Boris Meissner

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Boris Meissner at a forum discussion for the Kieler Woche 1963

Boris Meissner (born August 10, 1915 in Pskow ( Pleskau ); † September 10, 2003 in Cologne ) was a German-Baltic legal scholar specializing in international law and known for his research in Eastern European contemporary history and politics.

Life

Meissner was born into the family of the Baltic German public prosecutor Artur Meissner and spent his youth in Pärnu, Estonia . After attending the German private community high school in Pärnu, he studied at the University of Dorpat ( Tartu ) (member of the Corps Neobaltia ). In 1934 he completed his studies with a degree in economics. He then worked as a bank clerk and studied law from 1939, also in Tartu. In 1939 he followed the resettlement of the Baltic Germans as a result of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact . Meissner then worked in occupied Germany poses as an assistant at the local university , and later in Wroclaw . Meissner served in the Wehrmacht from 1940 to 1945 during World War II .

After his release from British captivity he arrived in 1946 as a research assistant at the University of Hamburg , where he is at Rudolf von Laun on International Law and as a consultant for the so-called Eastern European Law ( East European Law specialist). Between 1947 and 1953 he worked at the research center for international law and foreign public law at the university. He was significantly involved in the reconstruction of German research on Eastern Europe after the Second World War. From 1953 to 1959 Meissner was in the service of the Federal Foreign Office . As head of the Soviet Union unit , he was a member of the federal government's observer delegations at the conferences in Berlin in February 1954 and Geneva in July and November 1955 and, as a multilingual diplomat, accompanied Konrad Adenauer in his negotiations with Khrushchev about the return of German prisoners of war in 1955 . In the spring of 1956 he became a counselor at the German embassy in Moscow .

From 1959 and 1964 Meissner taught at the University of Kiel and set up the seminar for politics, society and law in Eastern Europe . Even after leaving the Foreign Service, he continued to work as a government advisor. From 1965 to 1984 he was a professor at the University of Cologne , where he set up the Institute for Eastern Law , of which he remained until his retirement. One of his scientific assistants was Ottfried Hennig .

Meissner began publishing books and magazine articles in 1947. In 1954 he published his dissertation The Soviet Intervention in the Baltic States and the International Legal Issues of the Baltic Question , which has lost none of its importance and was published in book form in 1956 under the title: The Soviet Union, the Baltic States and International Law . This work is considered legal evidence that the occupation and annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union was unjustified and represented a breach of international law.

Boris Meissner was an honorary member of the German Society for Eastern European Studies (Berlin) and a member of numerous other national and international scientific organizations.

Boris Meissner had been married since 1949. His wife died on December 11, 2017.

Honors

Fonts

  • The Baltic question in world politics. In: Public Law and Politics. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1973
  • Soviet Union and the right to self-determination. In: Documents on Eastern Law , 0419-6015; Vol. 3 [approx. 1962]
  • Party, State and Nation in the Soviet Union. Selected contributions. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985 ISBN 3-428-05890-9
  • The Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Party Leadership, Organization, and Ideology. 1976, ISBN 978-0-8371-8461-6
  • The Soviet Conception of Coexistence and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. ( East-West relations , 1975)
  • The Soviet Union in Transition: Historical Background, Goals and Limits of Gorbachev's Reform Policy. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-421-06392-3
  • The Russian policy towards the Baltic region as a touchstone for the relationship between Russia and Europe. In: The Foreign Policy of the Baltic States and International Relations in the Baltic Sea Region. Edited by Boris Meissner, Dietrich Loeber, Cornelius Hasselblatt. Bibliotheca Baltica, Hamburg 1994, pp. 466-504
  • On the way to the reunification of Germany and the normalization of German-Russian relations: selected contributions. Göttingen working group, 2000, ISBN 978-3-8305-0102-2

literature

  • Cornelius Hasselblatt : Boris Meissneri Fenomen. In: Akadeemia , No. 7 1997, pp. 1383-1385 (Estonian).
  • Bruno von Lingen, Georg von Rieder: Album Neobaltorum 1879–1956 , o. O. 1956, p. 106.
  • Peeter Järvelaid: Kannab Eestit südames: Boris Meissner 85. Euroopa kultuuriruumis matkates / Õigus ja poliitika kultuuris: artikleid ja esseid , Tallinn 2002, lk. 139-179.
  • Peeter Järvelaid: Professor Boris Meissner - 85: mees, kes kannab Eestit südames , Ajalooline Ajakiri (2000), No. 4, lk. 124-128. (Bibl. Joonealustes märkustes. Summary, lk. 137.)
  • Peeter Järvelaid: Paul Keres yes Boris Meissner , Pärnu Postimees, January 8, 2011 ( online ).
  • Peeter Järvelaid. Targad valitsejad yes nõunikud. - Pärnu Postimees, May 2, 2015, lk. 19th
  • Peeter Järvelaid. Tarkadest valitsejatest ja nende nõunikest. - Eesti Päevaleht (Stockholm), June 2015, lk. 10-11.
  • Peeter Järvelaid. Kaks mälestuskildu Boris Meissnerist (1915-2003). - Pärnu Postimees, October 3, 2015
  • Peeter Järvelaid. Mälestuskilde Boris Meissnerist (1915-2003). Prof. Dr. dr hc Boris Meissneri sajandat sünniaastapäeva meenutades. - Eesti Elu (Toronto), October 22, 2015, lk. 4 yes 8.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Meissner, Boris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic legal scholar
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Pskov
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 2003
Place of death Cologne