Albert Mosse

Isaac Albert Mosse (born October 1, 1846 in Grätz , then Posen Province in Prussia ; † May 31, 1925 in Berlin ) was a lawyer, higher regional judge and legal advisor to the Meiji government in Japan .

Albert Mosse

Life and professional development

Albert Isaac Mosse was born on October 1, 1846 as the seventh child of the large doctor Dr. Marcus Mosse (1807–1865) and his wife Ulrike give birth. Wolff (1816–1888) was born in Grätz - what was then the Prussian province of Posen. He still had 13 siblings who grew up in constant helpfulness and solidarity with one another. The father was of Jewish descent and had his previous family name Moses changed to Mosse in 1828. In Grätz they belonged to a recognized and respected family who placed great value on the education and professional orientation of their children. In this context, it was a matter of course that the older siblings "took their younger ones under the wing", so to speak, and gave them support in their first steps into later professional life. His older brother was the Berlin publisher Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920). Albert Mosse attended high schools in Lissa and Goben.

He began his law studies in 1865 at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin and passed the two state legal examinations (1868 and 1873). After passing the auditor's examination in 1868, he entered the Prussian civil service as a court auscultator. His professional training was interrupted by the war from 1870 to 1871. Here he was a voluntary participant in the Franco-Prussian War and immediately continued his training. In 1873 he became a judge and in 1875 assistant judge at the city court in Berlin. A year later he became a district judge in Spandau and in 1879 moved to Berlin as a city judge. He was appointed magistrate in the same year. At that time he had already specialized in German constitutional and administrative law. A short time later, Mosse was finally appointed district judge in 1885 and a district judge in 1888.

In 1883 he married Caroline Meyer (1859–1934), called Lina. The children were out of the marriage: Walter Mosse (1886–1973), a lawyer and legal advisor, Hans Mosse (1888–1916), born in Tokyo and lawyer, Martha Mosse (1884–1977) Dr. jur. and she was the first female police officer in Prussia, Erich Peter Mosse (1891–1963), Dr. med. and writer, Dorothea married. Panofsky (1892–1968).

Supporting Japan during the Meiji Reform Period

On the advice of his teacher Rudolf Gneist (1816–1895), with whom he had a close friendship beyond his studies, Albert Mosse had contacted the Japanese embassy in Berlin in the mid-1870s. Here he regularly gave lectures on German public law. On the recommendation of the Prussian government, a permanent institution had developed from this, which led to the fact that he introduced Japanese diplomats and lawyers to Berlin through lectures and instructions in German constitutional and administrative law. When the Japanese government was specifically looking for a German expert with knowledge of the Prussian-German legal system to implement its own legal reform efforts, the choice fell on him. In spring 1886 Albert Mosse and his family traveled to Tokyo at the invitation of the Japanese government . The contract for the stay was initially concluded for 3 years.

The trigger for this order was the Japanese State Councilor and Prince Itō Hirobumi (1841-1909), who, as an admirer of Baron Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom and zum Stein (1757-1831), was determined to modernize Japanese constitutional and administrative law based on the German-Prussian model . The Japanese interior minister, Yamagata Aritomo, was the direct contact . available, whose advisor Hirata himself was a former student of Rudolf Gneist. Albert Mosse arrived in Tokyo in May 1886 and first looked at the framework conditions and requirements that were encountered. On this basis made a draft of the possible priorities of legal topics. As a connoisseur of legal conceptions and legal reality in Germany, he understood well how to select the most suitable legal norms and articles of the applicable legislation at home for a possible adoption in Japan and to submit initial proposals for adjustments. In April 1888, the Japanese Parliament of Japan officially promulgated the Japanese Municipal , District , and Prefectural Law . Albert Mosse was thus able to exert direct influence on the Japanese municipal, district and provincial order that was introduced almost simultaneously. By May 1889 the most important constitutional questions had been resolved and the Meiji Constitution was solemnly adopted on February 11, 1889. With this decisive step the freedom was available for Albert Mosse to go to the supporting work for the revision of the unequal international treaties concluded in the 1860s. With the redesign of the international treaties, Japan finally managed to catch up with world developments.

Due to the extremely favorable and beneficial design of the cooperation, the contract was extended to 1890. The work topics were expanded to include Japanese postal and press law, immigration jurisdiction and criminal law. During this time Albert Mosse kept in contact with the ministries and advised almost all Japanese ministers on questions of the application of the law and difficult questions of legal interpretation. Among them was the Japanese Foreign Minister Aoki Shūzō ( 1844-1914 ), whom he held in high esteem . In doing so, he gained a lasting reputation and was the most influential foreign advisor to the Japanese government during this crucial phase of reform development. For his achievements, at the suggestion of the German ambassador in Tokyo, Theodor von Holleben , he was appointed as the first Jewish lawyer in Germany to the higher regional judge in 1890 for his services to the design of the "basic features of Japanese state life according to the German model". Shortly before leaving Japan and also from Germany, he then took care of the continuation of Felix Litthauer's commercial law commentary until 1925.

