Jacob Friedrich Behrend

Jacob Friedrich Behrend (born September 13, 1833 in Berlin , † January 9, 1907 in Berlin; also Jakob Friedrich Behrend, Jacob Behrend, Jakob Behrend ) was a German lawyer and the author of several standard legal works.

Life

Behrend was born in Berlin as the son of the physician and later secret medical councilor Friedrich Jacob Behrend . He studied in Berlin law . In 1859 he became a court assessor . However, since he was more interested in a university career, he completed his habilitation in 1864 and became a private lecturer at the University of Berlin.

His first publications already made him known among his colleagues. In “Magdeburg Questions” (1865), Behrend critically examines the manuscripts of the same name, which originated between 1386 and 1402 and deal with the law of lay judges. In 1868 his second work, "A Stendal Judgment Book from the 14th Century" appeared. It contains 31 decisions of the Magdeburg Schöffenstuhl that have never been published before and have been exhaustively commented on by Behrend . This work has been accepted by legal scholars as an exemplary model for work of this kind.

In 1870 Behrend became an associate professor in Berlin. In the next few years he was editor-in-chief of the "Journal for German Legislation and Uniform German Law" (since 1875 "Journal for Legislation and Justice in Prussia"). Felix Dahn was one of the employees for a time (1873) . During this time, significant contributions by Behrend appeared in other publications, such as his 1873 treatise "An Expert Opinion on Stock Companies" in Leipzig. In the same year, Behrend accepted a call from Greifswald University as a full professor of law.

In 1874 his perhaps most important contribution to legal literature appeared in Berlin: “ Lex Salica , In addition to the capitularies for Lex Salica, edited by Alf. Boretius ". Behrend devoted himself to the critical publication of this collection of laws from the early Franks with great scientific thoroughness, and so a revised and expanded edition was published in Weimar in 1897.

In 1880, Behrend began to publish the “Textbook of Commercial Law”, which was designed in two volumes, initially with a first delivery of 192 pages. Since there has not yet been a work that covered all of German commercial law, it became a protracted project. The first volume alone comprised almost 1,000 pages and was published in six parts over the course of 16 years.

1888 Behrend was as Reichsgerichtsrat appointed to the then Supreme Court of the German Reich in Leipzig. This is remarkable insofar as Jewish citizens were not allowed to rise to higher state offices in the Empire. So it remained an isolated case at the Imperial Court for a long time. When he retired in 1900, he was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd Class with Oak Leaves.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jacob Jacobson: The Jewish Citizens' Books of the City of Berlin . Publications of the Berlin Historical Commission, Volume 4. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1962, p. 331, footnote 1687 ( online ).
2. ^ Ernst Hamburger : Jews in public life in Germany: members of the government, civil servants, etc. Parliamentarians in monarchical times. 1848-1918. Tübingen 1968, p. 44.
3. ^ Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung . Volume 5 (1900), p. 459 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Jacob Friedrich Behrend in the catalog of the German National Library
• Behrend in the Jewish Encyclopedia

predecessor	Office	successor
Leonard Landois	Rector of the University of Greifswald 1882	Hermann Cremer