German Legal History
German Unification and the Legal System (1871)
The Constitutional Foundation of the German Empire The German Empire (Deutsches Kaiserreich) was proclaimed on January 18, 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, following the defeat of France in …
Legal History of the Holy Roman Empire
The Imperial Reform of 1495 The Holy Roman Empire’s legal order was transformed by the Imperial Reform (Reichsreform) of 1495, enacted at the Diet of Worms under Emperor Maximilian I. The reform …
The Historical School of Law and the Development of German Legal Science
The Codification Debate The Historical School of Law (Historische Rechtsschule) emerged from a pivotal debate about the direction of German legal development. In 1814, Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut, …
The Weimar Constitution and the Nazi Legal Revolution
The Weimar Constitution of 1919 The Weimar Constitution (Weimarer Verfassung), adopted by the National Assembly at Weimar on August 11, 1919, and effective from August 14, was the most democratic …