Herbert Jäger (lawyer)

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Herbert Jäger (born May 14, 1928 in Hamburg ; † December 11, 2014 ) was a German legal scholar and criminologist . He taught as a professor of criminal law at the universities in Giessen and Frankfurt am Main . With his concept of macro-crime , he broadened the perspective of criminology beyond what is commonly referred to as delinquency .

Life

Jäger's father was a teacher and co-founder of the Lichtwark School . Already in his childhood he dealt with major Nazi crimes, especially when he learned of the suicide of a Jewish friend of his parents, the artist Alma del Banco , with whom she predicted a deportation to a concentration camp . Later he meticulously followed the Nuremberg trials through the media and personally observed relevant trials (against Veit Harlan and Erich von Manstein ). According to his own statement, these processes were the “initial experience” for him to start studying law.

From 1949 he studied at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the University of Hamburg , where he received his doctorate in 1957 and habilitated in 1966 . Immediately afterwards he was appointed to the first professorship in criminal law in Giessen. In 1972 he switched to the professorship for criminal law and criminal policy at the University of Frankfurt am Main, where he taught and researched until his retirement in 1993.

His publications on sexual criminal law had a major impact on its gradual liberalization and were a condition for the Great Penal Reform . He devoted himself scientifically to his "life topic" since his habilitation thesis "Crimes under totalitarian rule" (1967), with which he (like Fritz Bauer ) left the mainstream of the Federal Republic of Germany's criminal law studies. The “life theme” culminated in his concept of macro-crime , which is considered to be a lasting and internationally radiating creation of Jäger. In doing so, he distanced himself from the all too narrow views of criminal sociology and focused on major crimes that are committed in the name of and by institutions.

Jäger was a member of the advisory board of the Humanist Union . He also became a member of the German Society for Sexual Research and was its second chairman from 1970 to 1972. He remained unmarried.

Fonts (selection)

  • Criminal legislation and protection of legal interests in the case of moral offenses. A criminal sociological investigation . Enke, Stuttgart 1957.
  • As editor with Hans Bürger-Prinz , Fritz Bauer and Hans Giese : Sexuality and crime. Frankfurt / Hamburg 1963.
  • As editor: Criminology in criminal proceedings. On the importance of psychological, sociological and criminological knowledge for criminal law practice . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-07809-7 .
  • Crimes under totalitarian rule. Studies on National Socialist Violent Crime . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-518-27988-2 (new edition of the habilitation thesis from 1967).
  • Individual attribution of collective behavior. On the criminal-criminological significance of group dynamics , Metzner, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-7875-5326-6 .
  • As editor with Eberhard Schorsch : Sexology and criminal law . Enke, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-432-96011-5 .
  • Macro crime. Studies on the criminology of collective violence . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-28445-2 .

literature

  • Lorenz Böllinger : About the good that always creates evil. Forensic essays in honor of Herbert Jäger . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1993. ISBN 3-518-28667-6
  • Lorenz Böllinger and Rüdiger Lautmann : Herbert Jäger (1928–2014) . In: Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung 28/1, pp. 75–79, online version (accessed on June 10, 2016).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniela Klimke and Aldo Legnaro (eds.): Criminological basic texts . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016. ISBN 978-3-658-06503-4 , p. 309.
  2. ↑ Information on the professional biography is based, unless otherwise stated, on Böllinger and Lautmann: Herbert Jäger (1928–2014) .
personal data
SURNAME Hunter, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German legal scholar and criminologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 2014