DFG/FWF/NCN project “Legal Exchange in Central and Eastern Europe: The Example of the GmbH”
Legal Exchange in Central and Eastern Europe: The Example of the GmbH
Funding bodies: German Research Foundation (DFG), Austrian Science Fund (FWF), National Centre for Science (NCN)
Partners: Kamila Staudigl-Ciechowicz (Vienna), Anna Moszyńska (Toruń)
The main objective of the project is to analyse and evaluate legal exchange between Germany, Austria and Poland. “Exchange” encompasses, in a comprehensive sense, legal transfer and legal re-transfer, as well as the migration of thoughts and ideas. In its spatial dimensions, legal exchange is multi-scalar and can take place at local, regional, national and global levels, in both horizontal and vertical directions.
The project will analyse the background to the legal exchange process and the forces driving this phenomenon, assess the role of experts and the interconnections between them, evaluate the substantive outcomes of the legal transfer incorporated into the adopted legal acts, and analyse the further development of this complex process, its long-term effects and economic impact.
Central European Legal Laboratory: Re-thinking Central European Legal Culture
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG), Vielberth Foundation, Förderverein Europäische Rechtskultur e.V.
The “Central European Legal Laboratory” conceives of Central Europe as a legal, cultural and communicative space that has been shaped by profound political, social and normative upheavals since the 19th century.
It examines codification and legal unity, the transfer of norms and legal pluralism, legal practice in post-imperial and nation-state contexts, the interplay between law, society, religion and politics, and the transformation of legal systems.
In this context, Central Europe emerges as a laboratory of legal modernity — a space in which norms are created, circulate, are translated, adapted or negotiated in a spirit of conflict.
The “Central European Legal Laboratory” is a loose association of scholars working on various individual projects with historical, comparative and transnational focuses, and serves as a hub for research into the Central European legal, cultural and communicative sphere.
Further information on the projects, publications and funding bodies can be found on this research network’s own website (--> (external link, opens in a new window))
DFG project “Alsace-Moselle – a legal laboratory // Alsace-Lorraine as a legal laboratory”
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG), Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Vielberth Foundation, Förderverein Europäische Rechtskultur e.V.
Further information on the project:
www.alsacelorraine.de (external link, opens in a new window)
DFG project “Special Jurisdiction in Bavaria 1919–1924”
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG)
In times of political upheaval, the administration of criminal justice serves as a barometer of the rule of law. The judicial practice of the Weimar period is commonly characterised as ‘undemocratic’, ‘blind in the right eye’ and ‘political’. However, there are no source-based works of legal history available that could either confirm or refute these assessments. The aim of the project is therefore to examine these assessments using the example of the Bavarian estates’ courts and people’s courts. Between 1918 and 1924, the vast majority of criminal proceedings in Bavaria took place before these courts, including the trials of members of the Bavarian Soviet Republic (1919) and the so-called Hitler putschists (1923–24). Judicial practice is to be examined on the basis of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the surviving case files from the estates’ courts and people’s courts. Based on initial insights into the Bavarian archive holdings, it can be surmised that a more nuanced assessment of Bavarian judicial practice is required than has been the case to date. This, in turn, may provide grounds for re-examining and refining common theories regarding the role of the judiciary in the functioning and failure of the Weimar Republic.
Collaboration partner: Prof . Dr Arnd Koch (University of Augsburg)
Publications
Kerscher, Special Laws and Special Courts in the Early Free State of Bavaria (Freistaat Bayern): The People’s Courts in the Eichstätt Regional Court District and Criminal Law under the State of Emergency in the Crisis Year of 1923, Rechtskultur 11 (2022), pp. 57 ff.
Löhnig/Preisner, ‘Two Histories about the Bavarian People’s Courts’, ZNR 34 (2012), pp. 43 ff.
Löhnig, ‘Introducing the participation of laymen into the judicial system in 19th-century Germany – The example of Bavaria’, in: Berger/Delivré, *Popular Justice in Europe 1750–1870*, Bologna 2014, pp. 115 ff.
Löhnig, “People’s Courts” in Austria (1945–1955), in: Berger/Delivré/Löhnig (eds.), Popular Justice in Times of Transition (19th and 20th-century Europe), Bologna 2017, pp. 191 ff.
Löhnig, ‘Trends in Lay Participation in Criminal Proceedings in Germany in the 19th and 20th Centuries’, in: Gerald Kohl/Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal (eds.), ‘Lay People in the Jurisdiction – History and Current Perspectives’, Vienna 2019.
