Max Kaser

Max Kaser was born in Vienna where his father, the historian Dr. Kurt Kaser (1870–1931) worked at the time as a university tutor ("Privatdozent"). On both his father's side and his mother's sides, his ancestral roots tracked back through many generations of Austrian government administrators, lawyers, physicians, army officers and artists. Soon after his birth his father accepted an appointment which included an extraordinary professorship at the University of Graz, and the family relocated to that city. In 1914 the family moved again when Dr.Kurt Kaser accepted a full professorship at the University of Czernowitz (as it was then known), a couple of hundred kilometers south-west of Kyiv. The First World War and, more indirectly, its aftermath, brought about the need for further moves, and during the second part of his boyhood Max Kaser's family moved repeatedly between Czernowitz, Salzburg and Graz, as his father pursued his career as a university professor of medieval and modern history.[2][5]

In 1924 Max Kaser enrolled at the University of Graz where between 1924 and 1928 he studied Jurisprudence. He was taught by Artur Steinwenter who taught Roman law, and whom Kaser would always single out as a powerfully positive influence, on account of his "extensive knowledge and exceptionally well-balanced judgement". The two would remain firm friends till Steinwenter's death in 1959.[3] A student contemporary at Graz was Walter Wilburg who later achieved eminence as a legal scholar and lawyer, and who also became a life-long friend.[6] He received his doctorate at Graz,[1] awarded on 19 November 1928. Many years earlier Ludwig Kaser (1841–1916), his grandfather, had also received a doctorate in Jurisprudence from the University of Graz.[4] It was on the recommendation of his doctoral supervisor, Steinwenter, that Max Kaser switched in 1929 to Munich where he was supported by a scholarship. He was taught by Leopold Wenger at the university "Institute for Papyrus Research and Legal History in Antiquity" ("Institut für Papyrusforschung und antike Rechtsgeschichte").[3] The primary focus of his research was a question arising from the Roman civil law of property which two years later formed the based for Kaser's habilitation and his book "Restituere als Prozeßgegenstand" (1932: republished with extensive further notes in 1968).[7]

Meanwhile he delivered a programme of lectures at Frankfurt University during the winter 1930/31 term before moving on to the nearby University of Giessen where he worked as a research assistant to Otto Eger. It was Eger who supervised Kaser for his habilitation degree which he received in June 1931.[3]

In 1932 he accepted a teaching post at Münster where he took over from Hans Kreller who had transferred to Tübingen. In October 1933, still aged only 27, he accepted a full professorship in Civil and Roman law. He would remain at Münster till 1959. Although his duties required him to take in interest in Civil law, his strong preference for Roman law was never in doubt.[2] An administrative post was added in April 1937 when he was made dean of the law faculty. In this post he won and retained, through the energy and ability that he brought to the job, the confidence of his mostly rather conservative senior colleagues, while quietly resisting pressure to pander to Germany's increasingly institutionalised Nazism which he characterised (quietly) as an "Anticulture" ("Unkultur").[3]

For Max Kaser 1933 was the year in which he met Erna Lehnig whose mother's family came from the Münster region. Her father's family came from the coastal region of Pomerania. By the end of 1933 the two were married, demonstrating through their "Austrian-north German partnership" a "perfect harmony" as Kaser later wrote. It was both a loving and an efficient partnership. Erna Kaser proved a highly competent administrator, running the house - even to the point, slightly unusually for a "housewife" at that time, of taking care of the family's annual tax declaration - leaving her husband to concentrate on his work at the university. The marriage also produced, in rapid succession, a son and a daughter.[3] Meanwhile Kaser's academic career and reputation progressed. He received and rejected apparently attractive offers of professorships from Heidelberg, Freiburg i.B. and Marburg in 1937, 1939, 1940, in every case preferring to stay put at Münster "at [his] own wish", as he expressed the matter at the time in a letter to a colleague.[8]

