Martin Drath

Martin Drath (born November 12, 1902 in Blumberg / Saxony ; † April 14, 1976 in Karlsruhe ) was a German lawyer and judge at the Federal Constitutional Court , whose innovative political and legal theory is still effective today in the political science disciplines.

Life

Wire grew up in a Protestant parsonage and enjoyed a humanistic education. Studying law took him to Tübingen , Leipzig , Rostock , Göttingen and Kiel . In 1927 Drath received his doctorate from Walter Jellinek in Kiel . Drath had been a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) since 1926/27 . After completing his doctorate, Drath worked for the General German Association of Officials, which was closely related to social democracy . From 1931 Drath was a part-time assistant in Berlin to the important constitutional law teachers Hermann Heller and Rudolf Smend . In 1932 he became a lecturer at the Academy of Labor at the University of Frankfurt .

When the National Socialists came to power , Martin Drath lost this position and had to make ends meet as an accountant and auditor. From 1939 to 1945 he was drafted into the armed forces in the military administration. In Belgium, Drath was from September 1940 employee of Group XII (enemy and Jewish assets) in the economic department of the German head of administration Eggert Reeder . From the end of 1940 he was managing director of the Brussels Trust Company (BTG) founded by the military administration under Belgian law, which administered the property stolen from the Jews. His offer to report to the Belgian government (Paul-Henri Spaak) in Belgium on his work was never accepted.

In 1945 Drath became a member of the SPD again and, through Hermann Brill's mediation, first worked for the Thuringian administration company and then at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena . In 1946 he became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) through the forced unification of the SPD and KPD . After his habilitation, Drath became professor for public law in Jena in 1946 . The time in Jena was shaped by his habilitation thesis, which was one of the first post-war papers to deal with Carl Schmitt's political theory. In addition, Drath worked on the Thuringian constitution and on the legislation of the country. In 1948 Drath left the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) because of the threat of political persecution .

After leaving for the western zones, he was a member of the preparatory commission for the Godesberg program of 1959. After a brief stopover in Hesse, Drath became a professor at the newly founded Free University in Berlin in 1949 . There he wrote his legal theoretical work and the important essays on the legal status of Berlin. In 1951, with the establishment of the Federal Constitutional Court , Drath became a judge in the first senate for twelve years. Among other things, he participated in the judgments in the “ Lüth ”, “ Pharmacies ”, “ Elfes ” and KPD bans . In 1963 Drath was not re-elected constitutional judge because he was defamed in the press as " Pieck's crown lawyer".

He then accepted a professorship for public law, legal sociology and legal theory at TU Darmstadt . There he devoted himself above all to the work on his doctrine of the state, which found its main expression in the article "State" in the Evangelical State Lexicon. With his innovative political and legal theory, Drath is still effective today in the political science disciplines.

Works

• Law and political science as a social science. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1977.
• Reason and limits of the binding force of the law. Mohr (Siebeck), Tübingen 1963.
• Constitutional Law and Constitutional Reality in the Soviet Occupation Zone. 4th edition. German Bundes-Verlag [in Komm.], Bonn 1956.
• Research and reports from public law. Isar Verlag, Munich 1955.
• Constitutional Law and Constitutional Reality in the Soviet Occupation Zone. 2., revised. u. exp. Edition. German Bundes-Verlag [in Komm.], Bonn 1954.
• Constitutional Law and Constitutional Reality in the Soviet Occupation Zone. German Bundes-Verlag [in Komm.], Bonn 1954.
• The right to scrutiny in the Reichstag election. G. Stilke, Berlin 1927.

literature

• Manfred Baldus : Martin Drath (1902-1976). In: Peter Häberle , Michael Kilian , Heinrich Wolff : Constitutional law teacher of the 20th century. Germany, Austria, Switzerland . De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston (2nd edition) 2018, pp. 743–761, ISBN 978-3-11-054145-8 .
• Michael Henkel , Oliver Lembcke : The state as a life's work: Martin Drath (1902–1976). In: Critical Justice . 36th vol., 2003, pp. 445-461.
• Michael Henkel, Oliver W. Lembcke (ed.): Modern political science. Contributions to the life and work of Martin Drath. (= Contributions to Political Science. Volume 156). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-428-12189-2 .
• Markus Porsche-Ludwig:  Drath, Martin. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 32, Bautz, Nordhausen 2011, ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5 , Sp. 247-253.
• Martin Otto: Martin Drath (1902-1976). "Don't you know that Drath is a red?" In: Gerhard Lingelbach (Hrsg.): Legal scholars of the University of Jena from four centuries. Bussert & Stadeler, Jena et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-932906-83-1 , pp. 329-356.

Web links

• Literature by and about Martin Drath in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matriculation of Matrin Drath in the Rostock matriculation portal