Rudolf B. Schlesinger

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Rudolf Berthold Schlesinger (born October 11, 1909 in Munich , † November 10, 1996 in San Francisco ) was an American law scholar and professor at Cornell University .

Live and act

Schlesinger was born in Munich in 1909 as the son of a German and an American lawyer of Jewish origin. He was an American citizen through his father. In 1927 he began studying law at the University of Geneva , but later moved to the University of Munich . After spending two semesters at the University of Berlin in 1928, he passed his first state examination there in 1931. In 1931 he started his legal clerkship and worked on his dissertation at the same time. Schlesinger completed this in 1933 under the supervision of Rudolf Müller-Erzbach and was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD.

Although Schlesinger was still able to take his second state examination, the rise of the National Socialists prevented him from continuing his academic career on a regular basis and so he subsequently worked as a lawyer in a Jewish bank in Munich. There he mainly advised the increasing number of emigrating Jews on tax issues, currency transfers and the liquidation of property. After the bank was closed and Aryanized after the November pogroms in 1938 , Schlesinger himself emigrated to the USA at the end of 1938. There he enrolled at Columbia Law School and graduated in 1942. He had previously worked as an editor for the Columbia Law Journal . He then became the law clerk of Judge Irving Lehman at the New York Court of Appeals , the highest court in New York State. In 1944, Schlesinger began working for the New York law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hope & Hadley. In 1948 he became a lecturer at Cornell University , in 1951 he became a full professor there for international and comparative law on the William Nelson Cromwell Professorship . Until 1956 he remained a lawyer in the firm Schlesinger & Kaskell, which had meanwhile been founded with Joseph Kaskell , who had also emigrated . In 1975 Schlesinger moved to Hastings College of the Law , where he retired in 1994.

From 1942 on, Schlesinger was married to Ruth-Else Hirschland (1920–1996), a daughter of Kurt Hirschland , who had lived in the USA since 1936 and worked as an art museum curator. The marriage had three children. He and his wife presumably committed suicide on November 10, 1996 in San Francisco.

His greatest academic merit is his first, now fifth edition, published in 1950 on comparative law. In 1968 he expanded his comparative legal oeuvre to include a work in which he compares ten different legal systems on all continents with regard to the formation of contracts. Until recently, as co-editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law, he was one of the most important voices in American comparative law.

Fonts (selection)

  • The world of the closed company and its protection through the injunction according to § 1 of the law against unfair competition . BDV, Berlin 1933 (dissertation).
  • Comparative law: cases and materials . Foundation Press, Brooklyn, NY 1950 (English).
  • with Joseph Kaskell: Monopolies - Trusts - Cartels in America and Germany: On the influence of government measures on the economic structure in the United States and in Germany . Nowack, Hannoversch Münden 1951.
  • The Role of the Supreme Court in United States Private and Procedural Law: Overview of a System of Harmonizing Independent Legal Orders . CF Müller, Karlsruhe 1965.
  • Formation of Contracts: A Study of the Common Core of Legal Systems . Oceana Publications, Dobbs Ferry, NY 1968 (English).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schlesinger, Rudolf B. In: Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933. Volume 2, Saur, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-598-10089-2 .
  2. ^ Rudolf Schlesinger, 87, Expert On the World's Legal Systems at nytimes.com, accessed July 27, 2019.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schlesinger, Rudolf B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schlesinger, Rudolf Berthold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American law scholar and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1996
Place of death San Francisco