Editing Gustav Radbruch

{{Short description|German legal scholar and politician (1878–1949)}}
{{More footnotes|date=March 2008}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name           = Gustav Radbruch
| image          = RadbruchGustav.jpg
| office         = [[Federal Ministry of Justice (Germany)|Reich Minister of Justice]]
| chancellor1    = [[Joseph Wirth]]
| term_start1    = 26 October 1921
| term_end1      = 22 November 1922
| predecessor1   = [[Eugen Schiffer]]
| successor1     = [[Rudolf Heinze]]
| chancellor     = [[Gustav Stresemann]]
| term_start     = 13 August 1923
| term_end       = 23 November 1923
| predecessor    = [[Rudolf Heinze]]
| successor      = [[Erich Emminger]]
| office2        = Member of the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]]
| term_start2    = 24 June 1920
| term_end2      = 13 March 1924
| constituency2  = National list
| birth_date     = {{birth date|df=yes|1878|11|21}}
| birth_place    = [[Free City of Lübeck]], [[German Empire]]
| death_date     = {{death date and age|df=yes|1949|11|23|1878|11|21}}
| death_place    = [[Heidelberg]], [[Württemberg-Baden]], [[West Germany]]
| party          = [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic Party]]
| alma_mater     = [[University of Berlin]]<br>[[University of Heidelberg]]
| profession     = Lawyer, [[legal philosopher]]
| website        = 
}}
'''Gustav Radbruch''' ({{IPA|de|ˈʁaːtbʁʊx|lang}}; 21 November 1878 – 23 November 1949) was a German [[legal scholar]] and politician. He served as [[Federal Ministry of Justice (Germany)|Minister of Justice]] of Germany during the early [[Weimar Republic|Weimar period]]. Radbruch is also regarded as one of the most influential [[legal philosopher]]s of the 20th century.

==Life==
Born in [[Free City of Lübeck|Lübeck]], Radbruch studied law in [[University of Munich|Munich]], [[University of Leipzig|Leipzig]] and [[University of Berlin|Berlin]]. He passed his first bar exam ("[[Staatsexamen]]") in Berlin in 1901, and the following year he received his doctorate with a dissertation on "The Theory of Adequate Causation". This was followed in 1903 by his qualification to teach criminal law in [[University of Heidelberg|Heidelberg]]. In 1904, he was appointed Professor of criminal and trial law and legal philosophy at Heidelberg. In 1914 he accepted a call to a professorship in [[University of Königsberg|Königsberg]], and later that year assumed a professorship at [[University of Kiel|Kiel]].<ref name=DHM>{{cite web|url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/Biografie/gustav-radbruch|title=Biografie Gustav Radbruch (German)|publisher=Deutsches Historisches Museum|access-date=24 October 2014}}</ref>
<ref name=Bio>{{cite web|url=http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz97652.html|title=Biografie Gustav Radbruch(German)|publisher=Bayerische Staatsbibliothek|access-date=24 October 2014}}</ref>

Radbruch was a member of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD), and held a seat in the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]] from 1920 to 1924. In 1921–22 and throughout 1923, he was minister of justice in the cabinets of [[Joseph Wirth]] and [[Gustav Stresemann]]. During his time in office, a number of important laws were implemented, such as those giving women access to the justice system, and, after the assassination of Foreign Minister [[Walther Rathenau]], the [[Law for the Protection of the Republic]], which increased the punishments for politically motivated acts of violence and banned organizations that opposed the "constitutional republican form of government" along with their printed matter and meetings.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022 |title=Vor 100 Jahren: Reichstag verabschiedet Gesetz zum Schutz der Republik |trans-title=100 Years Ago: The Reichstag Adopts the Law for the Protection of the Republic |url=https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2022/kw28-kalenderblatt-18-juli-902944 |access-date=14 September 2023 |website=Deutscher Bundestag, Online-Dienste |language=de}}</ref>

In 1926, Radbruch accepted a renewed call to lecture at Heidelberg where he delivered his inaugural lecture entitled "''Der Mensch im Recht'' (Law's Image of the Human)" as the newly appointed Professor of Criminal Law on 13 November 1926.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Radbruch|first=Gustav|title=Law's Image of the Human|year=2020|translator-last=Jeutner|translator-first=Valentin|journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies|volume=40|issue=4|pages=667–681|pmid=33536836|pmc=7839934|doi=10.1093/ojls/gqaa026|doi-access=free}}</ref> After the [[Machtergreifung|Nazi seizure of power]] in January 1933, Radbruch, as a former [[History of the Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic politician]], was dismissed from his university post under the terms of the [[Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service|so-called "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums"]], as universities, similar to public bodies, were subject to civil service laws and regulations. Despite the employment ban in [[Nazi Germany]], during 1935/36 he was able to spend a year in England, at [[University College, Oxford]]. An important practical outcome of this was his book, ''Der Geist des englischen Rechts'' (The Spirit of English Law), although this could be published only in 1945.<ref name=GRlautRA>{{cite web|url=https://www.uni-kiel.de/grosse-forscher/index.php?nid=radbruch&lang=e|last=Alexy|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Alexy|title=Gustav Radbruch|website=Kiel University:History of the University:Famous scholars from Kiel|publisher=Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel|access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref> During the Nazi period, he devoted himself primarily to cultural-historical work.

Immediately after the end of the [[Second World War]] in 1945, he resumed his teaching activities, but died in [[Heidelberg]] in 1949 without being able to complete his planned updated edition of his textbook on legal philosophy.

