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Dr. Magnus Bernhard Siems
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Magnus Bernhard Siems * 1882

Conventstraße 23 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. MAGNUS
BERNHARD SIEMS
JG. 1882
VERHAFTET
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 14.7.1938

Magnus Bernhard Siems, born on 6 Feb. 1882 in Krögerdorf, Elsfleth administrative district, imprisoned several times, died as a result of suicide in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison on 14 July 1938

Conventstrasse 23

"At yesterday’s rally of the NSDAP’s [the Nazi party] Altona district, where Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann spoke, a minor incident took place. A participant in the rally, intending to attract attention, used a revolver loaded with blanks to achieve this goal and fired a shot in the air.”

With this news item, the Norddeutsche Nachrichten reported on 13 Nov. 1937 about an incident that would cost the "shooter” his life a little less than a year later.

The "shooter” was Magnus Bernhard Siems, born on 6 Feb. 1882 in Krögerdorf near Elsfleth. He was the second of seven children of the farmer Gerhard Siems and his wife Johanne, née Öttken. He attended high schools (Gymnasien) in Oldenburg and Norden. Starting in 1902, he studied jurisprudence in Tübingen, Leipzig, Munich, and Berlin. After successfully obtaining his doctorate in jurisprudence, Magnus Siems worked as a teacher of business studies from 1910 until his drafting into military service in 1915. Serving as a pioneer, he had to go to Russia and France. After his discharge from military duty in 1919, Magnus Siems once again worked as a teacher of business studies, at first in Berlin, then in Wandsbek from 1920 onward. In the 1930s, he rose to senior business studies teacher (Handelsoberlehrer) there at the business and vocational school at Witthöffstrasse 1.

In 1922, he married the special school teacher Grete Wülfken. This marriage was divorced only one and a half years later. In 1930, Grete and Magnus Siems re-married. The union remained childless.

During the interrogations on the feigned assassination, Magnus Siems stated to police that he had belonged to neither political organizations nor any associations or parties. According to him, from 1927 until 1933, he had voted for the People’s Justice Party (Volksrechtpartei – VRP). Between 1926 and 1933, the Reich Party for Civil Rights and Deflation (Reichspartei für Volksrecht und Aufwertung) represented the interests of those harmed by the inflation. It belonged to a group of splinter parties that achieved successes in the elections to the Reichstag in May 1928 at the expense of the larger middle-class parties, especially the German National People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei – DNVP). Many of its voters later turned toward the Nazi party (NSDAP).

According to his own statement, Magnus Siems belonged to the National Socialist Teachers’ League (Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund – NSLB.), the Reich Air Defense League (Reichsluftschutzbund – R.L.B.), the National Socialist People’s Welfare Authority (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – N.S.V.), and the Association of Germans Abroad (Verband der Auslandsdeutschen – V.d.A.). Since the transfer of power [to the Nazis in 1933], he sympathized with the Nazi party, though he was unable to make up his mind whether to join the party, because he rejected its conception of the law.

Since his university studies, Magnus Siems had concerned himself intensively with legal issues and questions related to the philosophy of law. He took the view that an absolute natural law existed, i.e., one that was not goal-oriented. This natural law was, according to him, not readily suited for practical life but in practice, it had to be enforced with notions of equity and considerations of benefits for the general public and the state in mind. Natural law, the law in the proper sense, had to remain the foundation of all laws.

Between 1915 and 1926, Magnus Siems had written and sent out several pamphlets on this topic. After the Nazis’ assumption of power – according to Magnus Siems in the interrogation – he had done without any advertising measures for his theory of law until 1936. He went on to state that after sending out an essay entitled "The conception of the law of healthy common sense [gesunder Menschenverstand] and the National Socialist legal doctrine” (Die Rechtsauffassung des gesunden Menschenverstandes und die nationalsozialistische Rechtslehre) to Hamburg jurists and to Cuxhaven, Bergedorf, and Altona, he had been banned from any further publications by the Chief District Administrator (Regierungspräsident) of Schleswig. However, in 1937, Magnus Siems sent the essay to Reich Minister of Justice Gürtner, Reich Minister of Propaganda Goebbels, Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs Neurath, Reich Minister of the Interior without portfolio Frank, Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter) Kaufmann, and the presiding judges at three courts, without receiving any reply. Even earlier, Magnus Siems had turned to Adolf Hitler requesting permission to publish his essay. Apart from a promise to examine the matter, there were no reactions. The Deutsche Juristenzeitung and the National Socialist League of German Jurists (NS-Rechtswahrerbund) did not react either to his repeated requests for publication.

