Martin Wolff (1872-1953)

Thomas Hansen deals with the life and works of Martin Wolff - one of the most well-known legal scholars of the first half of the 20th century, who received a great deal of praise for his textbook on property law. He focuses on Wolff's career up to the seizure of power by the National Socialists, when he was forced to leave Germany because of his Jewish background. In doing so, the author has made use of extensive material from the archives and examines the fate of Wolff's family as well as that of some of his colleagues and students. In the second part of the book, the author deals with the question of whether or not Wolff's views can be classified as part of the dispute over methodology in the early 20th century as well as with the theory that Wolff adhered to a liberal private law mode. In the course of this study, the author shows that Wolff can be called a pragmatic dogmatist who was in touch with reality and who was also a homo politicus.