Erich Lüth

Ernst Erich Lüth ( born 1 February 1902 in Hamburg, † April 1, 1989 ) was a German journalist. He was active in the 1920s in liberal parties and was after military service and captivity size of the cultural and journalistic life in Hamburg, including as director of the State Press Office Hamburg. He became famous when he called for a boycott in 1950 of a new movie of the Nazi loaded director Veit Harlan. The then strained of Harlan's production company proceedings against Lüth ended in the Lüth judgment, in which the Federal Constitutional Court laying down its basic legal doctrine, especially in regard to the freedom of expression.

Life

Lüth visited the secondary school Eppendorf Eppendorf and now high school began in 1923 as a volunteer in the Hamburg editors of the Ullsteinhaus -Verlag Berlin his education. Subsequently, he was an editor at the " Hamburger Anzeiger " and Chairman of the Hamburg Young Democrats. In 1928 he became a member of the Hamburg Parliament for the DDP. In addition, Lüth was active in the German Peace Society and belonged to the pacifist wing in his party. As in 1929 called " the enfant terrible of the DDP" for conscientious objection, he came under criticism internally and joined in the spring of 1930 from the DDP. " The savage from Hamburg " ( as Theodor Heuss ) occurred in the same year in the constituent radical Democratic Party ( RDP) and said goodbye to finally, after the break from party politics. Lüth 1932 published an article in which he denounced the false hero worship of Hitler, which his brother later Gestapo arrest brought.

From 1933 to 1935 he managed the business of the Association of German sewing machine dealer and was then advertising manager of GM Pfaff AG in Kaiserslautern, which made him in his own words for " Homer the German sewing machine ". He was in the opinion of the historian Christof brewer to a " fellow traveler", who was " clamp as a money collector in the party on behalf of the Nazis ." In 1943 he was called up as a soldier in the Africa Corps and became a corporal in 1945 in Italy in captivity, where he edited the camp newspaper " Camp Mail Ghedi ".

When he was freed in 1946, he took over in May - as he said himself, as a "state journalist " - as director of the National Press Centre Hamburg and orientated itself towards SPD. After the state election in Hamburg occurred in 1953 in the SPD, Lüth was offset from the new conservative government of the " Hamburg- block " in March 1954 into temporary retirement. He held the office again from 1957 until his resignation in 1964. In the meantime, from 1954 to 1957, he headed the press office of the German Theatre Association. Lüth was the founder and Chairman of the Press Club of Hamburg and the end of 1947 co-founder of the "Society of Friends of Cluny German - French Spirit relations ".

Special emphasis had the German relationship to Judaism and the State of Israel for Lüth. He was the initiator of the 1951 campaign " peace with Israel ", in the fall of 1952 with the "Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation " joined forces in August. His essay, "We are asking Israel to peace " came in 1951 for the public employment of the Federal Republic public with this issue and was published in various newspapers. Lüth authored numerous books on Israel, and sat down at lectures (including in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv) for an understanding between Germany and Israel.

1984 awarded him the Hamburg Senate, the mayor - Stolten Medal.

Lüth judgment

Lüth is now called, mainly in connection with a 1950 onset of litigation, the final verdict from 1958 bears his name. He had called in September 1950 for a boycott of the film Immortal Beloved, as he looked at the director Veit Harlan as " Nazi film director No. 1". The creator of Jew Suss was " least of all " capable of restoring the reputation of the German film, so he called to the German audience, Harlan's first post-war film - a film adaptation of the novella Aquis submersus by Theodor Storm - not to be considered. The production company sued Erich Lüth for injunctive this statement, because it is contrary in accordance with § 826 BGB against good morals. The case went through all the way up to the Federal Constitutional Court, which said the now famous Lüth judgment early 1958. Therein the action against Erich Lüth was rejected because his behavior was covered by the right to freedom of expression (Article 5 § 1 of the Basic Law ); fundamental rights accordingly act as "objective order of values ​​" in standards of civil law into ( " ripple effect " ), which are therefore in mind when weighing interpreted in the light of the priority constitutional norms. The judgment is now considered the " probably most influential decision " of the court.

Autobiography

• A hamburger is swimming against the current. Kayser, Hamburg 1981.