Ben Telders

Ben Telders around 1935

Benjamin Marius Telders (born March  19, 1903 in The Hague ; †  April 6, 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp ) was a Dutch lawyer and politician . From 1931 he worked as a professor of international law at the University of Leiden and from 1938 as chairman of the Liberal State Party .

Life

Ben Telders was born in The Hague in 1903 and studied law at the University of Leiden from 1921 , where he also received his doctorate in 1927 . After completing his studies, he first worked in his father's office in The Hague. A particular focus of his interest was patent law , and he was also an expert in the areas of civil law , procedural law and property rights .

From 1931 he acted in the successor of his former teacher Willem van Eysinga , who had been elected judge at the Permanent International Court of Justice in September 1930 , in Leiden as an associate professor and from 1938 as a full professor of international law . He also represented his home country from 1934 onwards in the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and in 1936/1937 in proceedings before the Permanent International Court of Justice. In the field of international law, he dealt in particular with its development, international water law on rivers , international broadcasting law, the League of Nations , the neutrality of states as well as international war law and the law of occupation . In 1938 he took over the chairmanship of the Liberal State Party , from which the People's Party for Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD) emerged after the end of the Second World War .

After the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, Ben Telders was arrested on December 18, 1940 and initially imprisoned in Scheveningen until March 1941 . The specific reason was his support for the public protest by Professor Rudolph Cleveringa against the recall of Jewish colleagues at the University of Leiden by the German occupation authorities. Later he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp that, KZ-Hertogenbosch , the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , and in February 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen spent, where he beginning of April 1945 and therefore only a few days before the camp was liberated from the effects of typhus infection died.

Awards and commemorations

Memorial plaque for Ben Telders (Leiden Academy building)

In 1946, Ben Telders was posthumously honored with the Verzetskruis , donated in the same year , the highest honor for people who were active in the Dutch resistance movement against the German occupation.

The following are named after him:

• the Prof. mr. BM Teldersstichting , a scientific institute that serves politicians from the liberal tradition and especially the VVD as a think tank
• the Telders International Law Moot Court Competition , one since 1977 carried out an annual Moot Court in the area of international law
• the BM Teldersweg in his hometown The Hague

Works (selection)

• The struggle for the new Act on the Navigation of the Rhine: With the draft of a new Act on the Navigation of the Rhine, which was adopted by the Central Commission at first reading. Gräfe and Unzer, Königsberg 1934
• Nederlandsch octrooirecht: Handboek voor de Praktijk. The Hague 1938 (second edition 1946)
• Nederlands onzijdigheid. Basic situation en followed. The Hague 1939
• Telders verzamelde written. Six volumes. The Hague 1947-1949

literature

• Lambertus Erades: BM Telders (1903-1945). In: Netherlands International Law Review. 2 (2) / 1955. Cambridge University Press, pp. 123-126, ISSN  0165-070X

Web links

• Telders, Benjamin Marius (1903–1945) Entry in the Biographical Woordenboek van Nederland (Dutch, with picture)
• Teldersstichting: Benjamin Marius Telders (Dutch, with picture)

Commons : Ben Telders  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Prof. mr. BM Telders. Volkenrechtelijk Dispuut, accessed on November 1, 2014 (Dutch).