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Hermann Kantorowicz

Hermann Ulrich Kantorowicz (18 November 1877, Posen, German Empire – 12 February 1940, Cambridge) was a German jurist.

He was a professor at Freiburg University (1923-1929), and a visiting professor, Columbia University (1927), as well as at Kiel University (1929-1933). He was dismissed from Kiel on political and antisemitic grounds in 1933, and became lecturer at the 'University in Exile' and at City College, New York, 1933–34.[1] Then he was lecturer at the London School of Economics, All Souls College Oxford and Cambridge University, 1934–37, and Assistant Director of Research in Law, Cambridge, 1937-1940.[2]

Report on German war guilt issue

Kantorowicz caused heated debate when details of his report for the parliamentary investigative committee on the question of Germany's guilt in triggering World War I became known.[3][4] Contrary to the prevailing opinion in Germany, he concluded in 1923 that Germany's responsibility in the outbreak of the war was of great importance. Kantorowicz cited as an example the official German White Book of 3 August 1914, finding that about 75 percent of the documents that it presented had been falsified to support denial of Germany's involvement in the outbreak of the First World War.[5]

When Kantorowicz was proposed for election as a full professor at the University of Kiel shortly thereafter in 1927, Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann (DVP) raised his objections to this in a letter to the Minister of Culture Carl Heinrich Becker (SPD). Stresemann saw Germany as innocent of the origins of the First World War and, after the advice from the former diplomat and politician Johannes Kriege (DVP), wanted to prevent Kantorowicz's critical view of Germany's actions, which went as far as "masochism", from being reinforced by the award of a full professorship in Kiel.[6]

Selected works

A comprehensive bibliography can be found in Relativismus und Freirecht, ein Versuch űber Hermann Kantorowicz by Karlheinz Muscheler, C. F. Müller Juristicher Verlag, Heidelberg, 1984

(Posthumous publications)

Collected small writings

At the instigation of his widow, Hilda Kantorowicz (1892-1974), the more significant small writings of Hermann Kantorowicz were published in the two following works. These writings are marked with '#' or '##' respectively in the above bibliography

References

  1. ^ Schmidt, Katharina Isabel (2023). "How Hermann Kantorowicz Changed His Mind About America and Its Law, 1927–34". Law and History Review. 41 (1): 93–117. doi:10.1017/S0738248023000020. ISSN 0738-2480.
  2. ^ For further biographical details see: Muscheler, Karlheinz (1984). Hermann Ulrich Kantorowicz. Eine Biographie. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. ISBN 978-34280-5692-7.
  3. ^ Hermann Kantorowicz: Gutachten zur Kriegsschuldfrage 1914. [Report on the War guilt question 1914] from the estate of Imanuel Geiss, 1967
  4. ^ Kann, Robert A. (December 1968). "GUTACHTEN ZUR KRIEGSSCHULDFRAGE 1914. AUS DEM NACHLASS. by Hermann Kantorowicz. Edited and introduced by Geiss Imanuel. With a preface by Gustav W. Heinemann. (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. 1967. pp. 452. DM 28.)". Central European History. 1 (4): 383–389. doi:10.1017/S0008938900014977. OCLC 4669487703. S2CID 145105893.
  5. ^ Kantorowicz, Hermann; Geiss, Imanuel (1967). Gutachten zur Kriegsschuldfrage 1914 [Report on the War guilt question 1914] (in German). Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. OCLC 654661194. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  6. ^ Eyck, Erich (1956). Geschichte der Weimarer Republik (in German). E. Rentsch. pp. 139 et seq. OCLC 781382920. Retrieved 4 October 2020.

External links