Biographical Research on H. Kelsen in the years 1881-1940

It is the intention of the project to portray the course of life of the Austrian jurist HANS KELSEN (1881-1973), beginning with his descent, childhood and adolescence, the ensuing steps of his academic career in Vienna, Cologne, Geneva and Prague until his emigration to the U.S.A. in 1940. KELSEN`s further course of life in the United States (1940-1973) will be the object of another project to be submitted to the FWF at a later date. There exists an innumerable quantity of literature to the juristic work of KELSEN. However, his life is poorly examined; the only existing biography, written by RUDOLF ALADR MÉTALL in 1969, does not comply with any modern scientific requirements. The present project shall exhibit which historic factors were decisive for the life and therefore for KELSEN`s work. Such factors are f.e. his Jewish descent, the collapse of the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy, the scientific and social condition`s in Vienna`s period between the two World Wars or the spreading of authoritarian and fascist regimes in Europe. HANS KELSEN`s academic functions and his relations to scientists of other disciplines (especially philosophy and psychoanalysis) will also be main accent on biographic investigation. The project is aiming at a better understanding of KELSEN`s legal work. So its nature mainly concerns legal history, but it is decidedly interdisciplinary as well. It can be presumed that the project will be cause for further research work in relevance to disciplines like legal theory, legal philosophy, historiography of science and political history. Sources are in the first instance the works of KELSEN`s contemporaries and of KELSEN himself. Furthermore, archives in Vienna, Prague, Cologne and Geneva should be scrutinized. Last, but not least, contemporary witnesses, who had personal contact to KELSEN, ought to be interviewed personally. Supports requested by the FWF are the travel costs to all places with relevant archive material as well as to the contemporary witnesses, and personnel costs for one post-doc-collaborator. In order to evaluate the preliminary results of the project, an international meeting on the subject shall be held in Vienna at the end of the term of the project (= in the beginning of 2009). The present project has its origin and was inspired in close co-operation with the Hans Kelsen Institute in Vienna (directors: R. WALTER and C. JABLONER), which has guaranteed its full support. Besides this it is in close relation with the DFG-project No. JE 265/3-1 by M. JESTAEDT / Erlangen ("complete edition of Kelsen`s works"), with the Commission for Austrian Legal History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and with the European Academy of Legal Theory in Brusseles.

Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) has been named as one of the most important jurists of the 20th century. He was the founder of the Pure Theory of Law and architect of the Austrian Federal Constitution. The project was the first of two; together they shall be taken as a basis for the first scientific biography to Kelsen. The first project, herewith reported, concerned the time of Kelsen`s life before his immigration to the United States in 1940. In a first step, it had to be investigated, to which extend Kelsen`s Jewish descend and his family had been of importance for his life and his work. It came out that the Kelsen family was a bourgeois, completely assimilated family. There is no significant influence of Jewish thinking to Hans Kelsen, apart from the fact that Jewish thinking is general part of European culture. Kelsen`s world view was enlightened and liberal; he was partly agnostic, partly pantheist. This gave reason for his philosophical relativism, which was the base for his Pure Theory of Law and also for his Theory of Democracy. A second main topic of the project concerned education and professional career of Hans Kelsen. The main question was, which persons were his teachers and which persons were important for his career in any other way. The result was that Kelsen was an autodidact, and none of his teachers and professors in school and at university exerted deep impact to him, only except his school day friend Otto Weininger. In Kelsen`s professional career, the Anti- Semitism was a big topic right from the beginning and a big obstacle for his academic career. There were some assimilated Jews, like Kelsen, who helped him in the first years, to be named Adolf Drucker and Hermann Schwarzwald. The Anti-Semitic enmities at University were mixed with scientific antagonism indistinguishable, together they gave reason for his departure from Vienna in 1930. Finally, the contribution of Hans Kelsen to the Austrian Federal Constitution has been examined. Kelsen has to be seen as its "architect", because his task was to convert the political intents of his principals into a text, which was exemplary in a juristic way. His influence in the political content of the constitution was less, but must not be underestimated. In particular, Kelsen had big influence in establishing a constitutional justice. Altogether, the biography shall make a contribution to a better understanding of Kelsen`s scientific work. Some topics, like the idea of a world-state, accompanied Kelsen during his whole life; many early notions have been developed many years later. The chronological description of Kelsen`s life will sharpen the cognition of these phases.