Martin Löhnig, born in Nuremberg in 1971, is married to Dr Cordula Scholz Löhnig (opens in a new window). (This PDF is not accessible) and has four children.
Martin Löhnig took his Abitur at the Melanchthon Gymnasium in Nuremberg in 1990 and, following his community service with Lebenshilfe Nürnberg e.V., studied law at the University of Regensburg. After passing the First State Examination in Law (1996), he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Regensburg in the Chair of Private Law (Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Dieter Schwab).
He passed the assessor’s examination in 1998 and was awarded his doctorate in 2001 with a thesis on the legal history and dogmatics of ‘mistake as to the characteristics of the contracting party’.
Habilitation phase
From 2001, he was a research assistant at the University of Regensburg at the Chair of Private Law, European Legal History and Canon Law (Prof. Dr Hans-Jürgen Becker). In February 2006, he was granted the right to teach private law, civil procedure and legal history.
His habilitation thesis, ‘Treuhand’, was awarded the Regensburg Habilitation Prize and published by Mohr Siebeck (Ius Privatum) with the support of VG Wort.
In 2006, Martin Löhnig won the “Prize for Excellence in Teaching at Bavaria’s Universities” for the courses he had taught at the University of Regensburg’s revision school.
Chairs/Appointments
Following the completion of his habilitation degree, Martin Löhnig accepted an appointment to the W3 Chair of Private Law, Legal History and Canon Law at the University of Konstanz, a post he had already been acting in since autumn 2005.
In the winter semester of 2008/2009, Martin Löhnig accepted an appointment to the W3 professorship in private law, German and European legal history at the University of Regensburg.
In 2011, he declined an appointment to a W3 professorship in private law and legal history at the University of Bayreuth.
Academic self-governance
From October 2009 to October 2012, Martin Löhnig served as dean of studies at the Faculty of Law and, in this capacity, established the REGINA Coaching Centre, which was recognised by the “Germany – Land of Ideas” Foundation.
From October 2019 to September 2021, Martin Löhnig was dean of the Faculty of Law.
Research funding
Martin Löhnig was involved in the Konstanz Cluster of Excellence EXC16 “Cultural Foundations of Social Integration” with the project “Legal harmonisation despite legal binding?”. Furthermore, as part of the Federal Government’s Excellence Initiative, the DFG funded work on the research project “Denazification of National Socialist Law?”.
From 2017 to 2025, Martin Löhnig served as Principal Investigator (PI) on DFG Research Training Group 2337 “Metropolitanism in the Pre-modern Era”, and from 2017 to 2019 as principal investigator on the DFG-funded project *Le droit privé à l’époque post-civile*. Since 2018, he has been the coordinator of the consortium “Central European Legal Laboratory: Re-Thinking Central-European Legal Culture”, which is funded by various domestic and international third-party funding bodies. In 2019/20, he was the principal investigator on the BMJ project “DErbe” (Digital Heritage).
From 2021 to 2025, the DFG has funded the project “Legal History of the Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine”, led by Martin Löhnig, in two phases. Since 2022, he has been a member of the research team for the Spanish government-funded project “Justicia y Memoria Histórica”; he has also been involved as principal investigator in the Uzbekistan project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation since 2022. Since 2023, the DFG has been funding the project “Special Jurisdiction in Bavaria 1918–1924”, led by Martin Löhnig. Since 2025, he has been involved as principal investigator (PI) in the DFG/FWF/NCN project “The Circulation of Law in Central Europe: The Case of Stock Company Law”.
Since 2022, Martin Löhnig has been the academic director of the Institute for Eastern European Law (IOR).
Visiting Professorships
In 2009, 2010 and 2021, Martin Löhnig held a visiting professorship in the history of commercial law at the University of St Gallen (HSG); since 2014, he has been a permanent visiting professor at the Università degli Studi dell’Insubria (Como); since 2019, he has also been a member of the teaching committee for the university’s PhD degree program in Law and Social Sciences; and since 2018, he has been a member of the Scientific Board of the International School of Advanced Studies at the Università di Camerino.
In 2015, he was a visiting professor at Masaryk University (Brno); in 2016 at Széchenyi István University (Győr); in 2018/2019 at Univerzita Karlova (Prague) and in 2022/2023 at Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika (Toruń). Since 2017, he has been an Honorary Collaborator at the Department of Legal Science at the Miguel Hernández University (Elche) and an external member of the Doctoral Programme in Social and Legal Sciences.
Peer review activities in the academic community
Martin Löhnig is a reviewer for the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), the Research Foundation – Vlaanderen (FWO), the Grantová agentura České republiky (GAČR), the Narodowe Centrum Nauki (NCN), the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) and the German National Academic Foundation.
Editorial roles, etc.
He is a regular contributor to JA-Rechtsprechung (family law and inheritance law), co-editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Familienrecht (NZFam), editor of the volumes on family law (13th ed.) and law of succession (14th ed.) of Soergel’s Commentary on the German Civil Code (BGB), founding co-editor of the journal *Rechtskultur*, member of the International Editorial Board of *Jogtörténeti Szemle*, member of the Editorial Board of *Estudios Culturales Hispánicos*, member of the Comitato scientifico of “Fundamental Rights: Rivista di Studi Storici Giuridici Antropologici”, member of the Editorial Board of the Comparative Law Review (UMK), member of the Scientific Board of the Miscellanea Historico-Iuridica (MHI), member of the Comitato internazionale di “Cammino Diritto” (RCD), member of the International Scientific Board of the BRGÖ, which is overseen by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Neuere Legal History (ZNR).
Furthermore, Martin Löhnig, together with various colleagues, edits the series “Mitteleuropäisches Civil Law” (Mohr Siebeck), “Legal Area Studies” (Brill/Böhlau), “Schriften zum deutschen und europäischen law of succession” (Wolfgang Metzner Verlag) and “rechtskultur wissenschaft” (Edition Rechtskultur).