Edgar Bodenheimer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edgar Bodenheimer (born March 14, 1908 in Berlin ; † May 30, 1991 in Davis, CA ) was an American law scholar and university professor of German origin.

Live and act

Bodenheimer, son of the banker Siegmund Bodenheimer , studied law and political science at the universities of Geneva , Heidelberg , Munich and Berlin . After his first state examination he was in 1933 by the University of Heidelberg with the German Stock Corporation magazine The principle of equality in corporate law Dr. iur. PhD. Due to his Jewish origin, he was refused to continue his legal training with the legal traineeship under the newly come to power; this confirmed Bodenheimer in his decision to emigrate to the USA. Without having an American degree, he subsequently worked for the New York company Rosenberg, Goldmark & ​​Collin . This was busy with the liquidation of Ivar Kreuger's matchstick company and needed experts in foreign law, so the choice fell on the Bodenheimer, who was trained in Germany. In 1935 he married the lawyer Brigitte Levy , the daughter of the legal historian Ernst Levy and whom he knew from Heidelberg. Shortly after the wedding, both decided to study American law, which they completed at the University of Washington in Seattle and graduated in 1937.

In 1939 Bodenheimer was naturalized in the United States and in 1940 he was admitted to the bar in Washington State . As a result, he returned to the east coast and took up a position in the Ministry of Labor , which he held until 1942. The main focus there was on issues relating to the Fair Labor Standard Act passed under the New Deal . In 1942 he moved to the Office of Alien Property , where he dealt with the confiscation of German property in the USA and above all with patent issues. In 1945 he was seconded to the Nuremberg Trials for four months to process files from the High Command of the Wehrmacht and IG Farben . This was followed by a similar activity in Austria. In the Nuremberg negotiations against Hjalmar Schacht , Franz von Papen and Walther Funk , Bodenheimer was a member of the prosecution. In 1936 he returned to the United States and took up a position as a professor at the University of Utah . In 1966 he moved to a chair at the University of California, Davis . In 1975 he retired there, but continued to teach as an emeritus until his death in 1991.

Bodenheimer's main research interests were broad. Among other things, he dealt in depth with comparative law, the academic review of his practical work in patent law and legal philosophy. He published several books on the latter area, which have also been translated into Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese.

Fonts (selection)

  • The principle of equality in company law , J. Bensheimer, Mannheim 1938 (dissertation)
  • Jurisprudence , McGraw-Hill 1940
  • Jurisprudence: The Philosophy and Method of the Law , Harvard University Press 1962.
  • Treatise on Justice , Philosophical Library 1967.
  • Power, Law, And Society; A Study of the Will to Power and the Will to Law , Crane, Russak 1972.
  • Philosophy of Responsibility , Fred Rothman 1980.

literature

  • Ernst C. Stiefel, Frank Mecklenburg: German lawyers in American exile (1933–1950) . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1991, ISBN 978-3-16-145688-6 , p. 56 f .
  • Rosemarie Bodenheimer: Edgar and Brigitte: A German Jewish Passage to America . The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa 2016, ISBN 978-0-8173-1925-0 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bodenheimer, Edgar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American law scholar and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1991
Place of death Davis, CA