Ralf Feldmann | Success story or long road? Dealing with Nazi injustice from a Bochum perspective

The judiciary never punished the crimes of judges under National Socialism: not the terrible criminal judges for thousands of excessive death sentences, not the judicial elite in the judicial administrations who administratively implemented and secured injustice and crimes from the very beginning. In the judiciary’s own historical memory, members of the judiciary were rather victims powerlessly at the mercy of the regime who wanted to prevent the worst, hardly ever accomplices in the extermination of human beings. They were respectfully commemorated in the presidential galleries of courts. Those who obediently participated saw themselves in retrospect as tragically failed servants of the law, even glorified as resisters. This view of the past also existed in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Ralf Feldmann, retired judge at Bochum District Court, reports from a Bochum perspective with his own experiences from his life as a judge how difficult – and ultimately incomplete – it was and is to break this narrative within the judiciary: not a success story, but an opening to the ethical minimum and to historical truth.

Dr. Ralf Feldmann, retired judge, born in 1949 and grew up in Olpe (Sauerland). From 1968, studied law in Freiburg, Marburg and Bochum, as well as history and politics. Judge in Bochum from 1976 to 2013. Temporarily seconded to the University of Hagen, where he worked and completed his doctorate under Prof. Thilo Ramm. In his younger years at the regional court, he was responsible for personnel matters relating to judges in the presidential administration. Later family court judge at the district court for many years. In life and in his profession, he is committed to opposing the right, peace, politics of the past and a secular state.

An event organised by Fritz Bauer Forum