law émigré max rheinstein (1899–1977) The field of comparative law had been in its infancy in the interwar period, but after the Second World War it took off as a dynamic discipline.24 In the Weimar Republic the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin was a nursery for young internationally minded jurists. All embraced the pan-European vision Stefan Zweig had articulated in his writings. In the Third Reich the institute, with Ernst Rabel still at the helm, was decimated. Finally in 1939 Rabel had to emigrate, and he arrived in the US and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he and his family spent the war.25 Rabel was not one of the universalists. In theUShe was never acknowledged, his identity and self-esteem were damaged, and after the war when he returned to Germany it was only to experience fresh disappointments. His Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Comparative Law was moved from Berlin to Tübingen in 1950, becoming a Max Planck Institute with Hans Dölle as its first director.26 Rabel felt marginalized at the institute and in his research. He received several honorary degrees and honorary memberships, but his position in international private law and comparative lawwas not as brilliant as it had been in the interwarperiod.27 Most of the legal scholars from Berlin Palace went into exile in theUK and the US. After the war they were reconnected in important comparative law networks. Some became universalists, others particularists; some doctrinal, others empirical in their research.28 In Europe, one hub for transatlantic comparatists was the Salzburg seminar, which was affiliated with Columbia Law School, and became an important forum for young internationally oriented jurists. Rheinstein was active in the biannual International Faculty of Comparative Law, which met in Strasbourg in the spring and at different law faculties across Europe in the summer, for example in Lisbon and Helsinki. Rheinstein was also a lead24 Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1970). 25 Rheinstein 1954, 4: ‘Auf dem Gipfel seines Wirkens, als nur noch die höchste Ehrung seiner Leistung entsprochen hätte, hat ihn das nationalsozialistische Regime aus seiner Tätigkeit herausgerissen und aus Deutschland vertrieben.’ 26 Rolf-Ulrich Kunze, Ernst Rabel und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Ausländisches und Internationales Privatrecht: 1926-1945 (Göttingen:Wallstein, 2004) 235. 27 Ibid. 236. 28 Ole Lando, ‘Mit arbejde med juraen’, Tidsskrift for Rettsvitenskap, 125 (2012). 263
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