Reinhard Frank

Reinhard Frank (16 August 1860 - 21 March 1934) was a German lawyer-academic specialising in criminal law and international public law. He was a prolific author of legal text books and became an influential law reformer. In 1920 Frank was appointed Rector (chief administrative officer) of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Life Provenance and early years Reinhard Karl Albrecht Otto Friedrich Georg Julius Ludwig Hermann Frank (after 1912 "...von Frank") was born at Reddighausen, (Hatzfeld) in the hill country between Cologne and Kassel. His father, Wilhelm Frank (1829-1889), described in at least one source simply as a hammer owner, was a small-scale industrialist with large ambitions for his son. His mother, born Minna Koch (1838–1863), was the daughter of a district judge (also named Reinhard) and came from a family with a long tradition of mid-level government service.

Graduation and beyond During 1881/82 he studied for two terms at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München where one of his lecturers was the eminent criminal jurist Joachim Wilhelm Franz Philipp von Holtzendorff, the man whose teaching chair Reinhard Frank would himself occupy after 1913. Already in 1881, he began to contribute regularly to the "Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft" (loosely, "Journal for all criminal law studies"), a newly launched specialist journal closely associated with Frank's mentor-supervisor, the (not infrequently controversial) Franz von Liszt.

In 1887, Reinhard Frank set up his own legal practice in Kassel, though it is not clear that he ever pursued this aspect of his career with much vigour. Despite his business commitments, and still aged only 29, he was offered and accepted a full professorship in Criminal Law and Civil Process from the University of Giessen, along the valley to the south of Marburg. He took on the position in succession to Hans Bennecke in 1890. It was also in 1890 that he married his cousin, Antonie Richter (1866–1949), the daughter of a Rüsselheim Protestant minister. The couple's daughter, Luise, married the publisher Werner Siebeck (1891–1934) in 1917.

Professorial career During the 1890s Frank rapidly built his reputation with a series of written works both on criminal law and on church law (which he had been able to study in some depth at the time when he was working for his post-doctoral degree a few years earlier). According to one source in 1897 he was offered a seat representing Giessen in the imperial parliament (Reichstag), which he turned down. 1897 was the publication year for several of his books including "Das Strafgesetzbuch für das Deutsche Reich nebst dem Einführungsgesetze" a text book on the German penal code which became mainstream in the universities. Between its first publication in 1897 and Frank's death in 1934 eighteen editions were published. which began work on a "Comparative Presentation of German and Foreign Criminal Justice Systems" ("Vergleichenden Darstellung des deutschen und ausländischen Strafrechts"), a monumental study commissioned - and subsequently published in sixteen volumes - by the State Justice Department ("Reichsjustizamt"). Frank was most closely involved in preparing the lengthy special section on extortion and robbery. The more general body of the text concentrated on the trial process and completion. Unsatisfied with the preliminary draft published in 1909, Frank then participated in a new commission that worked between 1911 and 1913 on an enhanced version.

Onwards and upwards In 1913, Frank received and turned down the offer of a professorship from the Kaiser-Wilhelm University of Straßburg (as it was still known at that time). Von Beling was both a friend and, evidently, an admirer, having dedicated his "Lehre vom Verbrechen" (Loosely, "Criminal Law primer") to Frank.

War years

"Ich erinnere mich des minutenlangen Beifalls, den das Auditorium dem zwar im Vortrage trockenen, aber doch als Lehrer und Mensch hochverehrten Manne für die Ablehnung des Leipziger Rufs spendete. Empfehlungen meines Vaters führten mich auch als Gast in das Haus Franks. Als Mittagsessen bot er den Studenten regelmäßig Kartoffelpfannkuchen, weil man die in den Gasthäusern nicht zu essen bekomme. Die Atmosphäre, die einen umfing, war von gewinnender Familiarität." "I remember the sustained applause in the lecture theater for a man whose lecturing was indeed dry, but who was highly revered as a teacher and as a human being, when he rejected the offer from Leipzig. My father's promptings led me to become a regular guest at Frank's house. At lunchtime, he regularly offered student potato pancakes, since these were not available in the pubs and cafés. The atmosphere surrounding you on these occasions was one of casual familiarity." right |Karl Engisch After the war reached its dénouement, Frank teamed up with Felix Rachfahl to deliver and publish an opinion repudiating as unconstitutional moves to extradite the exiled emperor from his sanctuary in the countryside outside Utrecht. Many years later, in 1929, Reinhard Frank was asked about his own political perspective during the turbulent post-war period that gave birth to the German republic. He recalled that he would have considered himself as democratic, liberal, and of the "political left" until the "revolution with its anti-patriotic undertones pushed him sharply towards the right".

Reinhard Frank died in Munich on 21 March 1934.