Adolf Lenz

Adolf Lenz (born January 17, 1868 in Vienna ; † October 28, 1959 ibid) was an Austrian criminologist and criminal lawyer , who was primarily the founder and chairman of the " Criminal Biological Society " (from 1927) and head of the Criminological Institute of the University of Graz got known.

Life

His promotion to the doctor of law took place in 1891 at the University of Vienna , where he in 1894 habilitated . In 1900/1901 he was dean of the Faculty of Law in Freiburg im Breisgau. From 1902 to 1910 he was a full professor of criminal law and criminal procedure law at the University of Chernivtsi . From 1903 to 1904 he was dean of the law faculty there. In 1909 he went to Graz, where he served as rector of the university from 1922 to 1923 and several times as dean of the law faculty. At the University of Graz he was the successor to the criminologist and examining magistrate Hans Gross and academic teacher to the criminologist Ernst Seelig .

Adolf Lenz researched primarily in the areas of international law, criminal law and criminology. His main work was the foundation of the holistic criminal biology . Lenz believed that he could fathom the personality of criminals directly by means of an "intuitive look". He supplemented this irrational, empathetic method with body measurements. Based on the constitutional biology of Ernst Kretschmer , he tried to ascribe certain types of body to certain forms of temperament. The aim of Lenz's criminal biological investigations was to determine the "personality guilt" of criminals. Lenz strove to no longer punish perpetrators for their actions alone, but for the fact that they are who they are. From today's perspective, this holistic, intuitive form of forensic biology can be described as unscientific.

In the years 1929–1931, the beginning of his psychological research on the personality of murderers can be assumed, which culminated in the joint study Murderers: The Investigation of Personality as a Contribution to Criminal Biological Case Studies and Methodology , published in 1931 .

Lenz was also politically active: in Austria during the First Republic and in the corporate state , he was a member of the Heimwehr and, from 1934, as a representative of science in the federal cultural council, he was mandated by the Schuschnigg regime. He was hostile to National Socialism, so that its importance waned after 1938. After the Second World War he was appointed honorary chairman of the newly founded "Forensic Biological Society", but no longer appeared scientifically or politically.

Works

• The criminal protection of the lien. A contribution to the history and dogmatics of the law of obligations . Stuttgart 1893. OCLC 902929825
• Forced upbringing in England. (The Reformatory and Industrial Schools.) A criminal-political study . Stuttgart 1894. OCLC 84031835
• The Anglo-American Reform Movement in Criminal Law. An illustration of their influence on the continental legal development , Stuttgart 1908. OCLC 903089585
• The economic struggle of the peoples and its international settlement , Stuttgart 1920. OCLC 609728916
• Floor plan of the criminal biology , Berlin 1927. OCLC 614669557
• Murderer: the investigation of the personality as a contribution to criminal biological casuistry and methodology , Graz 1931 (together with Ernst Seelig, Martin Kalmann, Gustav Müller and Alfred Pokorn). OCLC 878334642

literature

• Christian Bachhiesl, On the construction of the criminal personality: The criminal biology at the Karl-Franzens-University Graz (= legal historical studies, vol. 12), Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac 2005.
• Christian Bachhiesl, The Josef Streck Case. A convict, his professor and the exploration of personality (= field research, vol. 1), Vienna a. a .: LIT 2006; ²2010.
• Christian Bachhiesl, The Graz School of Criminology. A sketch of the history of science , in: monthly for criminology and criminal law reform 91, 2 (April 2008), pp. 87–111.
• Christian Bachhiesl, The Year 1938 and Graz Criminology. Broken continuities in an emerging scientific discipline , in: Friedrich Bouvier, Nikolaus Reisinger (Red.), Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Graz, Vol. 38/39, Graz: Medienfabrik 2009, pp. 93-120.

Web links

• Short biography on the website of the University of Chernivtsi ( memento from November 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Homepage of the Hans Gross Kriminalmuseum at the Karl-Franzens-University Graz, where the work of Adolf Lenz is documented ( Memento from May 1st 2007 in the Internet Archive )