Hermann Klenner

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Hermann Klenner (born January 5, 1926 in Erbach (Odenwald) ) is a German lawyer and was honorary professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin .

life and career

Klenner grew up in Adelsbach and Breslau in Silesia , where he graduated from high school in 1944. Since 1936 he was a member of the Hitler Youth (HJ) and joined the NSDAP on April 20, 1944 . He was then called up for military service. Wehrmacht soldier since October 1944, wounded as a private in a grenade launcher company, he was released as a prisoner of war by the Red Army from a hospital in Halle (Saale) in September 1945 . Until 1946 he worked as a construction worker in the Buna plant . He first joined the SPD and became a member of the SED after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD in 1946 . Klenner studied from 1946 to 1949 at the law and political science faculty of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Halle (Saale). After passing the state examination , Klenner was a scientific aspirant at the law faculty of the University of Leipzig .

With effect from September 1, 1951, the Law Faculty of the Humboldt University of Berlin (HUB) commissioned Klenner to teach the subjects of the theory of the state and law and history and the history of legal philosophy . In 1952 he became there a Doctor of Law (jur Dr.) PhD .

From 1953 to 1954 he worked as a lecturer and deputy director of the Institute for Theory of State and Law , where he was appointed professor with a teaching position in 1956 and at the same time became vice dean of the law faculty at Humboldt University.

As a SED member in a leading position, Klenner wrote a written contribution on the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution , which aroused the displeasure of the political leadership due to partly historical-critical considerations. Although he then spoke of a failed speech and admitted what was “harmful and wrong” to the government, the incident led to the loss of his professorship and a temporary ban on publication. After a criticism by Walter Ulbricht in 1958 at the Babelsberg Conference , Klenner became mayor of Letschin im Oderbruch until 1960 .

From 1960 to 1967 Klenner worked as a professor at the Institute for Business and International Business Law at the University of Economics in Karlshorst . There he completed his habilitation in 1964. From 1967 to 1969 he was head of the legal department at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW) and was accepted into the committee for the protection of human rights . According to a textbook draft, he was classified by the state leadership as a "recidivist revisionist" and his job was closed in 1969, after accusations by the public prosecutor.

From 1969 to 1991 he was a research assistant at the Central Institute for Philosophy of the AdW. He became an internationally known advocate of Marxist-Leninist legal history, legal philosophy and legal conception . From 1970 to the end of 1989 Klenner worked as an unofficial employee (IM) "Klee" for the Ministry for State Security (MfS), on whose behalf he provided, among other things, an expert opinion for the trial against the dissident Rudolf Bahro . Klenner wrote books and essays and was later awarded the GDR National Prize, as well as the Hegel Medal and the Pufendorf Medal . In 1978 he became a corresponding member and in 1987 a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, from 1984 to 1986 he represented the GDR as head of the GDR delegation at the UN human rights conference in Geneva . The representative of Israel then read out Klenner's NSDAP membership number and remarked that Klenner was especially called to comment on Jewish matters. The New York Post commented, “East Germans have made it their regular practice to accuse others of housing former Nazis. That they are represented in the UN by an ex-Nazi is an interesting comment on communist cynicism. "

In the final phase of the GDR , the members of the AdW elected the supposedly opposition member to chair their round table . Klenner's work at this point was agreed with the MfS, to which he had previously advised in writing that it had to "secure the conditions under which the upheaval process can take place in a direction that corresponds to our Marxist-Leninist conception".

In 1991 he retired . From September 1990 to 1993 he was honorary professor at the Law Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin.

In his academic work, Klenner particularly addresses the relationship between power and law and the value of law in its normativity. The Association of Democratic Jurists praised him for his “ideology-critical jurisprudence”, “which understands law not only as an expression of the power and reflex of interests, but also as a measure of power and the exercise of power”. An essential statement from him is: “Even if the political economy is not dissolved in terms of justice and the existential questions of humanity cannot simply be pushed back into the conscience of the individual - a legal mechanism that guarantees the self-determination of the individual and limits the exercise of power in society remains indispensable . To predict its death is to marginalize its importance. The hard core of any power is violence. If this is not domesticated plebiscitary, and this also means: legalized, then the people atone for the crimes of the rulers. Just as an individual's spiritual and moral control authority, be it belief or reason, at least his conscience belongs to being human, so is being or becoming human, a legitimation authority for the past and future behavior of those in power. ”His essential contribution lies in a Marxist analysis of legal philosophy and its history, in particular the English Enlightenment from Francis Bacon to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin and the German Enlightenment from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Eduard Gans to Karl Marx . A particular focus was on thinkers with a Jewish background such as Eduard Gans, Heinrich Heine and Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim .

Klenner is a member of the International Association for Legal and Social Philosophy (IVR), was a member of its Presidium from 1967 to 1987 and is now an honorary member of the Presidium. He is a member of the Left Party and sits on its council of elders. Klenner has been a founding member of the Leibniz Society for Science in Berlin since 1993 .

criticism

In the 1970s, West German leftists criticized Klenner's theoretical-opportunistic handling of the law, according to his definition of legal positivism, which promoted legal nihilism. Wilhelm Raimund Beyer , philosopher and law professor at the Humboldt University in East Berlin, criticized Klenner for the “non-person declaration” he made after Beyer had fallen out of favor in the GDR and in the course of the Peter Ruben / Camilla Warnke affair had resigned his teaching post and had resigned from the GDR Academy of Sciences and the DKP .

In reunified Germany , the long-standing ideologue of the GDR's philosophy of law received honors, such as his appearance as a keynote speaker for the IVR in 1991 and the publication of a commemorative publication by Werner Maihofer and Gerhard Sprenger in 1996/98. In 2005, Klenner received the "Human Rights Prize" from the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity eV , which was observed by the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution and in 2007 was considered a platform for people "who after 1990 lost their offices or reputation as members of the GDR functional elite or as artists, scientists or lawyers". Klenner was repeatedly criticized for his relationship with the GDR government. André Gursky sees Klenner as an exposed example of how the Ministry for State Security tried to influence legal philosophy and policy in relations within Germany.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

Hermann Klenner's scientific estate is stored in the archive of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

  • Hermann and Annelies Klenner: Plea for a materialistic legal theory. In: Johann J. Hagen, Peter Römer , Wolfgang Seiffert (eds.): Law and workers' movement. Festschrift for Eduard Rabofsky. Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag, Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-7609-0254-5 , pp. 27-44.
  • Marxism and human rights. Studies in legal philosophy , Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1982.
  • From the law of nature to the nature of law . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1984.
  • German legal philosophy in the 19th century. Essays . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1991.
  • Kant's design “For Eternal Peace” - Illusion or Utopia? In: On the idea of ​​a global peace order. Contributions - following Immanuel Kant's draft “For Eternal Peace”. Published by the Dresden Study Group on Security Policy (DSS) e. V .: DSS working papers , Dresden 1997, issue 31, pp. 3-16.
  • The European Union as a democratic, constitutional and welfare state-based peace order? Published by the Dresden Study Group on Security Policy (DSS) e. V .: DSS working papers, Dresden 1998, Issue 41, pp. 3–17.
  • The well-understood interest. Legal and State Philosophy in the English Enlightenment . Dinter, Cologne 1998.
  • The emancipation of the citizen. Studies on Legal Philosophy and Enlightenment , Cologne 1998.
  • Ethnic minorities in international law. Attachment. In: International Law and Legal Consciousness for a Global Peace Order. Contributions from the 4th Dresden Symposium “For a Global Peace Order” on November 20, 1999. Published by the Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspektiven (DSS) e. V .: DSS working papers, Dresden 2000, Issue 52, pp. 83–87. urn : nbn: de: bsz: 14-qucosa2-340176
  • "American Values" instead of International Law? In: Analyzing and Thinking for Peace and Human Rights. Ernst Woit on his 70th birthday. Published by the Dresden Study Group on Security Policy (DSS) e. V .: DSS working papers, Dresden 2002, issue 62, pp. 53–60.
  • The historicity of law. Classic legal thinking in Germany . Dinter, Cologne 2003.
  • Right and wrong . Transkript Verlag, Bielefeld 2004.
  • Historizing legal philosophy. Freiburg 2009.
  • Historizing legal philosophy. Haufe-Lexware, Freiburg 2009.
  • Criticism of the law. Updating legal philosophy . Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 2015.
  • Law, the rule of law and justice. Cologne 2016.