While he was still in Japan, his son Hans Mosse was born in Tokyo on December 27, 1888.

Continuation of professional career after returning from Japan

At the end of 1890 Albert Mosse returned to Germany with his family. He settled down as a public prosecutor in Königsberg . And it was here that in 1901 he was appointed a secret councilor of justice. In 1903 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Königsberg , where he became honorary professor for civil procedural law and commercial law the following year . Several times he tried in vain to be transferred back to Berlin, where he wanted to get a position at the local court. He resigned his court post in 1907 out of annoyance because he had been passed over in a promotion because of his Jewish descent. He demonstratively moved to Berlin and accepted an unpaid position as a city councilor. Here he successfully fought for the interests of the city of Berlin for over 10 years. Albert Mosse took care of public affairs, especially in the areas of foundations, the fire society, from 1914 the war aid and the transport and building construction deputation. As the head of the transport department and legal advisor to the city administration, he was primarily concerned with the contractual design of the incorporation of places into the urban area of ​​Berlin. He was appointed to the German Association of Cities and was a member of the board. From 1911 he worked primarily on topics relating to the tram system and the electricity supply for the city of Berlin. For his services to the city of Berlin, he was later named city elder and honorary citizen of Berlin.

He was also actively involved in the life of Berlin's Jewish community. Here he worked as a member of the board of directors and as chairman of the board of trustees of the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin. For many years he was the vice-president of the Association of German Jews (VdJ) founded in 1904.

Albert Mosse died on May 30, 1925 in Berlin.

Albert Mosse's grave in the Berlin cemetery on Schönhauser Allee

He was buried in the Jewish cemetery Schönhauser Allee in Berlin. His grave is marked as the honor grave of the city of Berlin .

Aftermath

Albert Mosse's reputation in Japan was so great that during the Hitler dictatorship the life of his eldest daughter Martha Mosse was saved thanks to the efforts and intervention of the Japanese. During this period, on the official order of the Japanese government, a wreath was laid on Mosse's grave in Berlin's Schönhauser Strasse cemetery.

Works

• Commercial Code. (Without the law of the sea.) With the supplementary provisions of the Civil Code and an appendix containing the Introductory Act ... plus explanations. Lim. by F [elix] Litthauer. Edit again by A [lbert] Mosse. 16th edition. Guttentag, Berlin & Leipzig 1920. (Reprint 1925.) Since the 13th edition 1905 published. by A. Mosse; gone in the 17th edition 1925 by Ernst Heymann .
• The draft law regarding the amendment of § 63 HGB. In: Deutsche Juristenteitung 12 (1907), Sp. 1293-1298. ZDB ID 2173669-8 . Online .
• The draft of a Reich law "on the damage caused by civil unrest". In: Deutsche Juristenteitung 24 (1919), Col. 711-716. ZDB ID 2173669-8 . Online .

literature

• Ishii Shirō: Almost like my own country: Letters from Japan 1886–1889. Munich: Iudicium-Verlag 1995. ISBN 3-89129-273-2 .
• Hans Jaeger:  Mosse, Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , pp. 216-218 ( digitized version ).
• Elisabeth Kraus: The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries. Munich: Beck 1999. ISBN 3-406-44694-9 .
• Werner E. Mosse: Albert Mosse. A Jewish judge in imperial Germany. In: Yearbook / Leo Baeck Institute 28. 1983, pp. 169-184.
• Joachim Rott: Albert Mosse (1846–1925), German Jew and Prussian judge . In: New legal weekly. Munich: Beck Vol. 58 (2005), 9, p. 563.
• Personal details. In: Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, Volume 21 (1916), Col. 973 .

References and comments

1. ^ Elisabeth Krause. The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie around the 19th and 20th centuries, CH Beck Verlag, Munich, 1999 p. 122 ff.
2. ↑ German biography - Mosse, Albert in: https://www.deutsche-Biographie.de/sfz/65778.html  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Albert and Lina Mosse, Almost like my own fatherland. Letters from Japan (1886 to 1889) published 1995
4. ^ German biography - Albert Mosse, in: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz65778.html
5. ↑ Hans Jürgen Mayer, Manfred Pohl (ed.) Country report Japan, Wissenschaftliche Buchgemeinschaft Darmstadt 1995, p. 59f.
6. ↑ L.Baeck, commemorative speech at Albert Mosse, in: Issue 44 reports of the Academy of Sciences German de Jews in Berlin, 1927, p 25ff.
7. ↑ Klaus Bürger: Mosse, Albert. In: Kulturportal West Ost. German Culture Foundation in Eastern Europe, accessed on August 22, 2019 . 
8. ↑ German biography - Mosse, Albert in: https://www.deutsche-Biographie.de/sfz/65778.html  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

Web links

• Literature by and about Albert Mosse in the catalog of the German National Library