Dr. Dkfm. Josef E. Hillebrand
- Born on: 7.2.1908
- Birthplace: Grottau (Hrádek nad Nisou),
- Category: Revokation of academic degree
- Right of domicile: Grottau (Hrádek nad Nisou),
The English version is based on a translation by artificial intelligence. The authentic version is the German one.
Josef E. Hillebrand was the son of the Grottau innkeeper Josef Hillebrand. His mother died in 1937, and his father in 1941.
Following his attendance at the Handelsakademie in Reichenberg/Liberec, he was enrolled in total for ten semesters at the University for World Trade in Vienna between the winter semester 1928/29 and the summer semester 1935. In 1932, he passed the diploma examination, and in March 1937, he was awarded a doctorate in commercial sciences with a dissertation on The Effects of the Economic Cycle on the Balance Sheets of Austrian Brewery Stock Companies during the Years 1925 to 1933. In the same year, a part of the doctoral thesis was published under a slightly modified title. Shortly after the doctorate, he gave up his apartment at Anton-Frank-Gasse 12 (18th district of Vienna), where he had been registered since October 1932, and returned to his birthplace Grottau.
Initially, he worked as an auditor at the office of the Deutsche Revisions- und Treuhand AG in Reichenberg, then as a state examiner at the Landesbauernschaft in the same city. Between October 1, 1937, and October 4, 1938, he served in the military in the Czechoslovak Republic, which was shortly thereafter systematically dismantled by the aggressive foreign policy of the Greater German Reich.
On January 15, 1942, Hillebrand was called up again, this time into the German Wehrmacht. Just over six weeks later, he was deployed to the Eastern Front in Russia. After he had the audacity to ask his superiors for a role such as interpreting, which better matched his qualifications than serving in combat, the doctorate-holding economist was “sharply reprimanded” and was told to prove his courage to free himself from the accusation of being a “coward.” Since he did not volunteer, he was assigned to a shock troop mission. Although he complied with this order, he withdrew from immediate danger several times despite contrary orders. This led to charges of “continued cowardice in the face of the enemy” before the field court of the 52nd Infantry Division, which was then fighting in the Soviet Union under the command of Lieutenant General Lothar Rendulic, a fanatical Austrian Nazi. Its verdict on May 2, 1942, was six years of prison and the loss of civil rights for five years; moreover, Hillebrand was declared unfit for military service. The court itself considered this verdict to be lenient: If he had not been “the unfortunate product of a completely misguided, effeminate upbringing” due to his military service in Czechoslovakia, and if he had not evaded the aforementioned shock troop mission, he would have faced the death penalty or life imprisonment.
The verdict, which was based on paragraphs 84 and 85 of the Military Penal Code, subsequently served as justification for the University for World Trade to revoke Hillebrand’s academic titles of Diplomkaufmann and Doctor of Commercial Sciences in mid-July 1942. Although the involvement of the university was not formally necessary, NS Rector Kurt Knoll made every effort to explicitly order the revocation of both academic titles.
On July 23, 1944, Josef Hillebrand fell in the village of Pid'yarkiv/Potjakow (now Ukraine). After the University for World Trade was informed of Hillebrand's death by his fiancée and her parents, Knoll's successor Leopold Mayer considered posthumously restoring Hillebrand's academic degrees “in mercy”—note that this was under the condition that “the circumstances under which the deceased fell justify such a step.” Apparently, from the perspective of a confessed National Socialist, only a “heroic death” qualified for the restoration of the academic degrees that Hillebrand had once lawfully acquired. However, Mayer's corresponding request to the Reich Ministry of Science on November 14, 1944, evidently went unsuccessful. Presumably, the “act of grace” did not take place due to the imminent collapse of the German Reich.
Whether Hillebrand was posthumously awarded a doctorate by the University for World Trade after World War II is not clearly ascertainable. At the meeting of the professors' senate on March 9, 1946, he was mentioned as one of the politically persecuted individuals who had their doctorate reinstated. On one of his student record cards, however, there is an entry stating that restitution was “not possible” as Hillebrand was deceased.
Author: Johannes Koll
Source material
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Universitätsarchiv, zwei Studierendenkarteikarten.
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Universitätsarchiv, Protokoll Professorenkollegium vom 9. März 1946.
Meldeauskunft des Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchivs, GZ MA 8 – B-MEW – 1528937/2014.
Bundesarchiv Berlin, R 4901/25828.