Editing

  • Wilhelm von Humboldt: Individual und Staatsgewalt [1789–1793], Leipzig 1985.
  • Gerrard Wollstonecraft: Equality in the Realm of Freedom [1649–1652], Leipzig 1986, Frankfurt 1988.
  • John Milton: In Defense of Liberty , [1644–16601]. Leipzig 1987.
  • Immanuel Kant: legal theory. Writings on the Philosophy of Law [1784–1798], Berlin 1988.
  • Baruch de Spinoza: Politischer Traktat [1677], Leipzig 1988.
  • Edmund Burke, Friedrich Gentz: About the French Revolution [1790–1793], Berlin 1991.
  • James Harrington: Oceana [1665], Leipzig 1991.
  • Rudolf von Ihering: The Struggle for Law [1872], Freiburg 1992.
  • Legal philosophy at Rotteck-Welcker. Texts from the Staats-Lexikon 1834–1847. Freiburg / Berlin 1994.
  • Wilhelm von Humboldt: Human Education and State Constitution [1791–1819], Freiburg 1994.
  • Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan . Translated from English by Jutta Schlösser. With an introduction. Meiner, Hamburg 1996, 2005.
  • Mary Wollstonecraft: Defense of Human Rights [1790], Freiburg 1996.
  • William Godwin: Political Justice [1793], Freiburg 2004.
  • Arthur Baumgarten: Fundamentals of legal methodology [1939], Freiburg 2005.
  • Francis Bacon: On the dignity and promotion of science [1605/1623], Freiburg 2006.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Rüthers : Enhanced stories, spared biographies. Socialization cohorts in Wendel literature. An essay . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, p. 61.
  2. ^ Guntolf Herzberg: Adaptation and revolt. The intelligentsia of the GDR in the crisis years 1956/58 . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2006, p. 395 ff.
  3. ^ Guntolf Herzberg: departure and settlement. New studies on philosophy in the GDR . Ch.links Verlag, Berlin 2000, pp. 99, 112.
  4. ^ Henry Leide: Nazi Criminals and State Security . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005, p. 87.
  5. ^ Quote from Wolfgang Schuller : Arguable for the dictatorship. Hermann Klenner receives a commemorative publication . FAZ of September 2, 1996; accessed on 2020.
  6. ↑ Birthday congratulations to Hermann Klenner ( Memento from April 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Association of Democratic Lawyers.
  7. ^ Hermann Klenner: Karl Marx and the question of a just society. In: Konrad von Bonin (Ed.): Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag Leipzig 1997. Documents , Gütersloh 1999, p. 289.
  8. ↑ Joachim Herrmann: Preface in honor of Hermann Klenner. (pdf) pp. 5–11 , accessed on June 12, 2018 (reports from the Leibniz Society 85 (2006)).
  9. ↑ Ex-Nazis in leading positions . In: Focus , May 8, 2010.
  10. ↑ Peter Römer , Günter Platzdasch u. a .: Legal philosophy in crisis. In: Demokratie und Recht , 5th year, issue 4/1977, pp. 463–472.
  11. ^ Wilhelm Raimund Beyer: privateers in Hegelian fields. Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 147.
  12. ↑ Bernd Rüthers: Traitor, chance hero or conscience of the nation? Facets of the resistance in Germany . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-16-149751-3 , p. 29 f .; ( Preview ).
  13. ↑ Reports in the Committee for the Protection of the Constitution (VSA) of the Berlin House of Representatives , dealt with in public and non-public meetings on March 14, 2007 and April 18, 2007, p. 4.
  14. ^ André Gursky: Legal positivism and conspiratorial justice as political criminal justice in the GDR . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2011.
  15. ↑ Laudation for Hermann Klenner and Erwin Siemantel . Association of Democratic Lawyers.
personal data
SURNAME Klenner, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Erbach (Odenwald)