René Marcic

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René Marcic (born March 13, 1919 in Vienna ; † October 2, 1971 in Aarsele , Belgium ) was an Austrian publicist and legal philosopher .

life and work

René Marcic lived in Slovenia from 1920 and later in Croatia , at that time part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . He attended elementary school on the island of Koločep ( Dalmatia ). He attended the Franciscan - high schools on the island of Badija and Široki Brijeg ( Herzegovina ), where in 1937 he the Matura took off. That same year he began studying at the Law and Political Science Faculty of the University of Zagreb (graduated Dr. jur. On February 14, 1942). He worked as a press and cultural advisor in the consulate general of the fascist " Independent State of Croatia " in Vienna , became a member of the editorial staff of the Salzburger Nachrichten in 1946 and worked as a court reporter , from 1953 as a court editor . After the death of Gustav Canaval , the founder of the newspaper, he was its successor as editor-in-chief from 1959 to 1964 . At the same time as this , René Marcic completed his habilitation in 1959 in legal philosophy and general political theory with the text “From the constitutional state to the judicial state”. His broad scientific work includes 17 monographs and over 300 articles in anthologies and specialist journals in the fields of legal and state philosophy , natural law , political science and constitutional law . Marcic became a central protagonist of the re-establishment of the University of Salzburg and managed the establishment of the law and political science faculty as well as the establishment of the inter-faculty institute for political science in Salzburg and the study of political science in Austria. From 1963 to 1971 he was a university professor for legal and state philosophy. From 1965 he was also responsible for general political science and constitutional law as well as political science.

The particularity of the inter-faculty institute set up by Marcic illustrated the pluralistic-interdisciplinary approach of René Marcic. The collective board of this institute consisted of the following professors: René Marcic, Franz-Martin Schmölz (social studies and political theory at the theological faculty) and Günter Kieslich (journalism and communication theory at the humanities faculty); Furthermore, on the initiative of René Marcic Norbert Leser received the first chair for Political Science (Faculty of Humanities) in Austria. Marcic and his wife Blanka died in a plane crash over Belgium when he wanted to return home in Sydney after a year of research with the legal philosopher Julius Stone (1907–1985) .

Act as a legal philosopher

Marcic represented a critical doctrine of natural law , which he understood as an ontological theory of what he called a “right to be”. In a nutshell, this can be described as follows: From the being of human beings and their lifeworld, he says, human dignity can be derived, from which not only justice as the most important basic idea of ​​law (as the order of the relationship between people) can be derived let, but also human rights in their diversification, whereby human rights should apply as the basis of the legal order of all states. The contemporary Marxist philosopher Wilhelm Raimund Beyer , the founder and president of the International Hegel Society , described him as the only philosopher after 1945 besides Jean-Paul Sartre who (with his ontological draft of legal theory) undertook a comprehensive attempt at a new ontology. René Marcic referred to positions as diverse as Aristotle , Thomas Aquinas , Martin Heidegger , Ernst Jünger , Hegel and Julius Stone . More than almost any other philosopher, he knew the texts of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy in the original language and quoted them not only in his contributions, but also from memory in the lectures. He organized a series of discussions with Hans Kelsen , to whom the University of Salzburg awarded an honorary doctorate on his initiative and with whom he was friends. It was primarily about the question of natural law and the search for prepositive norms of law. Marcic wanted to create a philosophical basis for a critically responsible culture of law, but also of the media, politics and science, in order to allow democracy and the rule of law to develop further from below (" cooperative ").

Attitude to democracy and dictatorship

As a warning, he quoted the ancient saying: "Oboedientia facit tyrannum." (It is obedience that makes the tyrant.). Therefore, he advocated the autonomous advocacy of citizens for the interests of the general public, defined from below, because only a legal system that has come about as a cooperative can really do justice to democracy, but this presupposes free and independently thinking people. Marcic rejected all violence, except as an exception, resistance against tyrants like Adolf Hitler . In doing so, he referred to the tradition of European thought, which should definitely be retained: "Whoever kills the rulers of violence and arbitrariness to liberate the fatherland should be praised, teaches Cicero and Aquinas !", As in the Nazi era to justify the blind obedience like the letter to the Romans, chap. 13, was stressed, he emphasized that Paul would only be understood correctly if one knew that he implicitly admonished elsewhere: “Do not accept everything as God's will that is presented to you as God's will!” Every glorification of the state and community at the expense of individual freedom, he fundamentally rejected and underpinned this with the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, who attributed a relational reality to the state and the community , but only to concrete people a substantial reality. It is therefore always wrong to claim that people simply have to submit to an authority without criticism. "Wherever the word 'rule' is mentioned, one hears the master swinging the whip and the bang that announces the fall of the slave." So he speaks, specifically to make the position of the left understandable: "That is what they do New left irritates! ”But he had to contradict the partly understandable left protest against authority on fundamental points, for example when he critically recalls the dangerous sentence by Leon Trotsky :“ If you consider life sacred, you have to renounce the revolution ".

Acting as a publicist

By " publicist " Marcic understood - in contrast to the term " journalist " - those contributors to quality magazines who not only reproduce current events, but also assess and comment on the overall social situation on a scientific basis, whereby the cross-section of the published articles reflects public opinion or intellectual Represent the life and public debates of a society. While he was in charge of the Salzburger Nachrichten, but also in later years, Marcic was recognized as a commentator on current affairs throughout the German-speaking world. He introduced the concept of the media as the “ fourth estate ” in the state - alluding to the Montesquieu doctrine of three powers . He also campaigned for the award of a high Austrian literary prize in 1967 to the then little-known, yet controversial Thomas Bernhard .