Löhnig, ‘The Judiciary in the Fight against “Particularly Reprehensible Modern Crime”: Usury Courts and Economic Crime 1919–1924’, in: Koch/Kubiciel/Löhnig (eds.), Criminal Law between the November Revolution and the Weimar Republic, Tübingen 2020, pp. 139 ff.
Preisner, ‘Bavarian Drumhead Courts-Martial and People’s Courts’, in: Berger/Delivré/Löhnig (eds.), *Popular Justice in Times of Transition (19th and 20th Century Europe)*, Bologna 2017, pp. 127 ff.
Preisner, The Judicial Practice of the Bavarian People’s Courts (1918–1924), in: Koch/Kubiciel/Löhnig (eds.), Criminal Law between the November Revolution and the Weimar Republic, Tübingen 2020, pp. 87 ff.
DFG Research Training Group “Metropolitanism in the Pre-modern Era”
Prof. Dr Martin Löhnig was a co-applicant on the DFG Research Training Group 2337, “Metropolitanism in the Pre-modern Era”, which runs from 2017 to 2026.
Research Concept
Metropolises are the hallmarks of urbanisation processes worldwide. The constitution and diversity of meanings of metropolises – their ‘metropolitanity’ – are subject to specific historical and cultural conditions, which have changed dramatically, particularly over the last 150 years, under the influence of industrialisation and globalization. Whilst these recent developments have been intensively researched up to the present day through metropolitan studies, urban sociology and urban planning, there is a lack of coherent and theory-driven research for the pre-modern period. Yet the formative influence of individual major urban centres appears to have been fully developed even in the earliest known urban cultures of pre-Christian Asia. In Europe, the processes of urbanisation and metropolisation gained lasting momentum and significance during the Greek-Roman antiquity. It is striking that it is precisely European cities which, between the 16th and 18th centuries, boasted the largest populations worldwide, and that these metropolises can almost without exception be traced back to Roman foundations. Building on this observation, the research programme outlined here explores the longue durée of the European metropolis, examining the constitution, impact and transformation of metropolitan status from greek-Roman antiquity to the dawn of industrialisation. Over this long period, new forms of social organisation and economic activity, techniques of governance and cultural codes took root in cities, finding their models and ‘laboratories’ in the metropolises. In this context, serving as a model to the outside world necessarily corresponds to metropolitan self-attributions internally. The claims to prestige as a metropolis, constituted by external image and self-image, are closely intertwined with the formation and differentiation of metropolitan topography, society and communication. This sets out the guiding research perspectives of the proposed Research Training Group, which can only be explored through a multidisciplinary approach and by developing common methodological and thematic guidelines. Metropolitanity, according to the applicants’ working hypothesis, characterises those cities which, on the one hand, become a symbolic and functional point of reference for urbanisation processes within a large supra-regional area and, at the same time, offer both residents and outsiders a surplus of meaning and potential for identification as a metropolis.
Further information can be found here (--> (external link, opens in a new window))
Legal harmonisation despite legal binding force? – The case law of the Reich Court on particular rights, 1879–1899
Funding: Cluster of Excellence 16 “Cultural Foundations of Integration” at the University of Konstanz (EXC16) (completed)
With the opening of the Imperial Court of Justice in Leipzig on 1 October 1879, a single supreme court for the entire German Empire was established. However, the creation of this court was not accompanied by the establishment of a uniform civil law across the Reich. Rather, the Civil Code, which remains in force to this day, did not replace the numerous regional laws and common law until 1 January 1900. Martin Löhnig examines how the Imperial Court dealt with this fragmentation of the legal system. Did the court preserve this diversity of law? Or did it seek to unify the law through its case law, thereby attempting to contribute to the internal foundation of the Empire? And if so, by what means and in which areas?
Publications:
Löhnig, Legal Standardisation through Case Law? On the Case Law of the Imperial Court 1879–1899, Tübingen 2012
Löhnig, ‘Paths of Development in Tort Law: On the Application of the Austrian ABGB by the German Reichsgericht’, ZEuP 2011, 890
Löhnig, Killing Legal Complexity – The Jurisdiction of the German Reichsgericht in the First Years of its Existence, in: Donlan/Heirbaut, The Laws’ Many Bodies, Berlin 2015, 249
Löhnig, General Clauses in the Case Law of the Austrian Senates of the Reichsgericht, BRGÖ 2017, 181
Löhnig, ‘Supreme Jurisdiction and the Internal Foundation of the German Empire’, in: Gabriella Mangione/Lino Panzeri (eds.), *Italy and Germany between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries*, Milan 2019, p. 11
BMJ project “Digital Heritage (DErbe)”
Funding: Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) (completed)
The aim of the project is, in the interests of consumers, to examine the issues surrounding digital inheritance from a legal (consumer law, data privacy law, law of succession, copyright law) and technical perspective in a way that is accessible to the general public, in the form of a study, to identify disadvantages faced by consumers and to make recommendations on how consumer-friendliness can be improved in the context of the inheritance of digital assets.