In September 1945, Radbruch published a short paper "Fünf Minuten Rechtsphilosophie" (Five Minutes of Legal Philosophy), which was influential in shaping the [[jurisprudence of values]] (''Wertungsjurisprudenz''), prevalent in the aftermath of World War II as a reaction against [[legal positivism]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Radbruch|first=Gustav|title=Five Minutes of Legal Philosophy (1945)|translator1-last=Litschewski Paulson|translator1-first=Bonnie|translator2-last=Paulson|translator2-first=Stanley L.|journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies|year=2006|volume=26|pages=13–15|doi=10.1093/ojls/gqi042}}</ref><ref>See also {{cite journal|last=Radbruch|first=Gustav|title=Statutory Lawlessness and Supra-Statutory Law (1946)|translator1-last=Litschewski Paulson|translator1-first=Bonnie|translator2-last=Paulson|translator2-first=Stanley L.|journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies|year=2006|volume=26|pages=1–11|doi=10.1093/ojls/gqi041}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Paulson|first=Stanley L.|title=On the Background and Significance of Gustav Radbruch's Post-War Papers|journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies|year=2006|volume=26|pages=17–40|doi=10.1093/ojls/gqi043}}</ref>

==Work==
[[File:Radbruch Rechtsphilosophie.png|thumb|upright|Title page of ''Rechtsphilosophie'' (1932)]]
Radbruch's legal philosophy derived from [[neo-Kantianism]], which assumes that a categorical cleavage exists [[Is–ought problem|between "is" (''sein'') and "ought"]] (''sollen''). According to this view, "should" can never be derived from "Being." Indicative of the [[Heidelberg school of neo-Kantianism]] to which Radbruch subscribed was that it interpolated the value-related cultural studies between the explanatory sciences (being) and philosophical teachings of values (should).
[[File:RadbruchGrab2.jpg|thumb|His grave in Heidelberg]]

In relation to the law, this [[triadism]] shows itself in the subfields of legal sociology, legal philosophy and legal dogma. Legal dogma assumes a place in between. It posits itself in opposition to positive law, as the latter depicts itself in social reality and methodologically in the objective "should-have" sense of law, which reveals itself through value-related interpretation.

The core of Radbruch's legal philosophy consists of his tenets the concept of law and the idea of law. The idea of law is defined through a triad of justice, utility and certainty. Radbruch thereby had the idea of utility or usefulness spring forth from an analysis of the idea of justice. Upon this notion was based the [[Radbruch formula]], which is still vigorously debated today. The concept of law, for Radbruch, is "nothing other than the given fact, which has the sense to serve the idea of law."

Hotly disputed is the question whether Radbruch was a legal positivist before 1933 and executed an about-face in his thinking due to the advent of Nazism, or whether he continued to develop, under the impression of Nazi crimes, the relativistic values-teaching he had already been advocating before 1933.

The problem of the controversy between the spirit and the letter of the law, in Germany, has been brought back to public attention due to the trials of former East German soldiers who guarded the Berlin Wall—the so-called necessity of following orders. Radbruch's theories are posited against the positivist "pure legal tenets" represented by [[Hans Kelsen]] and, to some extent, also from [[Georg Jellinek]].

In sum, [[Radbruch formula|Radbruch's formula]] argues that where [[statutory law]] is incompatible with the requirements of [[justice]] "to an intolerable degree", or where statutory law was obviously designed in a way that deliberately negates "the equality that is the core of all justice", statutory law must be disregarded by a judge in favour of the justice principle. Since its first publication in 1946 the principle has been accepted by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court in a variety of cases. Many people partially blame the older German legal tradition of [[legal positivism]] for the ease with which Hitler obtained power in an outwardly "legal" manner, rather than by means of a coup. Arguably, the shift to a concept of [[natural law]] ought to act as a safeguard against dictatorship, an untrammeled State power and the abrogation of civil rights.
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==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{wikiquote|Gustav Radbruch}}
*{{Cite book |first=Arthur |last=Kaufmann |title=Gustav Radbruch – Rechtsdenker, Philosoph, Sozialdemokrat |publisher=Piper Verlag |location=Munich |year=1987 |language=de}}
*{{Cite book |first=Fritz |last=von Hippel |title=Gustav Radbruch als rechtsphilosophischer Denker |publisher=Schneider Verlag |location=Heidelberg |year=1951 |language=de}}
*{{Cite book|first=Barend|last=Van Niekerk|title=The Warning Voice from Heidelberg: The Life and Thought of Gustav Radbruch|location=Kenwyn|publisher=Juta|year=1973}}
*{{Cite book|first=Sanne|last=Taekema|title=The Concept of Ideals in Legal Theory|location=Den Haag|publisher=Kluwer|year=2003}} chs 3 & 4.

==External links==
*{{cite web |url= https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz97652.html#ndbcontent |title=  Radbruch, Gustav Lambert von: Rechtsphilosoph, Strafrechtler, Reichsjustizminister, * 21.11.1878 Lübeck, † 23.11.1949 Heidelberg, ⚰ Heidelberg, Bergfriedhof. (evangelisch)|publisher= Deutsche Biographie
|doi=  |language = German |accessdate= 31 December 2023}}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/014008}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname= Gustav Radbruch}}

{{jurisprudence}}
{{GermanJusticeMinisters}}
{{Second Wirth cabinet}}
{{First Stresemann cabinet}}
{{Second Stresemann cabinet}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Radbruch, Gustav}}
[[Category:1878 births]]
[[Category:1949 deaths]]
[[Category:Politicians from Lübeck]]
[[Category:Jurists from Schleswig-Holstein]]
[[Category:Justice ministers of Germany]]
[[Category:Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians]]
[[Category:German Protestants]]
[[Category:Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni]]
[[Category:Leipzig University alumni]]
[[Category:Humboldt University of Berlin alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Königsberg]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Kiel]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Heidelberg University]]
[[Category:Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic]]
[[Category:Members of the Reichstag 1920–1924]]