Eberhard Menzel (international lawyer)

Eberhard Menzel (1963)

Eberhard Menzel (* 21st January 1911 in Ulm , † 1. June 1979 in Kiel ) was a German national and international law .

life and work

After the early death of his father, Menzel spent his first school years in Switzerland . His stepfather was first President of the Prussian government and then President of the Senate at the Prussian Higher Administrative Court . After High School in Halle and a stay in England studied Menzel in Tübingen , Berlin and Frankfurt law with a focus on public law .

Menzel was a leading member of the Bund der Reichspfadfinder , an association of youth in the Bundestag . Among other things, he was the editor of the leader sheets of German scouts The Path to the Reich .

In addition to training in the judiciary, Menzel worked as a faculty assistant to Friedrich Giese , from whom he also received his doctorate in 1938 . In 1938, together with Giese, he published the book Vom deutscher Voelkerrechtsrechte der Gegenwart , which was based on a seminar held by the two during the summer semester of 1937. In it, the attempt was made to transfer the Nazi racial ideology of Hans FK Günther, for example, to international law. According to Giese's foreword, the content of this book was discussed several times between the two of them and Menzel “worked it out thoroughly and wrote it down in context”. Menzel is therefore considered the author. The legal historians Michael Stolleis and Stefan Ruppert also refer to a footnote by Gieses on page 147 of the book, with which Gieses carefully distanced himself from the content and confessed to classical international law. Menzel, however, had already in 1934 in a Erich Röth published publishing house magazine, foundations of the new state thinking that sovereignty thinking declared overcome, "because the formal legal belief in the independence of States melts before the knowledge of the leaders task of this appointed people and State. ”Because of the publication of 1938 in March 1946 at the instigation of the American military government, Giese was dismissed as a professor at the University of Frankfurt , a measure which, according to Stolleis, Menzel should have taken.

In 1939 Menzel attended a course at the Academie de Droit International in The Hague . In 1939/40 he worked as a judge in the judicial service in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt am Main. In 1940 he became a soldier. In 1943 he completed his habilitation in Frankfurt and became a lecturer there.

In 1946 Menzel returned from captivity . In 1947 he became associate professor and research assistant at the newly founded research center for international law and foreign public law at the University of Hamburg . On April 1, 1951, he took over the management of the research center. In 1955 he took up a professorship for constitutional and international law as well as general political theory at the University of Kiel and became director of the institute for international law there .

After Menzel had been elected rector of the University of Kiel in November 1963 , the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Culture was made aware of Menzel's involvement in the book Vom German International Law Thinking of the Present through an anonymous letter from the faculty in early 1964 . For the public, after various scandals such as the appearance of Karl Dönitz as a speaker at a Geesthacht high school, it was another case of former National Socialists in Schleswig-Holstein. Menzel justified himself by stating that 18 seminar papers by students and doctoral candidates had been summarized in the book and that his only own contribution did not contain any National Socialist passages. In addition, he was expelled from the Hitler Youth in 1936 because he belonged to a boy scout organization and lived with Jews. At his suggestion, a compromise was reached that although Minister of Education Edo Osterloh appointed him, Menzel then renounced the office.

In the Federal Republic of Germany Menzel came forward with statements on current problems of constitutional law and dealt with the question of Germany's borders and reunification. He advised Germany in the continental shelf dispute before the International Court of Justice and published on arms control and the prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons . He belonged to the pugwash movement and organized the first international pugwash event in Germany in 1968.

In 1975 Menzel had to retire due to illness.