Partners: Fraunhofer Institute SIT, University of Bremen
Publications:
Buchner/Löhnig/Waidner (eds.), The Digital Estate, Berlin 2020 (--> (external link, opens in a new window))
Naczinsky, ‘The Testator’s Digital Planning’, ZEV 2020, 665
Naczinsky, ‘Options for Inheritance Sharing with Regard to the Digital Estate’, ZEV 2021, 227
Naczinsky, ‘The Digital Estate in Private Law’, ZEV 2021, 677
DFG/Villa Vigoni: “Private Law in the Post-Civil Age”
Funding: DFG/Villa Vigoni – Trilateral Conferences (completed)
Over the last 100 years, European private law has evolved from liberal private law to social private law. The foundations for this were laid in the German-French-Italian discourse of the interwar period. Further significant impetus came during the Fascist era and in the course of the European integration of the three states after 1945. The genesis of today’s social private law is to be comprehensively analysed for the first time as a basis for further research.
-→ Press release (external link, opens in a new window)
Publications:
Löhnig, ‘On the History of Consumer Law from the Instalment Sales Act (1894) to the Outbreak of the Major Consumer Protection Debates of the 1960s’, in: Kannowski/Schmidt-Kessel (eds.), History of Consumer Law, Jena 2017, p. 91
Deroussin/Löhnig/Mazzarella/Wagner (eds.), Private Law in the Post-Private Law Era, Volume 1, Frankfurt am Main (Klostermann), 2022
Deroussin/Löhnig/Mazzarella/Wagner (eds.), Private Law in the Post-Private Law Era, Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main (Klostermann), 2024
Deroussin/Löhnig/Mazzarella/Wagner (eds.), Private Law in the Post-Private Law Era, Volume 3, Frankfurt am Main (Klostermann) [in preparation]
The Denazification of Nazi Law – On the Treatment of Legal Norms from the Years 1933–1945 in Post-1945 Case Law
Funding: DFG as part of the Federal Government’s Excellence Initiative (completed)
After 1945, numerous legal provisions dating from 1933–1945 remained in force; these had been enacted on the basis of National Socialist ideology and required ideological judgements. This research examines how judges at first instance dealt with such norms amidst the moral vacuum of the immediate post-war period, and how the application of these norms up to 1949 reflected the re-ideologisation and division of Germany, culminating in the establishment of two German states.
Publications:
Löhnig, ‘Challenges to the Validity of Marriages by the Public Prosecutor (1938–1961)’, ZRG (Germ) 124 (2007), 323
Löhnig, ‘Everyday divorce proceedings in a court of first instance before and after the “collapse”: The Amberg divorce files from 1944–1946’, ZRG (Germ) 125 (2008), 501
Löhnig, The Judiciary as Legislator: On the Application of National Socialist Law in the Post-War Period, Regenstauf 2010
Löhnig (ed.), *Zwischenzeit – Legal History of the Occupation Years*, Regenstauf 2011
Birndorfer, ‘Day-to-Day Proceedings at First Instance, 1938–1949: Based on the Divorce Files of the Amberg Regional Court’, Regenstauf 2013
Sonnenschein, The Denazification of National Socialist Labor Law – The Case Law of North Rhine-Westphalian Labour Courts 1945–1949, Regenstauf 2014
Löhnig, ‘Re-Education by Jurisdiction: On Enforcing a Christian-Occidental Understanding of Marriage in Western Germany after 1945’, HSE (Historia Social y de la Educación / Social and Education History) 3 (2014), 133
Löhnig, Breaking with bourgeois rules and traditions: The divorce files of East German courts in the late 1940s, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, 2015, 538
Löhnig, New Times – Old Law: The Application of Nazi Laws by German Courts after 1945, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2017
Ascher, The Application of National Socialist Labor Law in the American Occupation Zone, Regensburg 2018
Strohmaier, Day-to-day proceedings at first instance between 1938 and 1950, based on the divorce files of the Ravensburg Regional Court concerning Sections 55 of the 1938 Marriage Act and Section 48 of the 1946 Marriage Act, Regensburg 2018
Meixner, The Post-War Black Market in Nuremberg from a Legal Perspective, Regensburg 2018