Friedrich Everling

Friedrich Wilhelm Everling (5 September 1891 – 17 April 1958) was a German lawyer, judge, writer, and politician of the German National People's Party (DNVP). He served as a deputy in the German Reichstag from 1924 to 1945. After the end of the Second World War, he emigrated from Germany to France where he published novels under the pseudonym Schlehdorn (Blackthorn).

Early life Friedrich Everling was born at Sankt Goar, the son of the theologian and politician (1864–1945). After attending Volksschule and Gymnasium in Krefeld and Halle (Saale), he studied law and political science at the University of Jena, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the University of Bonn, and the University of Halle through 1911. In 1913, he passed the first state examination in law. On 8 August 1914, he received his Doctor of Law degree from Halle with a thesis on the subject of "The Prussian Official Oath." He subsequently entered the service of the foreign office as a Referendar (apprentice lawyer). In 1914, Everling volunteered for military service as a Fahnenjunker (officer cadet) and fought in the First World War. He passed the second state law examination in 1918 after his discharge from the military.

Life under the Weimar Republic In 1919, Everling was dismissed from his civil service post for refusing to take the official oath to the new Weimar Republic. He then worked in private legal practice in Berlin-Halensee and Neubrandenburg until 1933. He joined the conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) and also was a member, and for a time the chairman, of the nationalist and monarchist Bund der Aufrechten (League of the Upright) before it was banned in 1922 as an anti-republican organization. Everling also worked as a writer, serving as the editor of the journal "Konservative Monatsschrift" (Conservative Monthly). He also published numerous works on politics and constitutional law, including Flaggenfrage (The Flag Question, 1927), Organischer Aufbau des dritten Reichs (The Organic Structure of the Third Reich, 1931) and Wiederentdeckte Monarchie (The Rediscovered Monarchy, 1932).

Career in Nazi Germany After the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Everling returned to the civil service, becoming a senior administrative court judge in Berlin through 1938. Following the dissolution of the DNVP in June 1933, Everling continued to sit in the Reichstag as a "guest" of the Nazi Party faction from July 1933 until the fall of the regime in May 1945.

Post-war life After the end of the war in 1945, Everling lived in Düsseldorf and in Metzingen before moving to Menton on the French Riviera, where he continued to write, and where he died in April 1958.

Selected works This is a list of selected post-war novels by Friedrich Everling, using the pen name Schlehdorn (Blackthorn). Der Flüchtling du Chêne (1947) Silhouette (1948) Die drei Putten (1950) Das Pendel schwingt (1951) Die eiserne Rose (1953) Die zärtliche Treppe (1954) Die Sphinx und der Regierungsrat (1957)