Hildebert Kirchner

Hildebert Kirchner, drawing by Hans Pfannmüller

Hildebert Kirchner (born November 8, 1920 in Hildesheim ; † May 28, 2012 in Karlsruhe ) was a German legal librarian and legal bibliographer .

Live and act

Kirchner was born in 1920 as the middle of three sons of the businessman Oskar Kirchner. Despite his father's early suicide, Kirchner was able to attend the humanistic high school Andreanum in Hildesheim and finish with the Abitur. In the summer semester of 1939 he began studying law and history at the University of Göttingen . There he passed his first state examination in law in 1942. Kirchner turned down an offer from Wilhelm Ebel to do his habilitation there because of his National Socialist background. Instead he became a research assistant at Hans Niedermeyer . He was not able to hold this position for long, however, because despite his initial exemption due to polio he had to do military service in 1944 and was drafted into a medical service.

After a short period as a prisoner of war in Denmark, Kirchner continued his traineeship, which he had started during the war, at the Göttingen Regional Court . At the same time he became a research assistant for Wilhelm Felgentraeger . In 1948 he passed his second state examination and came to the public prosecutor's office as an assessor. However, this activity did not meet his expectations and so he joined a library traineeship in Göttingen . At the same time he devoted himself to his doctorate . He completed this in 1950 under the supervision of Rudolf Smend and was awarded a doctorate by the University of Göttingen. iur. PhD. In 1951 Kirchner passed the specialist examination for the higher library service and in the following year 1952 came to the library of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe . As early as 1956 he became its director, which he remained until his retirement in 1985. He was highly valued in the Association of German Librarians . His expertise was also recognized by the courts, so that he worked several times as an expert on library remuneration questions for labor courts.

His list of legal abbreviations , which first appeared in 1957, was widely used . He also published on questions of current legal affairs and the history of the judiciary in Germany.

Fonts

• Karlsruhe legal bibliography. Edited by Hildebert Kirchner (among others). Beck, Munich 1965–. ISSN  0453-3283 .
• The bibliographer. An unnecessary study that might be useful for librarians. Irrevocable one and last edition on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Working Group of Parliament and Authority Libraries. From Adolf Reimann (that is: Hildebert Kirchner). Löwen-Verlag, Karlsruhe 1980.
• Outline of library and documentation law. 2., through Edition Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1993. ISBN 3-465-02602-0 . - Preview in Google Book Search.
• Bibliography on corporate and corporate law. 1950-1985; 1986-1995. De Gruyter, Berlin [a. a.]: 1989-1998. ISBN 3-11-010770-8 ; ISBN 3-11-015502-8 .
• List of abbreviations for the legal language. 6., completely reworked. and exp. Ed. With the collaboration of Dietrich Pannier . De Gruyter Recht, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-3-89949-336-8 (bound); ISBN 978-3-89949-335-1 (paperback). (5th ed. 2003, edited by Cornelia Butz . - Preview in the Google book search.)

literature

• Wolfgang Dietz (Ed.): Festschrift for Hildebert Kirchner on the 65th birthday. Beck, Munich 1985. ISBN 3-406-31013-3 . (P. 413 ff: Bibliography Hildebert Kirchner by Franz Schneider.)
• Detlev Fischer : Hildebert Kirchner - A life for legal literature and history. In: Law, Library, Documentation. 40. 2010 (2011), ISSN  0935-2538 , pp. 182-184. (Reprint from Legal Tribune Online dated November 12, 2010 with a footnote .)
• Klaus Tolksdorf : Speech at the funeral service Dr. Hildebert Kirchner on June 15, 2012 in Karlsruhe. In: Law, Library, Documentation. 42 (2012), ISSN  0935-2538 , pp. 98-101. (Also p. 102: Dietrich Pannier : Commemorative speech for the funeral service of Dr. Hildebert Kirchner on June 15, 2012 in Karlsruhe. )
• Detlev Fischer (Ed.): In Memoriam Hildebert Kirchner. (1920-2012). Publishing house of the Society for Cultural History Documentation, Karlsruhe, 2013. (Series of publications by the Legal History Museum Karlsruhe; 29th) ISBN 978-3-922596-94-3 . [With bibliography Kirchner.]
• Marcus Obert: Hildebert Kirchner , in U. Falk, M. Gehrlein, G. Kreft, M. Obert (eds.): Legal history and other tours, Festschrift for Detlev Fischer (2018), pp. 385–392.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hildebert Kirchner in the catalog of the German National Library