Josef Wirmer

After the war, when the West German Herrenchiemsee convention worked out a new constitution in 1948, Wirmer's flag design was again discussed. Though initially backed by Christian Democrats and German Party delegates, it was ultimately rejected in favor of a former black, red and gold tricolour. In the 1950s, the Christian Democratic Union as well as the Free Democratic Party temporarily adopted the Cross flag as party banners.

After Stauffenberg's plans failed and Hitler survived the bombing at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia on 20 July 1944 – Josef Wirmer would have been Justice Minister if it had succeeded – Wirmer was arrested on 4 August. His appearance before the Volksgerichtshof was recorded in court records and a film that was secretly shot on Hitler's orders. When Roland Freisler, who presided over the court, accused Wirmer of having a cowardly attitude,

On 8 September 1944, Josef Wirmer was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof. Two hours after the sentence had been handed down at the show trial, he was put to death by hanging with a wire noose at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Roland Freisler died five months afterwards during an Allied bombing raid.

In 1936, Wirmer came into contact with the trade-unionist resistance circles about Jakob Kaiser. From 1941, he belonged to the circle about Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. All historical research seems to make plain that Wirmer managed in the resistance to overcome with his personal contacts certain provisos which traditionally stood between such groups as the trade unionists and the Social Democrats, the church circles and the old noble élites. Wirmer supported Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg's plan to assassinate Hitler right from the beginning.

Born in Paderborn, Josef Wirmer was from a Catholic family of teachers. His father was a Gymnasium headmaster. After his Abitur in Warburg he studied law in Freiburg and Berlin. At that time, his democratic views were in marked contrast to the staunchly monarchist outlook still prevalent in learned circles, and this earned him the nickname "the red Wirmer". After his examinations for trainee lawyer (1924) and graduate civil servant (1927), he established himself in Berlin as a lawyer. There, in politics, he began to support the Centre Party, to the social left wing of which he belonged. It was his great hope to set up a grand coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD). After the so-called Machtergreifung, Josef Wirmer stood against the Nazis out of democratic convictions and worries about the constitutional state. Owing to his dedicated defence of those suffering racial persecution, he was thrown out of the National Socialist Lawyers League (Rechtswahrerbund). He did not like the conclusion of the Reichskonkordat with the Vatican. Whether, as some believe, he tried to get the then Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, to intervene personally cannot be proved by any sources from that time.

Josef Wirmer (19 March 1901 – 8 September 1944) was a German jurist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.