EBERMAYER, LUDWIG

EBERMAYER, LUDWIG (1858–1933), judge; chief justice and leading prosecutor on the Republic's Supreme Court. Born in No¨rdlingen, he studied law before working during 1883–1902 as a lawyer and judge in Bavaria.* Appointed to the Supreme Court (Reichsgericht) in 1902, he became chief justice in 1918. Upon retiring in 1926, he remained in Leipzig, assuming an honorary professorate at the university. He was the long-time chairman of the German Chapter of the International Criminal Justice Association. Ebermayer is best known for his work in 1921–1926 as the Court's leading prosecutor. During these years the Court was oppressed by the Republic's radical politics. Ebermayer was largely accountable for handling the war-crimes cases, the disposition of which was a heavy burden as both the Allies and German legal authorities closely examined the proceedings. He was chief prosecutor in the Kapp* Putsch deliberations, in proceedings arising from KPD revolts in 1920, in the case against those accused of Walther Rathenau's* assassination, and in a trial arising from the 1923 KPD uprising in Hamburg. Although he was opposed initially to creation of a special Court for the Protection of the Republic, fearing that it might commingle ‘‘the Supreme Court and partisan politics,'' he later praised the court for operating ‘‘free of any partisan air.''