Otto Peterka

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Otto Wilhelm Peterka , also Petherka (born March 23, 1876 in Prague , † May 24, 1945 in the Klecany internment camp ) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak legal historian as well as chancellor and professor at the German University in Prague . His specialty was bohemian legal history. In the academic year 1926/27 Peterka was rector of the university.

Live and act

Peterka came from a long-established Prague merchant family whose ancestral home was the "Golden Sun" on Poříč in Prague's New Town . His grandfather, Johann Peterka d. J., was kk district captain in Budweis . Otto Peterka was the youngest of the three sons of the kk captain of the infantry, Karl Peterka. His brother Karl Peterka jun. later became director of the Bohemian Savings Bank; the other brother, Richard, worked as a notary.

Otto Peterka first attended the German elementary school in Königliche Weinberge and then the German Neustädter Staatsoberrealgymnasium in Prague. He passed his Matura in 1894 with distinction. He then took up a law degree at the Imperial and Royal German Karl Ferdinand University . On July 31, 1898, he received his university graduation. He passed the legal history (1896), judicial (1898) and political science (1899) state exams with distinction. On June 27, 1899 he was promoted to Dr. in law and political science.

This was followed by an internship at the Higher Regional Court in Prague, after which he worked as a lawyer trainee. He passed the bar exam in 1903 at the Higher Regional Court in Prague. From 1904 Peterka worked in Munich together with Eberhard von Künßberg and Robert Bartsch as an employee of Karl von Amira in the field of Nordic law. After his return to Prague, at the suggestion of Adolf Zycha , he focused his work on Bohemian legal history, which, in contrast to the Czech Karl Ferdinand University, was hardly taught at the German university at the time; the alternating lectures by Max Rintelen and Adolf Zycha took place in the subjects of Austrian imperial history and German legal history and German private law . On March 1, 1907, Peterka qualified as a professor at the law and political science faculty of the German Karl Ferdinand University.

Otto Peterka began teaching as a private lecturer at the German university in the winter semester of 1907/08. The topics of his lectures in the first years were the history of public law in Bohemia , reading selected texts on the history of public law in Bohemia and the constitutional history of Bohemia . On July 29, 1908, he was appointed director of the university chancellery. Peterka's appointment as associate professor took place on June 3, 1912; Each semester he held one course on German and one on Bohemian legal history.

After the collapse of the monarchy and the establishment of Czechoslovakia , the German Karl Ferdinand University was renamed "German University Prague" in 1919. As a new compulsory subject, legal history in the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic replaced the history of the Austrian Empire ; on September 29, 1919 Peterka was appointed to the new chair as a full professor. At the same time, Peterka was given a teaching position in the renamed history of public and private law in Central Europe ; thus he also succeeded Zycha, who had moved to the University of Giessen . With the appointment to the chair, Peterka resigned the office of the office director.

After Guido Kisch had not accepted the professorship for Central European Legal History in 1921 and instead switched to the University of Halle , Peterka continued to represent the vacant professorship for Central European Legal History and, in the 1924 summer semester, also for Commercial Law. In the winter semester of 1924/25, the German University in Prague was finally able to win Kisch as a visiting professor; However, shortly after taking office, he decided to return to Halle at the end of the semester. With this, Peterka also took over the professorship. In 1926 Wilhelm Weizsäcker was appointed associate professor for Czechoslovak legal history; At the beginning of the summer semester of 1927, Peterka switched to the chair for Central European legal history. Furthermore, he represented the frequently vacant professorship for commercial law.

After the German occupation of the "remaining Czech Republic" , Peterka received a new teaching position for Germanic legal history as well as commercial and exchange law from the Reich Minister for Science, Education and National Education Bernhard Rust at the Reich University in Prague . On July 10, 1941, he was appointed full professor of German legal history, constitutional history, and commercial and bill of exchange law, and the occupying power made him a civil servant for life. Even after reaching retirement age in 1942, Peterka remained in office due to the insufficient staffing of the legal history faculty. Immediately after the Red Army captured Prague , Peterka was arrested on May 9, 1945 and taken to the Pankrác prison. From there he was transferred to the Klecany internment camp , where he died of exhaustion on May 24, 1945.

In 2007, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge ( Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) recovered from a mass grave the bones of 41 deceased from the Klecany camp, which could no longer be identified individually, including the remains of Otto Peterka, and buried them in the new German war cemetery in Cheb in 2008 .

Offices and memberships

From 1908 to 1919 Peterka was the office director of the German Karl Ferdinand University. In the academic year 1926/27 he held the office of rector. In 1921/22 and 1927/28 he was dean of the law and political science faculties. In addition, Peterka was vice-president of the legal-historical state examination commission in the academic year 1924/25, later the office of president was transferred to him. Otto Peterka was a member of the judicial state examination commission and was also the director of the Institute of Law.

Peterka was accepted on December 20, 1924 as a real member of the German Society of Sciences and Arts for the Czechoslovak Republic, after 1939 the German Academy of Sciences in Prague. The Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences elected him an extraordinary member in 1928.

family

Otto Peterka had been married to Elisabeth (Elsa), née Schram (1883–1942), a daughter of the Bohemian industrialist Adolf Schram , since April 26, 1909 . Their son Adolf was born in 1912.

Publications (selection)

  • The water rights of wisdom . Prague 1905
  • Burgraviate in Bohemia. A legal historical investigation . Prague 1906
  • The trade law of Bohemia in the 14th century . Vienna and Leipzig 1909
  • The open, seemingly acting in the German law of the Middle Ages . (Contributions under German law IV, 1). Heidelberg 1911
  • Civil brewing justice in Bohemia. A legal historical investigation . Prague 1917
  • War and civil right development . Prague 1918
  • Legal history of the Bohemian lands. Shown in its main features . 2 vols. Reichenberg 1923 (1933), 1928
  • The Germania of Tacitus and legal historical research . Oslo 1928 and Prague 1929
  • The Prague deliberations on a first bill of exchange . (Treatises of the German Academy of Sciences in Prague. Phil.-Hist. Class 5). Reichenberg 1943
  • with Wilhelm Weizsäcker : Contributions to the legal history of Leitmeritz , Prague 1944
  • The German legal proverbs as a means of knowledge of the popular legal view. A lecture given on January 26, 1944 in the Carlsbad Administration Academy . (Field post letters for students of law, political science and economics No. 21 b)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prague film pioneer rests on German war cemetery in Eger / Cheb / Svatopluk Innemann was reburied in Eger in 2008 / The legal historian Otto Peterka is also among the dead in Eger , VDK press release from August 16, 2010
  2. ↑ Prague film pioneer rests on German war cemetery in Eger / Cheb / Svatopluk Innemann was reburied in Eger in 2008 / The legal historian Otto Peterka is also among the dead in Eger , VDK press release from August 16, 2010
  3. ^ Andrea Pühringer:  Schram, Adolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 513 f. ( Digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Peterka, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Petherka, Otto; Peterka, Otto Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bohemian legal historian and rector of the German University in Prague
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1945
Place of death Klecany