Der Rechtshistoriker Guido Kisch als Deutscher jüdischen Glaubens

Abstract

The German-Jewish legal historian, Guido Kisch, born into the former Bohemian Jewish community of Prague, was a very famous scientist during the Weimar Republic and the first decades after the Second World War. Persecuted by the Nazis, he had to leave Germany for the United States of America. His research on matters relating to medieval German law, social and economic problems of medieval society, especially of the Jewish communities, became famous inside the scientific community. But less is known as to his Jewishness and the influence of his traditional Jewish views on his scientific ideas and discoveries, or of his personal reasons for his actions and decisions. The reasons for this lack of clarity are evidently, in his opinion, that one must separate legal analyses and research from personal influences and interests - apparently an opinion gained under the influence of Max Weber’s positivism. But we can find some indications in the biography of Guido Kisch and his family. The following reflections demonstrate that there definitely are connections between his (private) faith and his scientific findings.