LOCAL COURT
BLUMENTHAL

JUDICAL DISTRICT

The Blumenthal local court is concerned with the town parts Blumenthal, Burglesum and Vegesack, which consitute the city district of Bremen-Nord within the state of Bremen. For the other areas of the city of Bremen, the Bremen county court is responsible.

COMPETENCE

The court is, within the tasks allocated by law for the local courts, responsible for civil, family, criminal, land registry, guardianship, probate and execution matters.

Immediately superordinate to the Blumenthal local court is the Landgericht (county court) Bremen. The LC Bremen-Blumenthal belongs to the district of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court of Bremen.

HISTORY

Since 1436, Blumenthal has its own judiciary, as the office Blomendal took up its administrative activity and, according to the customs of the time, judicial activities were carried out by legally learned judicial officials (Drosten). The office was transferred to Bremen by pledge.

In 1654, the office had to be, together with the court Neuenkirchen, ceded to Sweden, though it still belonged to the Bremen jurisdiction. Through the second Stader Vergleich, (Stade settlement) the Blumenthal office fell to the electorate of Hannover, which fell 1866, after the German War between Prussia and Austria and its allies to Prussia. This time, it was followed by the jurisdiction, even if the right of patronage remained with the Bremen jurisdiction.

In 1852, Jurisdiction and administration were also in Blumenthal separated and became organizationally autonomous. The court continued sharing the building Haus Blomendal, despite the organizational separation, until the end of the 19th century. The court had a lay judges hall, a cash office and several other working rooms at their disposal. In place of the current main building of the Bremen-Blumenthal district court used to be a prison.

Population growth and rapid industrialization in the Lower Weser region eventually made it necessary to build a new courthouse. This was opened in 1899 and subsequently expanded several times.

In 1939, the municipalities of Grohn, Schönebeck, Aumund, Blumenthal and Farge of the Osterholz district, which were located in the area of the court, were separated from Prussia and incorporated into the territory of the city of Bremen. The previous Lesum District Court was dissolved and the Blumenthal District Court became a part of Bremen county court again on January 1, 1943.

By order of the American military government of June 21, 1945, on July 14, 1945, the Bremen-Blumenthal Local Court resumed its activities, which had been interrupted by the end of the war. There was, at first, a struggle between British and American occupation authorities for the inclusion of the local court in the British occupation zone (from which the state of Lower Saxony was created) or in the American occupation zone which formed later the state Freie Hansestadt (Free Hanseatic city) Bremen. In the end, the Chief of the Legal Division of the British Headquarters stated that, according to an agreement of December 10, 1945, the Hamburg Higher Regional Court District was to include the Bremen Regional Court, the Bremen Local Court, the Wesermünde Local Court, the Blumenthal Local Court and the Bremerhaven Local Court, from which with the establishment of the Bremen Higher Regional Court, the Bremen Higher Regional Court district developed.

Thoughts of the Bremen Senate from the 1980 to close the local court out of financial reasons led to massive protest in Bremen-Nord. A guarantee for its continuation was given out of political reasons. Effective January 1, 1989, the Burglesum local district was removed from the area of the Bremen district Court and incorporated into the circuit of the Blumenthal local Court in order to give the local court a more economically viable size.

Building

The listed ensemble of the local court consists of the main building, the former court prison and the former servants’ villa. It was built from 1896 to 1899 and expanded 1913/1914. The buildings included new reform tendencies of architecture, with a recollection of local building traditions. The current main building of the local court was opened on February 11th, 1899. It had been built with the financial participation of the municipalities of Blumenthal, Rönnebeck and Lüssum as well as a private donation by the Blumenthal master builder Lohmüller of 7,250 marks, using the foundations of the former court prison of the local court. At the beginning of World War 1, these premises also turned out to be too small. Subsequently, a prison new construction was erected behind the local court building and the rooms which had been used so far as a court prison in the local court building were converted for judgement purposes.

In 1968, a residential building, erected in 1896, which used to be the official residence of the judge was converted to an auxiliary building (today, Haus B). Since the court prison, situated behind the court building, was scarcely ever used, it was converted for the land registry of the local court circuit. The opening took place in June 1997 after a three-year long conversion time.

Since August 5th, 2010, the ensemble local court Blumenthal are listed buildings.

Court prison

In 1933, the court prison of the district court Blumenthal, which had been simultaneously the police prison of the district of Blumenthal, became a SA ’protective custody’ camp. The legal base for the takeover of the court prison was the emergency decree, with which the SA was made auxiliary police after the burning of the Reichstag.

On March 12, 1933, there were already 30 KPD officials in this ‘protective custody’ camp.
By the end of March 1933, 90 people from the labor movement have already been imprisoned there (87 communists and three social democrats) – among them the later head of local exchange Wilhelm Ahrens (1898-1974) and Willy Dehnkamp (1903-1985).

A memorial plaque on the main building of the district court commemorates the several hundred political opponents of the Nazi regime who were imprisoned here in 1933/34 and had then to make their way to penitentiaries and concentration camps.

On October 13, 2008, the advisory board of the Blumenthal district council decided to install another memorial plaque for Margarete Göhner, who was murdered in the court prison in December 1936.

Quelle: Wikipedia