Louis Levin

Louis Levin (born March 23, 1865 in Tost , Silesia ; died September 23 , uncertainly in Berlin , 1939 ) was a German lawyer of Jewish origin.

Life

He was the son of a teacher and was raised in the Israelite religion. There are different statements as to whether he later converted to the Lutheran faith or remained a "religious Jew", as the National Socialists called him. From 1878 he attended the grammar school in Chemnitz , from 1881 that in Bad Kreuznach , where he passed his Abitur in 1884 . He then studied law at the Universities of Breslau and Berlin . In 1887 he was at the Berlin Law School with a commercial theme doctorate . In 1899 he passed the second state examination in law at the Court of Appeal . He then became a court assessor in the Prussian judicial service and was used in several courts. From 1899 he was a magistrate in Sorau in Silesia . From 1906 he worked at the Berlin-Schöneberg District Court . During this time several publications appeared. In particular, his monograph “Judicial Process Management and Session Police in Theory and Practice”, published in 1913, met with widespread interest and was highly praised. In 1919 he became a member of the chamber judge.

In 1922 he became President of the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court after his predecessor Hans Wolf had retired after lowering the statutory age limit. The Brunswick judiciary did not like to accept the foreigner and he remained socially isolated throughout his work. On the occasion of his inauguration, allegations were made that he only came to the post out of consideration for his political views.

In terms of legal policy, Levin worked in Braunschweig primarily in the field of legal training. In addition, he developed an interest in social law and took on lectures as an associate professor at the Technical University of Braunschweig since 1923 . He was also considered one of the leading practitioners in matters of civil procedural law . As early as 1920 he became a member of the commission in the Reich Ministry of Justice for the reform of the code of civil procedure . The progressive bill of 1931, which emphasized the social understanding of the nature of civil litigation, never became law.

Later he came into conflict with the social democratic Braunschweig Minister of Justice Hans Sievers . In order to get rid of Levin, the state government again lowered the legal age limit for judges to 65, as in the case of his predecessor, so that Levin had to retire shortly afterwards on July 1, 1930. He returned to Berlin-Schöneberg. His last scientific publication appeared in 1933. Little is known about his further fate. His death was only recorded at the Berlin registry office . The cause of death is unknown.

He was a member of the DDP and the Republican Association of Judges , in whose journal Die Justiz he published many of his essays. Despite his considerable legal work, he was almost completely forgotten for years. In Braunschweig there was no personal file about him after the war, and photos of him no longer exist either. Only one of his successors, Rudolf Wassermann , discovered him again. Besides Wassermann, Levin was the only president of the higher regional court in Braunschweig who was brought in from outside and, besides Wassermann, the only one who had published on a larger scale.

Publications (excerpt)

• About the commission business in the Hansa area. Berlin legal dissertation 1887.
• Judicial process management and session police in theory and practice. Berlin 1913.
• The legal meaning of compulsory lawyer. Berlin 1916.

literature

• Dieter Miosge : Louis Levin. in: Edgar Isermann, Michael Schlüter (Ed.): Justice and Lawyers in Braunschweig 1879-2004. Joh. Heinrich Meyer Verlag, Braunschweig 2004, ISBN 3-926701-62-5 , p. 137f.
• Rudolf Wassermann : Louis Levin. President of the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court 1922–1930. In: Small Fonts. No. 19, published by the Braunschweig City Archives and Braunschweig City Library , Braunschweig 1988.
• Rudolf Wassermann: Louis Levin, A "Guide to Practice". in: Helmut Heinrichs (Hrsg.): German lawyers of Jewish origin. CH Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-36960-X , p. 495ff.

Web links

• Literature by and about Louis Levin in the catalog of the German National Library