the life of judges and the legal ignorance of the people leads to a crisis of trust of law and justice. Along with this, he was the co-publisher of the newspaper Deutsche Juristenzeitung (German Legal Newspaper).

After World War II, Schiffer first lived in the Soviet zone of occupation . From 1945 to 1948 he was President of the Central (East) German Department of Justice. In 1950 he moved to Germany .

He was married and had two children. His son-in-law Valdemar Koch in 1945 was the first chairman of the LDPG in the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany .

In Kaiser Germany, Schiffer was a member of the National Liberal Party . Unlike the vast majority of party colleagues who formed the German People's Party after the collapse of the NLP , Schiffer took part in the creation of the German Democratic Party . In the NDP he was until October 1924, until he left politics.

In early June 1945, he and Wilhelm Külz published a call for the formation of a liberal-democratic party in Germany. And until the beginning of 1950 was part of the central board of the LDPG. After moving to Germany, he was part of the FDP .

In 1903–1918, Schiffer was a member of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies from the Magdeburg electoral district. He was elected to the Reichstag Empire in 1912-1917, where he represented the Wolmiststedt- Haldensleben constituency. There he was engaged in the unification of justice in the German Empire , which, despite the imperial laws, was still quite fragmented according to the components of the German state .

Schiffer joined the Weimar Constituent Assembly on July 9, 1919 as the successor to Friedrich von Peier , head of the NDP faction.

Schiffer was a member of the Reichstag until 1924. In 1923, he prepared from the NDP faction a draft of the “First Law on the Simplification of the Activities of Justice Bodies”, which was adopted in February 1924 in a slightly modified wording. The overall goal of this draft law was to reduce, first of all, the timing of the civil process and to develop means of countering the delay in the process. In particular, emphasis was placed on the introduction of conciliation proceedings. In addition, from 1921 to 1925 he was a member of the Prussian Landtag . Later, after leaving the party and leaving politics on October 24, 1924, he did not accept the deputy’s mandate .

After the Second World War, for some time he was a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR , in 1949-1950, he was the chairman of the GDR Constitutional Committee.

In 1950, Schiffer moved to West Germany and joined the Free Democratic Party .

During his tenure of the council of people's representatives under the leadership of Friedrich Ebert , Schiffer, as a man who worked in the last Kaiser governments of George Michaelis and Maximilian of Baden , held the post of Secretary of State of the Imperial Treasury.

Under Reichskanzler, Philip Scheideman , until April 19, 1919, was deputy head of government and led the imperial ministry of finance. Under Scheidemann’s heir, Gustav Bauer headed, from October 3, 1919 to March 26, 1920, the Ministry of Justice and again served as vice-chancellor. It is considered one of the key figures who participated in the suppression of the Kapp putsch . And finally, in the first office of Wirth, from May 10 to October 22, 1921, he was again Minister of Justice.

Honorary Doctor of the University of Halle (1928) and the Humboldt Berlin (1950).

• Zur Lehre vom Glückspiel , in: Der Gerichtssaal, 1895, Seite 184 ff.
• Der neueste Entwurf zur Reform des Strafverfahrens , Kattowitz 1896
• Die Rechtskonsulenten , Berlin 1897
• Neue Vorschläge zur Beschleunigung und Vereinheitlichung der Rechtspflege , in: Juristische Wochenschrift, 1914, Seiten 2ff.
• Der vaterländische Hilfsdienst; Erläuterungen und Materialien zum Gesetz über den vaterländischen Hilfsdienst vom 5. Dezember 1916 , Otto Liebman, Berlin 1916.
• Die deutsche Demokratie nach den Reichstagswahlen , 1920.
• Die Deutsche Justiz. Grundzüge einer durchgreifenden Reform , Otto Liebman, Berlin 1928.
• Sturm über Deutschland , Otto Libman Publishing, Berlin 1932.
• Die neue Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches. Eine politische Skizze , Hobbing Publishing, Berlin 1932.
• Ein Leben für den Liberalismus , Herbig, Berlin 1951.

• Helmut Seier, Nationalstate und Sozialer Ausgleich als schlesische Motive des Nationalliberalen Eugen Schiffer , Stuttgart 1986.
• Joachim Ramm, Eugen Schiffer und die Reform der deutschen Justiz , Luchterhand, Neuwied 1987, ISBN 3-472-01026-6
• Dietrich Goldschmidt, Erinnerungen an das Leben von Eugen und Marie Schiffer nach dem 30. Januar 1933 , 1991
• ders. Eugen Schiffer (02/14/1860-05.09.1954). Ein Leben für liberale Politik und volksnahes Recht , in: Walter Pauly Hallesche Rechtsgelehrte jüdischer Herkunft , Cologne 1996, pages 69 - 81. ISBN 3-452-23486-X
• Heike Amos, Kommunistische Personalpolitik in der Justizverwaltung der SBZ / DDR (1945-1953): Vom liberalen Justizfachmann Eugen Schiffer über den Parteifunktionär Max Fechner zur kommunistischen Juristin Hilde Benjamin , in the text , in Analysen zur Normdurchsetzung in osteuropäischen Nachkriegsgesellschaften (1944 / 45-1989) , Frankfurt am Main 1999, pages 109–145. ISBN 3-465-02797-3
• Thilo Ramm, Eugen Schiffer (1860-1954). Ein nationalliberaler Staatsmann , Nomos Publishing, Baden-Baden 2006.
• Jürgen Frölich, Ein Nationalliberaler unter "Demokraten". Eugen Schiffer und der organisierte Liberalismus vom Kaiserreich bin nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg , in: The Almanac of Liberal Studies, volume 18, published by Nomos, Baden-Baden 2006, ISBN 3-8329-2187-7

• Brief biographical note on the website of the Federal Archive (him.)
• Schiffer in the database of the deputies of the Reichstag on the website of the Bavarian State Library (it.)