Gerd Pfeiffer

Gerd Pfeiffer (born December 22, 1919 in Striegau , Silesia , † February 1, 2007 in Karlsruhe ) was a German lawyer and President of the Federal Court of Justice from 1977 to 1987 .

Life

In March 1937 Pfeiffer passed the Abitur examination and from April 1937 was recruited for the Reich Labor Service in Breslau . From 1937 he did his military service and after the outbreak of war he served as a soldier until 1945. He was wounded five times. After the war, he studied from 1945 to 1948 at the University of Erlangen law . In 1948 he was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD .

After taking the second state examination in law in 1951, Pfeiffer joined the judicial service of the State of Bavaria . From 1952 to 1958 he was seconded to the Federal Constitutional Court as a research assistant , after which he worked as a judge at the Munich I Regional Court and the Munich Higher Regional Court .

Pfeiffer was appointed federal judge on April 7, 1966. The Presidium assigned him to the 1st Criminal Division of the court , which he chaired as Senate President on March 5, 1970. On November 3, 1976, he was appointed Vice-President of the Federal Court of Justice and a year later, on October 1, 1977, he was appointed President of the Court to succeed Robert Fischer . In this function, Pfeiffer took over the chairmanship of the Cartel Senate of the Federal Court of Justice.

In 1979 he was selected as the keynote speaker for the centenary of the founding of the Imperial Court. He managed a remarkable balancing act in his remarks. On the one hand, he had to approve of the conservative legal tradition until 1933, on the other hand, it had to brand the National Socialist application of law and respond to legal developments since 1945.

He was highly respected for his legal competence and determination in criminal law. He also brought up these skills as chairman of the ethics committee in Freiburg, as well as chairman of the scientific advisory board of the Justice and National Socialism exhibition in 1989. He opposed tendencies to disproportionately tighten criminal law. He also came out against the leniency program , which the then Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann pursued. Pfeiffer was u. a. Editor of the Karlsruhe Commentary on the Code of Criminal Procedure (Munich: CH Beck 1982, 5th edition 2003).

Pfeiffer, honorary professor at the University of Hagen , retired on December 31, 1987. Walter Odersky was his successor . Pfeiffer was the first Social Democrat to head the Federal Supreme Court.

From 1988 to 1993 he was chairman of the sponsoring association for the Karlsruhe Museum of Legal History.

Awards and honors

• Large Federal Cross of Merit with star and shoulder ribbon
• Bavarian Order of Merit
• Large gold medal on ribbon for services to the Republic of Austria
• Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• Decoration of honor of the German legal profession
• Various war awards ( EK II, EK I )

literature

• Klaus Tiedemann , Otto-Friedrich Freiherr von Gamm , Peter Raisch : criminal law, corporate law, legal law. Festschrift for Gerd Pfeiffer. Farewell from office as President of the Federal Court of Justice. Heymann, Cologne et al. 1988, ISBN 3-452-20938-5 .
• Thomas Fischer : Gerd Pfeiffer † February 1, 2007. Obituary. In: Journal of contemporary legal history. 1st year, issue 3, 2007, ISSN  1863-9984 , pp. 101-103.

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerd Pfeiffer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Prof. Dr. Gerd Pfeiffer is 85 years old
• Ex-BGH President Pfeiffer is dead
• Entry on the part of the Federal Court of Justice

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Professor Dr. Gerd Pfeiffer. Website of the BGH, accessed on June 24, 2018 . 
2. ↑ The mirror. Issue 7, 2007