Fonts

• The effectiveness of international law norms in English law. In: Journal of International Law. 18 (1934) 1934, pp. 155-180.
• Foundations of the new state thinking. Röth, Eisenach 1934.
• People and state, nation and empire. Röth, Eisenach 1934.
• un Friedrich Giese: From German international law thinking of the present. Considerations following a seminar on international law at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Breidenstein, Frankfurt aM 1938.
• The English doctrine of the nature of the norm of international law. Märtin, Breslau 1940.
• and Friedrich Giese: German Warfare Law. Collection of the legal provisions applicable to German warfare. Heymann, Berlin 1940.
• The American proposals for the reform of the naval law of 1939. In: Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht. 25 (1941/42) 1941, pp. 433-472.
• The English doctrine of the nature of the norm of international law. Märtin, Breslau 1942.
• The peace treaties of 1947. With Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Finland. Verl. Europa-Archiv, Oberursel / Ts 1948.
• The foreign war criminals legislation (Poland, Norway, Netherlands). In: Archives of Public Law. 36, No. 4 1949, pp. 424-452.
• The German western border after the Second World War. An investigation of the territorial claims of Germany's western neighbors; the Dutch territorial claims to Germany. In: Europa-Archiv: Contemporary history, contemporary criticism, administration, economic development; Semi-monthly d. German Society for Foreign Policy. 4, No. 19 1949, pp. 2499-2510.
• Legal opinion on the Dutch territorial claims against Germany since 1945. Forschungsstelle f. International law and Foreign public law of the University of Hamburg, Hamburg 1949.
• The German western border after the Second World War. An investigation of the territorial claims of Germany's western neighbors; the Saar question. In: Europa-Archiv: Contemporary history, contemporary criticism, administration, economic development; Semi-monthly d. German Society for Foreign Policy. 6, No. 16/17 1951, pp. 4259-4275.
• Legality or illegality of the use of nuclear weapons. Mohr, Tübingen 1960.
• The United Nations and the right of peoples to self-determination. In: Festschrift for Rudolf Laun on his eightieth birthday. 1962.
• International law. A study book. Beck, Munich a. a. 1962.
• The German continental shelf in the North Sea and its legal order. In: Archives of Public Law. 90, No. 1 1965, pp. 1-61.
• International law and peacekeeping. In: Journal for Protestant Ethics. 1968.
• Recognition or non-recognition of the GDR? To clarify basic international law and political issues. In: Politics: Vierteljahresschr. d. Kuratoriums Indivisible Germany. No. 3/4 1969, pp. 70-103.
• The continental shelf of the Federal Republic of Germany and the judgment of the International Court of Justice of February 20, 1969. In: Yearbook for international law. 14 (1969) 1969, pp. 13-100.
• Federal Council - Brake on Eastern Treaties? The opposition is using an ineffective instrument; a constitutional analysis. In: Die Zeit: weekly newspaper for politics, business, knowledge and culture. 26, No. 35 1971, p. 40.
• The United Nations military operations to secure peace. In: Yearbook for International Law. 15 (1971) 1971, pp. 11-137.
• Unconstitutionality of the Eastern Treaty of 1970? In: Public administration: DÖV; Journal of Public Law and Administrative Science. 24, No. 11 1971, pp. 361-378.
• The Eastern Treaties of 1970 and the right of peoples to self-determination. In: Journal of Legal Policy: ZRP. 8, No. 2 1972, pp. 35-41.
• The welfare state as a constitutional principle of the Federal Republic. In: Public administration: DÖV; Journal of Public Law and Administrative Science. 25, No. 15/16 1972, pp. 537-546.
• and Knut Ipsen : International Law. A study book. 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-406-03410-1 .

literature

• Jost Delbrück (Ed.): Law in the service of peace. Festschrift for Eberhard Menzel on his 65th birthday on January 21, 1976. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-428-03540-2 .
• Dietrich Rauschning : Eberhard Menzel sixty-five years . In: Public Administration 29 (1976), p. 49f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Friedrich Giese and Eberhard Menzel: From the German international legal thinking of the present. Considerations following a seminar on international law at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Breidenstein, Frankfurt aM 1938, p. 10.
2. ^ Michael Stolleis: Friedrich Giese. In: Bernhard Diestelkamp and Michael Stolleis (eds.). Lawyers at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1989, ISBN 978-3-7890-1832-9 , p. 125; Stefan Ruppert: "Strictly scientific and completely apolitical". The constitutional lawyer Friedrich Giese in the time of National Socialism. In: Jörn Kobes and Jan-Otmar Hesse (eds.). Frankfurt scientists between 1933 and 1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 3-8353-0258-2 , p. 198.
3. ↑ Wilhelm Hennis : The problem of sovereignty. A contribution to recent literary history . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, p. 38.
4. ^ Michael Stolleis: History of Public Law in Germany. Weimar Republic and National Socialism. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-48960-0 , p. 266.
5. ↑ Shadows by the sea . In: Der Spiegel , 10/1964, March 4, 1964; Wrong in Kiel . In: Die Zeit , March 6, 1964.