Gerhard Anschütz was a noted German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 teacher of constitutional law

Constitutional law

Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....

 and the leading commentator of the Weimar Constitution

Weimar constitution

The Constitution of the German Reich , usually known as the Weimar Constitution was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic...

. His principal work (with Richard Thoma) is the two-volume legal encyclopedia Handbuch des deutschen Staatsrechts; his constitutional commentary saw 14 editions during the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

.

Anschütz, a proponent of legal positivism

Legal positivism

Legal positivism is a school of thought of philosophy of law and jurisprudence, largely developed by nineteenth-century legal thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. However, the most prominent figure in the history of legal positivism is H.L.A...

, taught constitutional law in Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

 (after 1899), Heidelberg (1900), Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 (1908) and again Heidelberg (1908). A Democrat by conviction even during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, he resigned his teaching position in 1933 after the Nazis seized power

Hitler's rise to power

Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in Germany in September 1919 when Hitler joined the political party that was known as the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei . This political party was formed and developed during the post-World War I era...

. After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he served as a consultant to the US military government

Office of Military Government, United States

The Office of Military Government, United States was the United States military-established government created shortly after the end of hostilities in occupied Germany in World War II. Under General Lucius D...

 and in this position was one of the fathers of the constitution of the Bundesland

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

 Hesse

Hesse

Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

.

Selected literature

• Georg Meyer, Lehrbuch des Deutschen Staatsrechts, bearbeitet von Gerhard Anschütz, 6. Auflage, Leipzig, 1905
• Gerhard Anschütz: Rezension von Hugo Preuß: Das deutsche Volk und die Politik, in: Preußische Jahrbücher, S. 164, 1916
• Gerhard Anschütz / Richard Thoma (Hrsg.): Handbuch des deutschen Staatsrechts, 2 Bände, Tübingen 1932.
• Gerhard Anschütz: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches vom 11. August 1919. Ein Kommentar für Wissenschaft und Praxis, 14. Aufl., Berlin 1933
• Gerhard Anschütz, Aus meinen Leben. Erinnerungen von Gerhard Anschütz, herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Walter Pauly, Frankfurt/Main (1993)

Further reading

• Ernst Forsthoff
  Ernst Forsthoff
  Ernst Forsthoff was a German scholar of constitutional law and a leading theorist of administrative law.-Life:...
  
  , Gerhard Anschütz, Der Staat 6, 1967
• Horst Dreier
  Horst Dreier
  Horst Dreier is a German jurist and legal philosopher. He currently holds a chair at the University of Würzburg. In 2008 he was the initial candidate to replace Winfried Hassemer at the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, but his nomination was opposed by the CDU for his controversial...
  
  , Ein Staatsrechtslehrer in Zeiten des Umbruchs: Gerhard Anschütz (1867–1948), in: ZNR 20 (1998) S. 28–48
• Walter Pauly, Gerhard Anschütz. An Introduction, in: Arthur Jacobson and Bernhard Schlink (Ed.): Weimar, A Jurisprudence of Crisis, 2001