A Deeper History of German Law

Most textbooks introducing German law devote special attention to the corruption of law and legal institutions that took place during the Nazi dictatorship. And then they describe the period in German legal history after the Second World War. This era involved dramatic developments that reoriented (West) German society – politics and law – towards democracy. The most remarkable achievement of the post-war period must be the promulgation in 1949 of the West German Basic Law or constitution. To underscore the new legal regime’s categorical break with Germany’s Nazi past, the Basic Law’s first Article declares: “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” But West Germany’s post-war legal order – eventually extended to all of a reunited Germany – also involved a significant continuation of well-established legal institutions, practices, and norms. In fact, that deeper dimension of German legal history extends back thousands of years. Some provisions of the law have roots in the time of the Roman Emperors. This essay aims to achieve the impossible: to give a brief overview of two millennia of German legal history, even considering the law of the Germanic peoples before there even was a Germany. In pursuing that grand, sweeping assignment, the essay will give special attention to law in the Medieval age (roughly from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the fall of the Byzantine Empire)