Awards

  • In 1979, as a sign of special appreciation for René Marcic, the State of Salzburg launched the René Marcic Prize named after him , an award for special achievements in the field of journalism.
  • He was a member of the KÖHV Rheno-Juvavia Salzburg in the ÖCV and an honorary member of the Catholic Austrian Landsmannschaft Austria zu Salzburg.

Works by Marcic

  • From the constitutional state to the judiciary state (1957)
  • Martin Heidegger and Existential Philosophy (1949)
  • Constitution and Constitutional Court (1963)
  • Human, Law, Cosmos (1965)
  • The position of political parties in the constitution (1965)
  • The book and its steward (1966)
  • The statesman in democracy (1966)
  • Coalition Democracy (1966)
  • Constitutional Justice and Pure Legal Doctrine (1966)
  • [Ed.] The Future of the Coalition (1966)
  • Ernst Jünger's Bill on the World State (1966)
  • Philosophy of Law (1969)
  • Democracy - the architectural style of change (1970)
  • Hegel and Legal Thought in the German-Speaking Area (1970)
  • Law - State - Constitution (1970)
  • History of Legal Philosophy (1971)
  • Natural Law and Justice (1989)

Marcic and the "de Mendelssohn affair"

In 1949, as a court reporter in the Christmas edition of the Salzburger Nachrichten, Marcic sharply criticized the German journalist Peter de Mendelssohn for a review concerning Ernst Jünger . The following sentence was used:

“The value of human beings rises or falls, depending on whether the essence of human beings is set higher or lower. Anyone who ridicules God and prayer, or who experiences at most an id in God, but not a person, not a you, should not be surprised if he feels the devaluation of his being in his own body, and one day in the gas chamber is plugged. Mendelssohn and his kind themselves conjured up the world from which they were then persecuted. "

Marcic later publicly apologized for this statement in a Good Friday observation to Mendelssohn and to all victims of National Socialism.

Since the communication scientist Fritz Hausjell recently due to this sentence and because of the fact of his previous service to the fascist Ustasha had called for regime renaming the named after Marcic René-Marcic Prize, was Salzburg's Governor Gabi Burgstaller (SPÖ) from a scientific commission Examine the allegations he has made about the attitude of the scientist and journalist René Marcic to National Socialism and anti-Semitism. The result clearly exonerated René Marcic: "No explicit statements were found that in any way express sympathy with the National Socialist regime, with Adolf Hitler and with his war or war crimes." a. A tribute to the contemporary historian Erika Weinzierl , who led the way in educating about Austrian anti-Semitism , who in 1971/72 praised those self-critical Good Friday considerations in a memorial for René Marcic. Weinzierl calls René Marcic a "tireless champion of fundamental rights and civil liberties, who since 1946 has unabashedly advocated that crimes against humanity and the life-long atonement of criminals cannot be statute barred."

literature

  • Michael Fischer (ed.): Dimensions of the law. Memorial for René Marcic. 2 volumes. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-02989-5 .
  • Norbert Leser : René Marcic 1919–1971. In: Grenzgänger. ZDB -ID 1058691-x , Vol. 1, 1981, pp. 75-88.
  • Alexander Pinwinkler : The “founding generation” of the University of Salzburg: biographies, networks, appointment policy, 1960–1975, Böhlau: Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2020.
  • Erwin Bader : René Marcic and the judiciary state. In: Anton Pelinka (Ed.): Between Austromarxism and Catholicism. Festschrift for Norbert readers. Braumüller, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7003-1003-X , pp. 123-136.
  • Tobias Neubacher: The beginnings of political science in Salzburg: René Marcic (1919–1971), Franz Martin Schmölz (1927–2003) and the Senate Institute for Political Science. In: Österreichische Hochschülerinnen und Hochschülerschaft (Ed.): Austrian Universities in the 20th Century. Austrofascism, National Socialism and the Consequences. Facultas, Vienna 2013, pp. 456–462.
  • Fritz Hausjell : Brown feathers . In: Die Zeit , No. 50/2005; via R. Marcic

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tobias Neubacher: The Beginnings of Political Science in Salzburg: René Marcic (1919–1971), Franz Martin Schmölz (1927–2003) and the Senate Institute for Political Science. In: Österreichische Hochschülerinnen und Hochschülerschaft (Ed.): Austrian Universities in the 20th Century. Austrofascism, National Socialism and the Consequences. Facultas, Vienna 2013, pp. 456–462.
  2. ↑ Jet crashed: Professor Marcic dead . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 3, 1971, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  3. ^ René Marcic: Philosophy of Law . P. 280
  4. ↑ ibid p. 278
  5. ↑ ibid p. 280
  6. ↑ ibid p. 100
  7. ↑ ibid p. 102
  8. ↑ ibid p. 27
  9. ^ Sketch of a Magna Charta for the press . In: Jur. Blätter , 1955, p. 192 ff.
  10. ↑ Chapter The "fourth estate" in his book From the rule of law to the state of judges . Vienna 1957, pp. 394-397
  11. ↑ https://www.salzburg.gv.at/presse/marcic series of publications by the regional press office, series “Salzburg Documentations”, No. 118. Land Salzburg, regional press office, Salzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-85015-237-2 .
  12. ↑ "Acta Studentica", June 2016, internal part, p. 9
  13. ^ René Marcic - ÖCV. Retrieved July 16, 2018 .
  14. ↑ a b c Marcic: "No sympathy with the National Socialist regime" . Salzburg state correspondence of August 30, 2007. Retrieved on July 21, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Marcic, René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist and legal philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 2nd October 1971
Place of death Aarsele , Belgium