Arnold Herdlitczka

Arnold Rudolf Herdlitczka , (born April 6, 1896 in Budapest , † August 15, 1984 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian legal scholar . From 1935 to 1967 he worked as a professor of Roman law and civil law at the University of Innsbruck, with a political break from 1939 to 1945.

Life

Arnold Rudolf Herdlitczka, the son of the officer Arnold Herdlitczka , attended the Academic Gymnasium in Vienna I . After graduating from high school (1914), he began his career as an officer in the artillery in November 1914. During World War I he took part in the campaigns in the Carpathian Mountains , Montenegro and Albania . He served with the aviation troops and received several awards. In April 1919 he left the military and began studying at the Technical University of Vienna . In 1921 he moved to the law faculty of the University of Vienna .

After receiving his doctorate in 1925 as Dr. iur. Herdlitczka passed the examination for academic library service and then worked as a librarian at the Austrian National Library until March 1935 . During this time he dealt intensively with Roman law and completed his habilitation for this subject in the summer semester of 1931 with Friedrich von Woess .

In 1934 Herdlitczka received a call to the University of Innsbruck , where he was appointed associate professor of law and political science on April 1, 1935 . In his inaugural lecture in 1936, he paid tribute to the importance of Christianity for European legal development. Herdlitczka gained such recognition in the college that the professors proposed him as full professor as early as 1937. This rise, as the academic career total, Herdlitczka was after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich denied. The National Socialists disliked him politically, especially because of his inaugural lecture. The Reich Commissioner for the Reunification of Austria informed him on November 9, 1939 that he would be retired at the end of the month. Herdlitczka protested against this measure. He made an appeal to the Ministry of the Interior and thus achieved that he was legally transferred to March 1, 1940 into retirement.

Herdlitcka was thus excluded from the university. The dean Adolf Günther applied for his new appointment on January 10, 1940, but without success. Herdlitczka worked as a bank clerk at a building society loan company from May 1941.

In May 1945, immediately after the liberation of Tyrol, the rector K. Brunner invited Herdlitczka to resume teaching. His appointment as full professor, which was approved by the faculty, came about only in 1948. The faculty had applied for the appointment on November 5, 1945 to the state commissioner for direct federal affairs in the state of Tyrol . Just three days later, the commissioner approved the request, but the Federal Ministry for Education, which was set up soon after, did not recognize the appointment for the time being. Herdlitczka received high honors at the university through his reputation: he was elected Senator in 1947, Dean in 1948, Senator again in 1951, Dean again in 1953, Rector in 1955 and Senator for the third time in 1964 and again Dean in 1965. In 1967 he was at the age of 72 years emeritus , but took his chair until they have been replaced and then worked until 1971 as honorary professor at the University of Salzburg .

He was a member of the Catholic student associations KÖStV Aargau Vienna (since 1915), KÖHV Leopoldina Innsbruck (since 1945) and AV Austria Innsbruck (since 1946) in the ÖCV .

Services

Herdlitczka has been concerned with Roman law since his studies, on which he published several fundamental studies in the 1930s. In the 1940s he wrote a three-volume textbook on Roman law. As a specialist in comparative law, he also qualified for applicable law. From 1946 he published the magazine for Austrian law and comparative jurisprudence with Godehard Josef Ebers and Franz Gschnitzer . Since the 1930s, an eye disease from the First World War has hindered him in his scientific work, and later he worked in the university administration.

Herdlitczka has received awards from several quarters for his lifetime achievement. In 1968 the Federal President awarded him the Great Silver Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria , and a commemorative publication was published on his 75th birthday.

literature

• Wolfgang Waldstein : In memoriam Arnold Rudolf Herdlitczka . In the journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History. Romance Department . 102: 796-803 (1985).

Web links

• Literature by and about Arnold Herdlitczka in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)