Otto Bähr

Otto Bähr (2 June 1817 – 17 February 1895) was a German legal scholar and liberal parliamentarian.

He supported the view, not always well accepted by governments, that since the State was part of society, it must be judged in the same courts as individual citizens.

Life

Early years Bähr was born in Fulda, then as now a small historic town slightly more than 100 km (65 miles) north-east of Frankfurt in a region of the former Holy Roman Empire, at the time still with a somewhat ambiguous constitutional status, known as the Electorate of Hesse. His father was an army doctor. He devoted his own student studies to Jurisprudence and Cameralism (Kameralwissenschaften) at Göttingen and Marburg. In terms of the serious political ructions that affected politics and constitutional law in the Electorate of Hesse at the time, Otto Bähr was an opponent of the arbitrary traditionalism represented by Ludwig Hassenpflug, as a result of which he was sent back to his home town, Fulda, in 1851. However, Hassenpflug fell from power during the early 1850s and in 1856 Bähr was permitted to return to Kassel. Later, following unification, in 1879, he was appointed as a high court judge at the new state's High Court, which had its seat in Leipzig, but he resigned the post with nervous exhaustion in 1881. where he remained till the body was dissolved at the end of 1870. Following unification, he was listed as a member of the German Reichstag between 1871 and 1880. He also sat as a member of the Prussian House of Representatives between 1867 In the parliaments he represented a Kassel electoral district, sitting as a member of the National Liberal Party.

Publications Die Anerkennung als Verpflichtungsgrund (1855), 2nd edition Göttingen 1867, 3rd edition Leipzig 1894 Der Rechtsstaat. Eine publicistische Skizze. Cassel & Göttingen, 1864. Die preußischen Gesetzentwürfe über die Rechte am Grundvermögen, Jena 1870. Das Gesetz über die Enteignung von Grundeigenthum vom 11. Juni 1874, Berlin 1875, 2nd edition 1878. Das Rechtsmittel zweiter Instanz im deutschen Civilproceß, Jena 1871. Das Tonsystem unserer Musik, Leipzig 1882. Urtheile des Reichsgerichts mit Besprechungen, München 1883. Eine deutsche Stadt vor 60 Jahren, Leipzig 1884, 2nd edition 1886. Die Proceß-Enquête des Prof. Dr. Wach, Kassel 1888. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Leipzig 1895. In Sachen der Gotthardbahngesellschaft gegen die Unternehmung des großen Tunnels, Gutachten Luzern 1884. In der Rechtssache der Baugesellschaft Flüelen-Göschenen in Zürich gegen die Direction der Gotthardbahn in Luzern, Gutachten, Luzern 1887. Herausgeber der Jahrbücher für die Dogmatik des heutigen römischen und deutschen Privatrechts, Bd. 12—25.