Eduard Rosenthal

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Eduard Rosenthal (born September 6, 1853 in Würzburg , † June 25, 1926 in Jena ) was a German legal scholar , legal historian , university professor and politician ( NLP , DDP ).

Life and work

The Rosenthalvilla in Jena

Eduard Rosenthal was born in Würzburg as the third son of the Jewish merchant Salomon Rosenthal. After graduating from high school in Würzburg (1865–1872), he studied economics and law at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin from 1872 to 1876 . He graduated from the University of Würzburg in 1876 ​​with very good grades . It was there that Richard Schröder (1838–1917) aroused his inclination towards German legal history . He took semesters of study in Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1878, at the suggestion of Schröder, he received his doctorate in Würzburg with the work on the history of property in the city of Wirzburg . In 1879 he passed the assessor exam in Bayreuth . After the second legal state examination in 1879, he received his habilitation in 1880 at the University of Jena with the work The legal consequences of adultery according to canonical and German law with the constitutional lawyer Georg Meyer (1841-1900). From 1885 he worked as an associate professor (private lecturer without income) and from 1896 as a full professor for German legal history and public law at the University of Jena. Eduard Rosenthal was rector of the Jena University twice (1899/1900 and 1913/1914). In addition, he was awarded the title of Privy Councilor of Justice . His areas of work included administrative and civil service law , and later also constitutional law.

Eduard Rosenthal was married to Clara Ellstätter (1863–1941) from 1885 . The evangelical baptized son Curt Arnold Otto (1887–1914) emerged from the marriage. The son, who volunteered for military service in 1914, was killed in the first battle of his unit in 1914 on the Western Front, where he, who studied in Paris and London, wanted to fight his former fellow students.

The Carl Zeiss Foundation was established in 1889, the statutes of which Eduard Rosenthal worked with Julius Pierstorff and Siegfried Czapski . He worked as a consultant for the Zeiss co-owner Ernst Abbe and was responsible for the progressive statutes of the Carl Zeiss Foundation after 1890. His friendship with Ernst Abbe came from this time.

In 1891 the construction of his Villa Rosenthal began, which the couple had built according to their ideas.

Eduard Rosenthal died on June 25, 1926 in Jena after a long and serious illness. At the time of his death he was a respected member of the Jena upper class, an honorary citizen of the city of Jena and an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena.

politics

During the time of the German Empire , Rosenthal also dealt with politics and joined the National Liberal Party (NLP). From 1909 he was a member of the state parliament in the Grand Duchy of Saxony (Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach) and was a member of the liberal parliamentary group there. He was also a member of the board of the Jena trade association for several years.

After the November Revolution, Rosenthal joined the German Democratic Party (DDP) . In 1919/20 he was a member of the Landtag of the Free State of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach and as such took part in the conferences on the formation of the State of Thuringia . During this time the community of Thuringian states commissioned him to work out a draft constitution for Thuringia . On January 23, 1920, the People's Council unanimously approved this draft constitution, almost unchanged. His draft of the first, initially provisional Thuringian state constitution, comprising over 90 articles, crowned his life's work, in which he repeatedly dealt with legal history and wrote many sustainable works on it. With only insignificant changes, his draft constitution was adopted by the Thuringian state parliament on May 12, 1920 and later finally confirmed in a slightly abridged version with 73 articles in March 1921. Article 1 stipulates the constitution as a Free State. Eduard Rosenthal thus became the father of the Thuringian constitution.

After the founding of the state of Thuringia, he was a member of the Thuringian state parliament from 1921 until his resignation for health reasons on February 12, 1925 , and since 1924 a member of the Thuringian Ordnungsbund parliamentary group .

Works (selection)

  • On the history of property in the city of Wirzburg. A contribution to the history of property in German cities. Stuber, Würzburg 1878 (dissertation; digitized version ).
  • The legal consequences of adultery according to canonical and German law . Thein, Würzburg 1880 (habilitation thesis; digitized version ).
  • Contributions to the history of German city law . Stuber, Würzburg 1883.
  • The authorities Organization of Emperor Ferdinand I . Gerold, Vienna 1887.
  • History of the judiciary and the administrative organization of Bavaria. 2 volumes. Stuber, Würzburg 1889/1906 ( digitized version of volume 1 ).
  • International Rail Freight Law. Fischer, Jena 1894.
  • The imperial government. A constitutional and political study . Fischer, Jena 1911.

literature

Honors

  • Honorary citizenship of the city of Jena, April 27, 1920
  • Honorary doctorate (Dr. hc) from the University of Jena
  • Villa Rosenthal has been a Jena cultural center since 2009 and awards the “Clara and Eduard Rosenthal scholarships” named after the Rosenthal couple. The villa offers living and working opportunities for two scholarship holders in the fields of fine arts and literature / urban writing. The villa can also be rented for celebrations and meetings. On the upper floor there is a permanent exhibition on the fate of the couple and the history of the villa, a ballroom and the non-public rooms for the scholarship holders.
  • Namesake of a street in Weimar

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rosenthal, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German legal scholar, legal historian, university professor and politician (NLP, DDP)
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Wurzburg
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1926
Place of death Jena