Rudolf Laun

Rudolf Franz Anton Laun (also: von Laun , born January 1, 1882 in Prague , Austria-Hungary , † January 20, 1975 in Ahrensburg ) was an Austro-German international lawyer , legal philosopher and pacifist . Teaching at the University of Hamburg since 1919 , he was elected rector several times . He was also a part-time judge at the Hamburg Higher Administrative Court and President of the State Court of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen .

Life

The son of an Austro-Hungarian colonel attended grammar schools in Pilsen , Prague and Görz and then studied law, political science and philosophy at the University of Vienna from 1901 . After doctorate (1906) and habilitation (1908), Laun initially worked in the Austrian Ministry of Commerce and also taught as a private lecturer at the University of Vienna, which in 1911 appointed him extraordinary professor for administrative law and administrative theory .

Laun took part in the First World War as a lieutenant in the reserve and received several awards. However, under the influence of the war experience, he turned into a pacifist and became involved in the peace movement. In 1917 he was therefore released from military service and transferred to the Imperial Council Presidium. After the end of the war, the new Karl Renner government appointed him as a consultant for nationality issues in the State Office for Foreign Affairs ; In this capacity, Laun also belonged to the Austrian delegation to the peace negotiations on the Treaty of Saint-Germain in the spring of 1919 .

In the autumn of 1919, Laun was appointed full professor of public law at the newly founded University of Hamburg and was elected rector twice in a row in 1924 and 1925. In part-time he worked here since 1922 as a member of the Hamburg Higher Administrative Court . Also in 1922 Laun joined the SPD and was the only social democratic professor in Hamburg alongside Eduard Heimann . At the same time, as a convinced Sudeten German, he stood up for the unification of German Austria with the German Empire and was involved in the association for Germanness abroad . With reference to this commitment, he was able to maintain his chair after 1933, but had to forego some of his income and publication options and at times had to deal with emigration plans , which he did not realize.

After the end of the Second World War, Laun belonged “to the narrow circle of those who were able to credibly represent the transition to democracy”. He was therefore initially appointed Vice-Rector in 1945 and re-elected Rector of Hamburg University in 1947. From 1947 he also prepared the re-establishment of the German Society for International Law . From 1949 to 1955 he was also President of the Bremen State Court .

After 1945, Laun appeared in public in particular as a prominent advocate of the right to live in the homeland of German expellees from the East . The expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe and the prisoners of war policy of the Allies interpreted Laun as human rights violations.

Awards

• Honorary doctorate from the Universities of Innsbruck (1952), Hamburg (1956) and Thessaloniki (1962)
• Medal for Art and Science of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1957)
• Large Merit (1961)
• Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art (1961)
• Honorary member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (1961)
• European Charlemagne Prize of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft (1962)
• Plaque of Honor of the Association of Expellees (1963)

In addition, a student residence hall in Hamburg has been named after Rudolf Laun since 1965.

Web links

• Literature by and about Rudolf Laun in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Rudolf Laun in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Daniel Stahl: Resolutions of German international lawyers , in: Sources for the history of human rights, published by the Working Group on Human Rights in the 20th Century, May 2015, accessed on January 11, 2017.

literature

• Rainer Biskup: Constitutional law teacher between republic and dictatorship: Rudolf Laun. (1882-1975). ConferencePoint-Verlag, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-936406-26-9 (also: Hamburg, Universität, Dissertation, 2010).
• Rainer Nicolaysen : Laun, Rudolf. In: Franklin Kopitzsch , Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . Lexicon of persons. Volume 5. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , pp. 227-230.
• Georg Stadtmüller :  Laun, Rudolf Edler of. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , pp. 715-717 ( digitized version ).
• Festschrift in honor of Rudolf Laun. On the occasion of the completion of his 65th year of life on January 1, 1947. Toth, Hamburg 1948

Footnotes

1. ↑ Laun renounced the title of nobility conferred on his father as early as 1915. Cf. Rainer Nicolaysen: Laun, Rudolf. In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie. Lexicon of persons. Volume 5. 2010, pp. 227–230, here: p. 227.
2. ^ Rainer Nicolaysen: Laun, Rudolf. In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie. Lexicon of persons. Volume 5. 2010, pp. 227–230, here: p. 228.
3. ^ Hermann Mosler: The German Society for International Law. Your contribution to international law since its re-establishment in 1949 . In: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerrecht (Hrsg.): Legal issues of arms control in contemporary international treaty law . CF Müller, Heidelberg 1990, ISBN 3-8114-1390-2 , pp. 9 .
4. ^ Daniel Stahl: Resolutions of German international law experts. In: Sources on the history of human rights. Working Group on Human Rights in the 20th Century, May 2015, accessed on January 11, 2017 .