Rudolf His

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Rudolf His (born July 15, 1870 in Basel , † January 22, 1938 in Münster ) was a Swiss lawyer and legal historian . He taught from 1908 to 1937 at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster .

The family grave of Rudolf His and his wife Hedwig with daughter Irmgard at the central cemetery in Münster .

Life

On his father's side, His comes from a well-known Basel merchant and scholarly family. His great-grandfather Peter Ochs played an important role in the constitutional history of Switzerland, but was also controversial. For this reason, his son Eduard His-La Roche (1792–1871), Rudolf's grandfather, abandoned the original family name and called himself His from then on . Rudolf His was born the son of the anatomist Wilhelm His . His older brother Wilhelm was a doctor, his cousin Eduard His-Eberle also a well-known lawyer. His maternal grandfather was the historian Wilhelm Vischer .

After graduating from Nikolai-Gymnasium Leipzig , Rudolf His studied law in Geneva , Leipzig , Berlin and Basel from 1888 . He finished his studies in 1892 with a doctorate on Frisian law under Andreas Heusler ; His was in contact with Ulrich Stutz and Albert Werminghoff at his institute . He then entered the diplomatic service for a short time and worked as an attaché to Charles Édouard Lardy at the Swiss embassy in Paris , but then became an assistant in Heidelberg . There he completed his habilitation in 1896 with Richard Schröder for legal history and criminal law .

In 1900 Rudolf His was appointed associate professor in Heidelberg, moved to Königsberg as a full professor in 1904 and finally accepted an appointment to Münster in 1908 to succeed Hans Schreuer . His teaching assignment covered legal history, private law, commercial law, constitutional and international law and “Prussian legal development”. In the same year he became a member of the Historical Commission for Westphalia . In 1920 he turned down a call to Frankfurt am Main . 1928/1929 he was rector of the university, in 1933 dean of the law faculty.

His' attitude towards National Socialism has been the subject of many speculations. On the one hand, he contributed to the dismissal of the Jewish private lecturer Ernst Isay and took the oath of allegiance to the Führer , on the other hand, as dean, he tried to prevent the NSDAP Gauleiter Josef Wagner from being awarded an honorary doctorate . While his contemporary Hubert Naendrup , 1933–1935 rector of the university, noted in an obituary in 1941 that His had "not developed the right understanding" for the National Socialist ideology throughout his life, His is classified in more recent representations in the vicinity of anti-democratic currents of his time. The family chronicle describes him as a national liberal . After a critical examination, his works do not contain any statements that indicate an ideological relationship to National Socialism.

Since 1898 he was married to Hedwig Pfitzer (1876–1953), daughter of the botanist Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer .

plant

Rudolf His is regarded as the "best expert on medieval German criminal law sources " and has found international recognition. His approach was to create an overall picture of medieval German criminal law from the various sources. Despite the great merits of His as a collector of legal antiquities, his methodological approach is rejected by modern legal historians today: He made geographical and content-related differences in the individual legal sources disappear and thereby misunderstood the special character of medieval criminal law as a particular law . “Instead of a developmental history”, His gives “preference to the construction of dogmatic structures” and ultimately remains “in a dogmatic consideration of the historical material.” That is why His is occasionally received as a (historical-philological) criminal law dogmatic and not actually as a legal historian: In his large monographs it is "hardly noticeable that it is the work of a legal historian". His' source work could at best be seen as a “treasure trove” for legal historians and medieval historians with a modern understanding of methods, but in this respect they remain “the starting point for any preoccupation with medieval criminal law”.

Works

  • Count and mayor in Friesland. 1871. (Dissertation, unprinted)
  • The domains in the Roman Empire. Heidelberg 1896. (Habilitation thesis)
  • The criminal law of the German Middle Ages.
    • Vol. 1: The crimes and their consequences in general. Weimar 1920. Ndr. Aalen 1964.
    • Vol. 2: The individual crimes. Weimar 1935. Ndr. Aalen 1964.
  • History of German criminal law up to the Karolina. Munich 1928. Ndr. Munich 1967.

literature

  • Hubert Naendrup: Rudolf His. A researcher's life in the service of German legal history. Munster 1941.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ André Salvisberg : His, Eduard. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 2, 2006 , accessed April 15, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Eduard His: Chronicle of the Ochs family called His . Basel 1943. pp. 283-292.
  3. ^ Eberhard Schmidt : Rudolf His. In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History , German Department 62 (1942), pp. XV – XXIII (XVI).
  4. ^ Lieselotte Steveling: Lawyers in Münster . Münster 1999. p. 136.
  5. ↑ Historical Commission for Westphalia: Former members: Prof. Dr. Rudolf His. Retrieved April 15, 2019 .
  6. ^ Eberhard Schmidt: Rudolf His. In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History , German Department 62 (1942), pp. XV – XXIII (XVII).
  7. ^ Rector's board on the pages of the University of Münster
  8. ^ Lieselotte Steveling: Lawyers in Münster . Münster 1999. p. 349.
  9. ^ Peter Oestmann: Rudolf His (1870-1938) - a Swiss criminal law historian in Münster. In: Forum historiae iuris. 2014. Margin numbers 12–15.
  10. ^ Hubert Naendrup: Rudolf His. A researcher's life in the service of German legal history. Münster 1941. p. 7.
  11. ↑ Sebastian Felz: In the spirit of truth? The Münster jurists from the Weimar Republic to the early Federal Republic. In: Hans-Ulrich Thamer u. a. (Ed.): The University of Münster under National Socialism. Continuities and breaks between 1920 and 1960 (= publications of the Münster University Archives. Vol. 5). Münster 2012, pp. 347-412 (385).
  12. ↑ Eduard His: Chronicle of the Ochs family called His . Basel 1943. p. 457.
  13. ^ Peter Oestmann: Rudolf His (1870-1938) - a Swiss criminal law historian in Münster. In: Forum historiae iuris. 2014. Margin paragraph 14.
  14. ^ Heinz Holzhauer : His, Rudolf (1870-1938) In: Concise dictionary for German legal history . , Vol. 2, Col. 1045-1047 (1045).
  15. ^ Peter Oestmann: Rudolf His (1870-1938) - a Swiss criminal law historian in Münster. In: Forum historiae iuris. 2014. Margin point 35.
  16. ^ Peter Oestmann: Rudolf His (1870-1938) - a Swiss criminal law historian in Münster. In: Forum historiae iuris. 2014. Margin numbers 25, 30.
  17. ^ Gerhard Dilcher : Foreword. In: Barbara Frenz : Peace, breaking the law and sanction in German cities before 1300 (= conflict, crime and sanction in the society of old Europe, vol. 8.) Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2003. pp. IX – XVII (XI f.) .
  18. ↑ So z. E.g. Wolfgang Sellert: Study and source book on the history of the German criminal justice system. Vol. 1. From the beginnings to the enlightenment. Aalen 1989. pp. 43, 45.
  19. ^ Peter Oestmann: Rudolf His (1870-1938) - a Swiss criminal law historian in Münster. In: Forum historiae iuris. 2014. Margin number 31.
  20. ^ Peter Oestmann: Rudolf His (1870-1938) - a Swiss criminal law historian in Münster. In: Forum historiae iuris. 2014. Paragraph 37.
predecessor Office successor
Hermann Schöne Rector of the University of Münster
1928–1929 		Rudolf Schenck
personal data
SURNAME His, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer and legal historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1938
Place of death Muenster