When war broke out in 1939 Kaser, despite being still relatively young, was exempted from military service on account of a serious heart defect. However, as the slaughter of war intensified such matters counted for less, and in November 1943 he was conscripted into the army. He was initially engaged in anti-aircraft warfare but was soon sent back to Münster where he worked as a clerk for the regimental administration ("Regimentsstab"). The army permitted him still to lecture at the university for two days each week. In April 1945 the Americans came. War ended a month later and Max Kaser became a prisoner of war. He was held in various American and French camps till his release, which followed in 1946. He returned to the university and resumed his teaching.[3] The National Socialists had had their own views on Roman law. They found it "materialistic" and incompatible with their racist ideals, so they planned to replace the German legal code with their own People's Legal code which would (among other things) remove the influence of Roman Law over the German system.[9] But now they were gone. Kaser could now be less constrained in his lecturing, his writing and on his networking. His reputation continued to grow.[3] Offers of professorships came from Marburg (again) and Heidelberg (again). There were also offers from Graz (1951), Göttingen (1952) and Vienna (1959). Till 1959 he rejected all such offers.[2]

When, in 1959, Kaser finally accepted an invitation to move, it was to accept a professorship at the University of Hamburg where he sustained a successful career in academic teaching and research till his formal retirement in 1971.[2] Three of his personally supervised habilitation students from his time at Hamburg subsequently achieved eminence as university professors of jurisprudence.[3][lower-alpha 1] One of these, Dieter Medicus, later wrote an affectionate obituary in which he surmised that Kaser's decision to retire from his professorship at Hamburg had been accelerated by the student unrest of 1968 and its aftermath. He found himself unable to endorse or even to understand either the methods employed or the objectives of those involved. Whatever the truth of the matter, his retirement from Hamburg certainly did not mark an end to an active career as a law professor at a top university.[2]

Between 1971 and 1976 Kaser held a special professorship at the University of Salzburg, occupying the teaching chair for Roman and Civil law. He obtained the position following discussion with Theo Mayer-Maly and Wolfgang Waldstein. He let it be known to his friends that he very much relished the chance to teach Roman law to students who were not motivated by the tightly prescriptive regime under which study and exams were operated in the German system.[2] He continued teaching at Salzburg till 1985, by which time he was almost 80.[4]

Between 1954 and 1972 Max Kaser was a co-producer of the prestigious Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (ZRG), a venerable specialist journal for scholars and students of historical jurisprudence and related topics.[3]

Max Kaser was a member of various learned societies and other scholarly associations, some of which are listed below:

• In 1959 he became a full member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen ("Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities").[10]
• In 1960 he became a foreign member of the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino ("Turin Academy of Sciences and Humanities").[4]
• In 1968 he became a member of the Naples Accademia delle Scienze ("Academy of sciences").[4]
• In 1969 he became a foreign member of the Milan-based Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere ("Lombard Academy of Sciences and Letters ").[4]
• In 1971 he became a member of the Rome-based Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (literally, "[Italian] Academy of the lynxes").[4]
• In 1972 he became a member of the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften ("Austrian Academy of Sciences and Humanities").[4]
• In 1973 he became a corresponding member of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften ("Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities") in Munich.[4]
• In 1973 he became a member of the London-based British Academy.[11]
• In 1975 he was elected an honorary member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies in London.[4]
• In 1988 he became a member of the Ακαδημία Αθηνών ([modern] "Academy of Athens").

The "Max Kaser Seminar" at the University of Salzburg is named in Kaser's honour. The seminar's library, set up in 1966, consists of books, newspapers and other printed material by Ernst Levy, Erich Sacher and Max Kaser himself. The collection is meticulously kept up to date.[12]

Kaser's text books about Roman Civil Law and Roman legal history more broadly are widely studied and respected. They have been translated into a number of languages including English, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.[3][13]

Max Kaser also received a remarkably large number of honorary doctorates.[3][lower-alpha 2]