Wilhelm Sauer (lawyer)

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Johannes Franz Wilhelm Sauer (born June 24, 1879 in Frankfurt (Oder) ; † March 21, 1962 in Münster ) was a German legal scholar and criminologist .

Life

Sauer was a son of the organ builder Wilhelm Sauer and his second wife Anna. After graduating from high school in 1898, he studied law and philosophy in Marburg, Kiel and Berlin. During his studies he became a member of the AMV Fridericiana Marburg . He passed the first state examination in 1901 and the assessor examination in 1907 . In 1908 he received his doctorate in Halle (Saale) and remained in the civil service as a court assessor until 1916. In 1916 he completed his habilitation in Konigsberg with Alexander Graf zu Dohna for criminal law and criminal procedure law. Originally it was in 1919 Gustav Radbruch assucceeded an adjunct professor at the University of Königsberg in 1919 , but he was not appointed until 1920/21 and was given a full professorship in 1921.

Between 1926 and 1934, Sauer also worked as editor of the journal Archive for Legal and Social Philosophy . In 1935 he was appointed by the Ministry of Culture to succeed Ernst Rosenfeld as a full professor at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster , where he taught until his retirement (1946).

Sauer had previously made himself unpopular in the Königsberg faculty and had been attacked by National Socialist students as "reactionary". Although he had expressed himself enthusiastically about National Socialism and the ideas of the Führer, at the same time he denied the revolutionary character of National Socialism in lectures. He claimed that National Socialism only carried out the ideas that were in the air. Even before 1933 he himself represented the teachings of the national revolution. The legal and social philosophy had recognized "in the breakthrough only their own ideas, of which it was secretly the bearer, pioneer, originator,". On the other hand, the National Socialist side accused him of not having sufficient command of the new folk and racial doctrine. In 1936 three works by Sauer were also banned.

After the end of the war, Sauer was classified as unencumbered. In 1959 he received an honorary doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Münster.

plant

Wilhelm Sauer dealt scientifically with an unusually wide range of topics. In addition to publications on criminal law , the philosophy of law and criminology, his works also include publications on international law and general philosophy and sociology .

Sauer's definition, "Illegal is behavior which, according to a general tendency, does more harm than good to the state and its members according to the judgment of jurisprudence." Was an important preliminary stage to the development of criminal law at the time of National Socialism. In 1933, he wrote in the Archives of Legal Philosophy someone should "in the leader worship a shining light and a hero" Ingo Müller attacks that continue exuberant representation by Sauer in his book Terrible lawyers as a prominent example of that not only young climbers, the seizure of power by welcomed the National Socialists.

In 1933, Sauer published a three-volume criminal sociology , which he re-published in 1950 in a substantially revised version as Kriminologie . In his basic thesis, he added a third decisive factor to the investment and environmental aspects of the declaration of crime: free will. The crime pathogen was for Sauer, the self-creative design intent of the criminal . This cannot be inherited directly, but a disposition for it can. In 1933, Sauer therefore recommended sterilization as an effective means of combating crime. Sauer denied, however, that the criminal agent occurs more often in certain races or peoples. He shows himself in every national body .

Sauer's doctrine of the criminal pathogen was still spread and popularized in the 1950s. Some also spoke of a crime bug .

Works (selection)

  • Criminal Sociology (1933)
  • Criminology as a pure and applied science (1950)

literature

  • Imanuel Baumann: On the trail of crime. A history of criminology and criminal politics in Germany 1880 to 1980 , Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0008-3 , on Sauer especially pp. 154–159.
  • Sebastian Felz: In the spirit of truth? Between science and politics: The Münster jurists from the Weimar Republic to the early Federal Republic. In: Hans-Ulrich Thamer , Daniel Droste, Sabine Happ (eds.): The University of Münster in National Socialism: Continuities and breaks between 1920 and 1960. (= publications of the Münster University Archives . Volume 5). Aschendorff, Münster 2012, Vol. 1, pp. 347-412.
  • Christoph M. Scheuren-Brandes, The Path from National Socialist Legal Doctrine to Radbruch Formula: Investigations into the History of the Idea of ​​"Wrong Law" , Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-72953-5 , on Sauer especially pp. 49-72.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association of Alter SVer (VASV): Address book and Vademecum. Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1959, p. 105.
  2. ↑ Scheuren-Brandes: The path from National Socialist legal teachings to Radbruch formula , pp. 50–53.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Sauer, Fundamentals of Criminal Law, along with an outline of a legal and social philosophy , 1921, p. 391.
  4. ^ Ingo Müller, Terrible Jurists , Kindler-Verlag Munich 1987, ISBN 3-463-40038-3 , p. 84.
  5. ↑ ARSP Volume 27, p. 13.
  6. ^ Ingo Müller, Terrible Jurists , Kindler-Verlag Munich 1987, ISBN 3-463-40038-3 , p. 78.
personal data
SURNAME Sauer, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German legal scholar and criminologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1962
Place of death Muenster