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I. Buildings Integral to the Former Life and/or Persecution of Jews in Hamburg - Neustadt/St. Pauli.© Wilhelm Mosel, Deutsch-jüdische Gesellschaft Hamburg. 21. No. 2 Sievekingplatz.
There is a bust of Dr. Isaac Wolffson (1817-1895) on the left side of the lobby of the 1912 built Oberlandgericht (Provincial High Court and Court of Appeal) building. Wolffson was a lawyer, politician, statesman, and a reformer of the law and of the constitution. He was one of the founding fathers of the Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch, BGB, (Civil Code). He was one of the most eminent representatives of the Hamburg Bürgerschaft (parliament) from 1859-1889, and its president from 1861-1863. Initially he could only gain employment as a lawyer in the commercial court. Only after the emancipation of the Jews was he accepted in the Matrikel (legal register). Following this his legal practice became substancially more successful. The prudence of his counsel and the "extraordinary" breadth of his knowledge was much valued.
For a decade, i.e. from 1871-1881, he was both a member of the Hamburg Bürgerschaft (parliament) and the Reichstag (German parliament 1871-1945). In the Hamburg Bürgerschaft (parliament) he was a spokesman for the abolition of capital punishment, the revision of the constitution, and for the reform of the criminal law. In 1879 he was elected the first president of the Hansa Law Society, which included the Hansa towns of Lübeck and Bremen. A contemporary later recalled that Wolffson always had a good word for his young colleagues. Everyone who met him was impressed by his "dignity and charm". Wolffsonweg and Wolffsonstieg in the district of Alsterdorf are named after him.
 At the unveiling of the bust in the lobby of the Oberlandgericht (Provincial High Court and Court of Appeal) building in 1928 it was emphasised that of the ten jurists appointed to formulate the Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch (BGB) (Civil Code) he was the sole lawyer and sole Jew. His honorable character and dignified bearing and his being German without denying his Jewishness probably explained the fact that the lawyers and law courts in Hamburg were free from antisemitic attitudes or behavior. In 1962 Ernst A. Wolffson in a letter to Erich Lüth related the fate of the bust of his grandfather during the Nazi period. According to his mother, in 1933 the bust was bedaubed and the nose damaged. Following this the bust was removed to the cellar of the court building. Later friends asked his father if it were possible for him to acquire the bust so to protect it from further damage. It then remained, packaged, in the cellar of the family house from 1933 to 1945. After the war, on the initiative of the legal profession, it was repaired, and in August 1945 re-installed in its original position.
 Dr. Curt Rothenberger was influential in the Hamburg judiciary from 1933 onwards, particularly regarding the dismissal from office of Jewish judges and public prosecutors. This former head of the district court was elected Senator for Law by the NSDAP dominated Hamburg Senat (executive), on 8.03.1933. In 1935, following the transition of legal sovereignty to the Reich, he assumed the presidency of the Hanseatic Oberlandgericht (Provincial High Court and Court of Appeal), until he was appointed permanent secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice in 1942.
Before the enactment of the "Berufsbeamtengesetz", on 27.03.1933, (the Act applying to civil servants with tenure), of 7.04.1933, he relieved the Jewish public prosecutor Dr. Eduard Guckenheimer of his duties. It was difficult to dismiss Jewish judges as judges were appointed to permanent positions on a permanent basis. Initially official action was taken to remove all Jewish judges from the area of criminal law and from sitting on a Kollegialgericht, i.e. a court presided over by several judges. The "Berufsbeamtengesetz" (the Act applying to civil servants with tenure), furnished the grounds for the removal of Jewish judges from office. In Hamburg a total of 31 judges and public prosecutors were dismissed following the enactment of this law (including Dr. Walter Julius Rudolphi, Oberlandsgerichtsrat). 12 were allowed to remain in office in accordance with a special regulation of the law. The Reichsbürgergesetz (Act defining German nationality), of 15.09.1935, made it possible to dismiss further Jewish judges. Five judges were affected in Hamburg. In autumn 1936 there were five Jewish judges and public prosecutors remaining in office, mostly in the area of civil law. From 1937 judges married to Jewish women were restricted to this area of the law. The same action was carried out against lawyers and notaries in the private sphere. By 10.05.1933 the Bar Association had excluded 44 lawyers for racial reasons.
 Dr. Walter Julius Rudolphi was one of those Jewish judges who were, in 1933, dismissed from office under the "Berufsbeamtengesetz" (Civil Servants Act). He was Oberlandesgerichtsrat, and later became a member of the Jüdische Religionsverband Hamburg (Jewish Religious Federation Hamburg).
Rudolphi, born 27.05.1880 in Hamburg, was from 1910-1925 county court judge, and then high county court judge in Hamburg-Bergedorf. He became Oberlandesgerichtsrat in the Oberlandesgericht (OLG) (Provincial High Court), on 1.01.1926. He was one of two judges responsible for trying cases of high treason. On 1.12.1933, in accordance with a decree by the Hamburg Senat (executive), he was dismissed from office. He was arrested, in Baden-Baden, following the so-called "Reichskristallnacht" pogrom of 9th/10th November 1938. As a member of the board of the Jüdische Religionsverband Hamburg (Jewish Religious Federation Hamburg) he continued to work untiringly and self-sacrificingly for the institution even after it no longer existed in its initial form, until shortly before his deportation to Theresienstadt on 15.07.1942. His former wife, who was only able to get him released from Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp and Prison by immediate remarriage, was unable to save either of them from the deportation transports. He was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz II. She survived. The Hanseatisch Sondergericht (Hanseatic Special Court), which later had its seat in the Oberlandesgericht (OLG) (Provincial High Court and Court of Appeal) building, sat for the first time on 18.04.1933. Its effectiveness was largely guaranteed by the selection of judges to it. The jurisdiction of the court was repeatedly extended following the start of the war. It finally had the character of a Standgericht (drumhead court martial):wq whose standard penalty was death. The Hanseatisch Sondergericht (Hanseatic Special Court) sentenced to death and executed two Jews accused of "Rassenschande" ("dishonor to the race"). Paragraph 2 of the so-called "Blutschutzgesetz" ("Blood Protection Act") prohibited extra-marital intercourse between Jews and "German national" or "artverwandt Blut" ("related blood").
German text: Dipl.-Pol. Wilhelm Mosel, Deutsch-Jüdische Gesellschaft, Hamburg.
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