Rheinstein, Max b.July 5, 1899; Bad Kreuznach (Bavarian Palatinate), Bavaria d.July 9, 1977; Bad Gastein,Austria
German American jurist. Rheinstein was a promising young academic when the Nazis came to power and forced him to flee to the United States on account of his Jewish heritage. In the United States he became a comparative law scholar of international renown at the University of Chicago Law School.
Rheinstein grew up in Munich, where he graduated from the Gymnasium (academic high school). After military service in World War I he returned to Munich for legal studies, completing the first and second state exams in 1922 and 1925, respectively, and his doctoral dissertation in 1924. While studying in Munich he became an assistant to Professor Ernst Rabel. When Rabel was appointed director of the newly established Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign and International Private Law in Berlin, Rheinstein went with him as assistant and director of the library. In Berlin in 1932 Rheinstein completed his second dissertation (Habilitationsschrift) on a topic of Anglo-American contract law at the Friedrich Wilhelm University. When the Nazis gained power in 1933, he was able to use a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study at Columbia University Law School and Harvard Law School. In 1935 he was visiting professor and from 1936 Max Pam Professor for Comparative Law at the University of Chicago Law School. With the exception of a year and a half spent with the Legal Division of the American Military Government of Germany in 1945 to 1947, Rheinstein remained at the University of Chicago past retirement until 1976, when he moved to Stanford.
Rheinstein is known for his work in comparative law, family law, and the sociology of law, and for further international legal education and cooperation, especially between Germany and the United States. For Rheinstein, according to one of his students, comparative law “seems to have been a window onto the complex interaction among law, behavior and ideas; a potent generator of new insights; and an aid to understanding” (Glendon 1993, 178).
Although Rheinstein strove to broaden the horizons of American students, most did not respond in a country where comparative law is undeveloped.Rheinstein’s work in family law, in which field he authored important publications and otherwise supported the liberalization of what had been strict divorce laws, is said to have followed from his strong interest in the sociology of law. This, in turn, was promoted by his intense interest in the works of Max Weber. Together with Edward Shils, Rheinstein translated major portions of Weber’s Law and Economy.
Immediately after World War II, Rheinstein served for a year and a half with the Legal Division of the American Military Government in Germany and was intimately involved in the reestablishment of the German legal system and universities. He became an important intermediary between Germany and the United States. Upon his return to the United States he spoke up for moderate treatment of Germany. He was instrumental in bringing young German jurists to the United States to study American law. Rheinstein subsequently created an analogous counterpart program, the Foreign Law Program, for American law graduates to study foreign law first in Chicago and then abroad in Germany or France. The German government recognized Rheinstein’s contributions to German American cooperation by awarding him the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit).
James R. Maxeiner
See also American Occupation Zone; Intellectual Exile
References and Further Reading
Duden, Konrad. “Max Rheinstein—Leben und Werk.” In Ius Privatum Gentium, Festschrift fur Max Rheinstein zum 70. Geburtstag am 5. Juli 1969. Vol. 1. Eds. Ernst von Caemmerer, Soia Mentschikoff, and Konrad Zweigert. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1969, pp. 1-14.
Glendon, Mary Ann. “The Influence of Max Rheinstein on American Law.” In Der Einfluβ deutscher Emigranten auf die Rechtsentwicklung in den USA und Deutschland. Eds. Marcus Lutter, Ernst C. Stiefel, and Michael H. Hoeflich. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1993, pp. 171-181.
Marschall, Wolfgang Freiherr v. “Max Rheinstein.” In Der Einfluβ deutscher Emigranten auf die Rechtsentwicklung in den USA und Deutschland. Eds. Marcus Lutter, Ernst C. Stiefel, and Michael H. Hoeflich. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1993, pp. 333-342.
Zweigert, Konrad. “Max Rheinstein.” Rabels- Zeitschrift 42 (1978):1-3.