Die Wiener Rechtstheoretische Schule

by Hans Kelsen, Adolf Merkl, Alfred Verdross

Hans Kelsen, Adolf Merkl und Alfred Verdross haben durch ihre Werke die Wiener rechtstheoretische Schule begrundet, die mit ihren Beitragen zur Rechts- und Staatstheorie, zum offentlichen Recht und zur politischen Wissenschaft weltweite Bedeutung erlangt hat. Um das Schrifttum dieser osterreichischen Rechtsgelehrten, das in Jahrzehnten des vergangenen Jahrhunderts entstanden ist, Interessierten in Gegenwart und Zukunft zuganglich zu machen, haben sich die Herausgeber der Aufgabe gestellt, die deutschsprachigen Veroffentlichungen der drei Autoren, soweit sie nicht in Buchform erschienen sind, zu sammeln, nach Sachgebieten und innerhalb derselben nach zeitlichen Gesichtspunkten zu ordnen und zum Neudruck zu bringen.

1997 pages, Hardcover

Published October 19, 2010

About the author

Hans Kelsen was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which to a very large degree is still valid today. Due to the rise of totalitarianism in Austria (and a 1929 constitutional change), Kelsen left for Germany in 1930 but was forced to leave this university post after Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 because of his Jewish ancestry. That year he left for Geneva and later moved to the United States in 1940. In 1934, Roscoe Pound lauded Kelsen as "undoubtedly the leading jurist of the time." While in Vienna, Kelsen met Sigmund Freud and his circle, and wrote on the subject of social psychology and sociology.

By the 1940s, Kelsen's reputation was already well established in the United States for his defense of democracy and for his Pure Theory of Law. Kelsen's academic stature exceeded legal theory alone and extended to political philosophy and social theory as well. His influence encompassed the fields of philosophy, legal science, sociology, the theory of democracy, and international relations.