Disappointed, he turned to three Catholic bishops, including the bishop of Münster, Count von Galen. From him, he received a reply, according to which natural law was the guiding principle and yardstick of statute law. However, this failed to satisfy Magnus Siems. From the President of the Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law in Scheveningen (The Hague), too, whom he had turned to even before, he did not get an answer either. "…thus, I believed that I was compelled to resort to the last means available to me in order to direct public attention to my theory of law and to shame the jurists who in my view always go with the flow.”

When Magnus Siems read in the Hamburger Anzeiger that Reich Governor Kaufmann was scheduled to speak at the exhibition halls in Altona, he hit upon the idea of demonstrating for his theory of law. In an ammunition store on Steindamm, he bought 15 blanks for his six-chambered revolver. In the Wandsbeker Gehölz, a small forest, he fired two trial shots in order to verify the revolver was in good working order. In order that his intention would not be misconstrued, he wrote letters to two persons selected randomly from the directory. In the letters, he described the intended deed as a demonstration toward acknowledgement of his theory, announcing that he would only fire blanks. He signed using a false name, Bernhard Siemer.

He took the Vorortbahn (today S-Bahn, i.e., the suburban train) to Altona, went to the exhibition halls on what was then Flottbeker Chaussee, and fired a shot during the speech. When attempting to fire two more rounds, the revolver malfunctioned. Bystanders reacted immediately. The weapon was struck from his hand. A participant of the rally beat him on the head with a cane. He was wrestled to the ground. A commotion ensued in the course of which Magnus Siems was arrested and afterward taken by officers from the criminal investigation department to the Altona police prison.

During the interrogation, Magnus Siems initially stated that his name was Bernhard Siemer, an editor, and that until the transfer of power to the Nazis, he had worked for the [Social Democratic paper] Vorwärts. Later, he had emigrated to Paris, returning to Germany on illegal routes in Nov. 1937. In the course of the questioning, he changed his statement, saying that he had sat down about 15 meters (about 16 yards) away from the lectern. Even though it would have been possible, he had not wished to sit closer to the speaker’s desk. His sole aim had been the demonstrating in favor of his theory of law, not potentially injuring the Gauleiter. Adding that he had sent out about 300 copies of his essay by mail to pastors, philologists, and physicians chosen from the directory, he had apparently sent out some 700 copies overall in 1937. A typing service located at the Landwehrbahnhof train station had taken on the task of duplicating the work. With the initially false information, he had intended to mislead police, wishing to gain time for the letters sent out to still reach their recipients. He insisted that his actions had no political background, instead viewing himself – from a political perspective – as a National Socialist merely battling the National Socialist legal doctrine. He continued to say that he took the view that in terms of legal issues, the Führer was not being oriented properly by Reich Minister [Hans] Frank.

Magnus Siems was committed to the "Fuhlsbüttel police prison” ("Polizeigefängnis Fuhlsbüttel”) and taken into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”). From Fuhlsbüttel, he was transferred to the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn). In Feb. 1938, an extensive psychological expert’s report took shape there, finding that one had to assume that Magnus Siems had been mentally ill at the time of his deed in accordance with what was then Sec. 51 Par. 1 of the Reich Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch – RStGB) (mental incapacity or diminished mental capacity) and that his internment pursuant to Sec. 42 b RStGB in the current version (committal to a mental asylum or nursing home) was required. On 5 May 1938, the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) decided provisionally in favor of continuance of the temporary committal in Langenhorn. At the end of June 1938, the Hamburg Regional Court turned down a request by the public prosecutor’s office for permanent committal in a mental asylum and nursing home because the deed was to be classified as a public nuisance, not justifying committal. Furthermore, contrary to the uncertain diagnosis of the psychological expert’s report, the court was convinced that the deed had not been committed in a state of mental incapacity or diminished mental capacity.

As a result, on 30 June 1938, Magnus Siems was again taken into "protective custody” in Fuhlsbüttel because – as the reasoning went at the time – "there are grounds to fear that even in the future, he will use his freedom toward implementing his ideas by using a firearm at party events or the visits of leading figures.”

With this, Magnus Siems’ fate was sealed. As the death certificate indicates, he was found dead on the morning of 14 July 1938 at 5:30 a.m. According to a letter of the police prison to the Gestapo dated 14 July 1938, "[Siems] hung from the window support, having used his bed sheet to hang himself.”


Translator: Erwin Fink/Changes Ingo Wille
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: AB; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen 8708/38; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9895-139/1938; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 18881; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichspartei_f%C3%BCr_Volksrecht_und_Aufwertung (Zugriff am 18.8.2013).