Name Hugo Sinzheimer | ||
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Hugo Moot June 2016
Hugo Sinzheimer (12 April 1875, in Worms - 16 September 1945, in Bloemendaal) was a German legal scholar.
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Biography
Sinzheimer was one of the first academics specialising in labour law; he published an introduction to this field (Der korporative Arbeitsnormenvertrag) in 1907. He was one of the members of the Weimar National Assembly, which promulgated the Weimar Constitution. As a major influence on the drafting of the labour law section of the constitution, he is considered to be "the father of labour law" in Germany. He was inspired by the ideals of the dignity and liberty of every human being, and was a humanist in the widest sense of the word.
As a lawyer, he frequently represented political and union-related groups. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1914. From 1920 onward, he was professor of labour law and sociology of law at Frankfurt University.
In 1933, Sinzheimer, who was Jewish, was forced to emigrate to the Netherlands. In 1940 he was captured and taken to the concentration camp, KZ Theresienstadt for four months. He managed to secure release, and had to return to hiding underneath a roof of friends in the Netherlands. He died shortly after the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945.
Legacy
The Sinzheimer Institute of the University of Amsterdam's Law Department is named after him in his honour.
Archival material relating to Hugo Sinzheimer's professional activity as a labor lawyer and professor is held by the Leo Baeck Institute in New York.