Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach

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Anselm von Feuerbach

Paul Johann Anselm Feuerbach , from 1808 Knight von Feuerbach (born November 14, 1775 in Hainichen near Jena , † May 29, 1833 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German legal scholar . He is considered the founder of modern German criminal law as well as the theory of psychological coercion and is the creator of the Bavarian penal code of 1813. Anselm von Feuerbach is also known as the chief guardian and patron of Kaspar Hauser , about whom he wrote the book Kaspar Hauser in 1832 . Published example of a crime against the human soul .

Life

Paul Johann Anselm Feuerbach was the first child of Sophie Sibylle Christina Krause (* August 18, 1751 - September 20, 1797) and Johann Anselm Feuerbach (* February 19, 1755 - March 1, 1827) on November 14, 1775 in Hainichen near Jena was born out of wedlock. After completing his father's law degree at the University of Giessen, the family moved to Frankfurt am Main, where the father worked as a lawyer. Paul Johann Anselm attended grammar school here. From 1792 he studied philosophy at the University of Jena , then law. With his investigation into the crime of high treason (Erfurt 1798) he was honored with his habilitation and then worked as a private lecturer. In 1795 he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy and in 1799 a doctorate in law.

In 1801 he received an extraordinary professorship in law at the University of Jena, which was associated with entry into the Schöppenstuhl there, and soon afterwards the full professorship in feudal law.

In 1802 he followed the call of the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel . In 1804 he moved to the University of Landshut , where he was commissioned to work out the draft of a Bavarian penal code . Then in 1805 - at the instigation of Minister Montgelas - he was transferred as a secret trainee lawyer to the Ministry of Justice and Police Department in Munich , in 1806 he was appointed a full member of that department and in 1808 a real secret council. As early as 1806, Feuerbach took the first step towards eliminating the abuses in the Bavarian criminal justice system with his draft for the abolition of torture . In 1808 he received the royal civil merit order, which for him was associated with the nobility of transmission nobility "Knight of". Since 1808 he was also an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

The most significant improvement in the administration of justice was the result of the new penal code he drafted for the Kingdom of Bavaria (Munich 1813). After some changes, it received royal approval on May 16, 1813, was used as a basis for the processing of new state codes in Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach , Württemberg and other states, adopted as a code in Oldenburg and also translated into Swedish . For Bavaria , this body of law brought about a humanization of criminal practice and the formal abolition of torture .

At the same time, Feuerbach worked on royal orders from 1807 to convert the Code Napoléon into a civil code for Bavaria, some of which appeared in print in 1808 and 1809, but did not come into force.

The editing of the Codex Maximilianeus assigned to him in 1812 was carried out jointly with Adam von Aretin and the State Councilor Nikolaus Thaddäus von Gönner .

During the restoration of German independence, Feuerbach expressed his national spirit through several writings, including the On German Freedom and Representation of German Peoples through Estates (Leipzig 1814).

In 1814 he was promoted to second President of the Court of Appeal in Bamberg , in 1817 to the first President of the Court of Appeal for the Rezatkreis in Ansbach and in 1821 to the Real Council of State.

On May 29, 1833, Anselm von Feuerbach died in Frankfurt am Main as a result of a stroke. His grave is in the Frankfurt main cemetery.

Grave in Frankfurt

Von Feuerbach married Wilhelmine Tröster (1774–1852). Her father, the Dornburg bailiff Ernst Tröster, was a natural son of Duke Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar . Feuerbach had five sons with the duke's granddaughter, all of whom have distinguished themselves through scientific work in various fields, and three daughters:

Act

Monument at the Fürstengraben in Jena

Feuerbach's first literary attempts, philosophical treatises, are contained in Meißner's Apollo and in Niethammer's Philosophical Journal of 1795. His first independent work: About the only possible arguments against the existence and validity of natural rights (Leipzig and Gera 1795), was directed against Rehberg .

His works received even greater approval: Critique of Natural Law (Altona 1796); Anti- Hobbes , or beyond the limits of civil power and the right of coercion of subjects against their overlords (Giessen 1798); Revision of the principles and basic concepts of positive embarrassing law (Erfurt 1799 and Chemnitz 1800, 2 parts), in which he, as in the text About punishment as a means of security against future insults to the criminal (that. 1799) and in that of him Karl Ludwig Wilhelm von Grolman and Ludwig Harscher von Almendingen published library for embarrassing jurisprudence and legal studies (Göttingen 1800 and Gießen 1803, Vol. 2 and 3), in contrast to Kant's theory of punishment, the purpose of punishment is deterrence designated.

In his textbook on the common embarrassing law applicable in Germany (Gießen 1801), Feuerbach stated that not only the execution of a sentence, but the threat of punishment, deterred people from committing crimes (deterrent theory or Feuerbach theory). His postulate nulla poena sine lege (“no punishment without law”), which concretized an enlightening demand by Cesare Beccaria , became one of the core elements of the rule of law . This means:

  • Laws must be generally known.
  • The facts must be clearly formulated.
  • The consequences of injustice ( penalty framework ) must be determined in advance.

His civilistic attempts (Giessen 1803, 1st part) were followed by a detailed criticism of Kleinschrod's draft of an embarrassing code of law for the states of the Electoral Palatinate Bavaria (Giessen 1804, 3 volumes).

Through his collection of strange criminal law cases (Giessen 1808 and 1811, 2 volumes; Giessen 1839 3 ), he described the psychological implications of such cases for the first time.

Smaller writings from this period are: On philosophy and empiricism in their relationship to positive jurisprudence (Landshut 1804); View of German law (Munich 1810); Themis, or Contributions to Legislation (Landshut 1812).

His considerations on the jury courts (Landshut 1813) were followed by the declaration of my allegedly changed convictions with regard to the jury courts (Jena 1819) and on the public and oral nature of the judicial proceedings (Giessen 1821). The second volume was published in Gießen in 1825: On the judicial system and judicial proceedings in France .

Later he published the files-based representation of strange crimes (Giessen 1828–1829, 2 volumes; Frankfurt a. M. 1849 3 ) and small writings with mixed content (Nuremberg 1833, 2 sections).

Finally the psychological study appeared: Kaspar Hauser , Example of a Crime Against Human Soul (Ansbach 1832).

In his spare time he occupied himself with a metrical translation and a commentary on the Indian poem Gita Govinda .

His son Ludwig Feuerbach wrote his biography: Life and Works A. v. Feuerbachs (Leipzig 1852, 2 vols.).

Works (selection)

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frankfurter Personenlexikon, Feuerbach, Anselm (von) (accessed on June 5, 2016)
  2. ^ Friedrich Merzbacher :  Feuerbach, Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 110 f. ( Digitized version ).
  3. ↑ Cesare Beccaria: On Crimes and Punishments , Chapter 4.
personal data
SURNAME Feuerbach, Paul Johann Anselm from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Feuerbach, Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German legal scholar, founder of modern German criminal law
DATE OF BIRTH November 14, 1775
PLACE OF BIRTH Hainichen (Thuringia) near Jena
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1833
Place of death Frankfurt am Main