Bernhard Windscheid

Bernhard Joseph Hubert Windscheid ( born June 26, 1817 in Dusseldorf, † October 26, 1892 in Leipzig) was one of the most important German jurists of his time.

Life

Origin

Bernhard Windscheid was born as the third child of the Royal Keeper mortgage and tax council wind Ferdinand Scheid and his wife Frederike, née Servaes. After attending the school for boys in Emmerich and Recklinghausen, he put 1834 in Dusseldorf from the High School.

Study

He began in Berlin to study linguistics, but decided quickly under the influence of the lectures of Savigny, for the study of law, which he completed from 1834 to 1836 in Berlin, Bonn, and again in Berlin. The First Law Examination in 1837 he laid off, then followed by a practical judicial service at the Landgericht Dusseldorf.

Academic career

On 22 December 1838 he received his doctorate in Bonn with a dissertation on " De valida mulierum intercessione ". Also in Bonn, he habilitated in 1840 with the paper " On the Doctrine of the Code Napoléon of the invalidity of legal acts ." There he was appointed in 1847 as an associate professor of Roman and French law. Still in 1847 he went to Basel, 1852 to Greifswald in 1857 was followed by Munich, and in 1871 he was appointed as successor to Karl Adolph von Vangerow to Heidelberg, where he received the title of Privy Council.

On November 4, 1858, he married the artist Lotte Pochhammer, with whom he had four children. In 1868 he was awarded by the Bavarian royal titles of nobility, but because he saw himself as a member of a bourgeois family, he did not lead them. From Heidelberg Windscheid went in the fall of 1874 at the University of Leipzig, where in 1880 he was appointed full professor of the Faculty of Law. In Leipzig he was until his death scientifically active. He had also participated in the organizational tasks of the Leipzig University and was 1884/85, the rector of the Alma Mater.

Work

At the suggestion of Baden Windscheid was elected in the summer of 1874 as a member of the First Commission for the drafting of a draft of a German Civil Code ( BGB), to which he belonged until 30 September 1883. Although Windscheid was of the view that Roman law should be taken as a whole for the German Empire, so did his major work, in 1861, published three volume textbook of Pandektenrechts, influenced the first draft of the Civil Code crucial. There he observed the Roman law of his time so vividly illustrates that this textbook to 1900 the missing Civil Code largely replaced. Windscheid concluded in its strictly systematic embossed representation of the Pandects the needs of the practice widely opposed because he, unlike the conservative supporters of the historical school of law entirely renounced the historical treatment of the sources and only sought after practicable for the present classification, so that his book had a significance for the legal work, which was higher than that of the Palandt today. It has been reprinted twice in 1900 by Theodor Kipp.

Among the legal achievements wind Scheids continue to include the establishment of the substantive claim in its present form in contrast to the Roman legal Actio as a pure action formula, " The actio of the Roman Civil law from the standpoint of today's law ", published in 1856.

In his work, "The doctrine of Roman law from the requirement " Windscheid tried to introduce the concept of requirement in the then existing legal system. The condition is a new form of restriction will. A party who declare themselves only on the condition of the existence, degree of permanence or the occurrence of any circumstance, do not be bound by the declaration of intent, " if the assumption or expectation not stands the test ". The requirement was to delineate the significant motif of a party and of the legally binding condition within the meaning of § 158 BGB today. Windscheid could with his demand, the requirement in the Civil Code of 1896, entered into force in 1900 to include not prevail. This was mainly because that the condition was considered a threat to legal certainty. So many feared recognized legal scholars of that time, that a number of Contracting Parties in hindsight could invoke ( wrongly) to an alleged requirement. Was the doctrine thus failed positive law of the condition, they served but - along with the rebus sic stanti and laesio enormis - as an essential precursor to the 1921 developed by his son Paul Oertmann doctrine of frustration of contract situation, today according disruption of business basis. § 313 BGB.

Honors

1890 Windscheid honorary citizen of Leipzig, where in 1911 a road was named. Also in Berlin- Charlottenburg carries a road since 1897 his name in the Düsseldorf district Duesseltal a street is named after him since 1903.

Works

  • De valida mulierum intercessione. Bonn 1838
  • On the Doctrine of the Code Napoleon of the invalidity of legal transactions. Dusseldorf 1847
  • The doctrine of Roman law from the requirement. Dusseldorf 1850
  • The actio of the Roman Civil law from the standpoint of today's law. Dusseldorf 1856
  • On the Concept of condition. In: Archives for the civilistische practice. 78 band, 1892, pp. 161-202
  • Collected speeches and treatises. Leipzig 1904
  • Textbook of Pandektenrechts in three volumes. With Notes by Theodor Kipp, 9th edition, Leipzig 1906 ( first edition 1862-1870 )

Pictures of Bernhard Windscheid

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