History, Seal, Collection of Portraits

I.

When the university was founded in 1388 as the fourth university in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (after Prague in 1348, Vienna in 1365 and Heidelberg in 1386), it was a unique institution: It had not been founded by a pope, an emperor or a sovereign, but by a municipal citizenry. The Faculty of Law also featured an innovation: it was the first German faculty to teach Roman law alongside canon law. Teaching therefore focused on both sources of law that were used to resolve legal cases in the Middle Ages, namely the "canones" of the Church and the "leges" of the Corpus juris civilis. In terms of its requirements (faculty statutes of March 23, 1398), its teaching staff and the number of students, the faculty held a leading position in Germany for a long time. Even the start was impressive: 166 lawyers enrolled in 1389. Among them were eleven professors, two of whom were doctors of both law (the "canones" and the "leges"), four canonists and five legists. In the period from 1389 to 1500, 165 law teachers can be traced. No other law faculty has comparable numbers. In the first century, only around a quarter of the students came from the Cologne region, the majority came from further afield, particularly from the Utrecht and Liège areas. With the increasing national and later denominational separation and the growing number of competing university foundations (Leuven 1426, Tier 1454, Mainz 1476, Leiden 1575, Utrecht 1636, Bonn 1786), Cologne's appeal diminished.

Nikolaus von Kues (1401 - 1464) was probably the most famous jurist to ever teach at Cologne's Faculty of Law. He joined the faculty in 1425. In 1426, together with numerous other lawyers, he was involved in an expert opinion on the duty-free status of Bacharach parish wine on the Rhine. He became known to his contemporaries through his diplomatic work in the service of the Church in establishing temporary unification with the Eastern Church and, above all, in the imperial and ecclesiastical reform of the Council of Basel (1431 - 1449). His philosophical writings had a lasting effect, the main work of which is called "On Learned Ignorance" (de docta ignorantia, 1440). In 1491, Hermann Siegfried Sinnema was the first professor in Germany to give a lecture on public law, focusing in particular on the Golden Bull. However, a chair for public law was not established until 1726. Petrus Ravennas (from 1506) can be considered a typical representative of legal humanism. Johannes Oldendorp's (from 1538) thoughts on "law and equity" reveal the first approaches to natural law. Finally, Andreas Gail (from 1555) used his experience as a scholar and as a member of the Imperial Court of Justice and the Imperial Chamber Court to establish a new jurisprudential direction that sought to combine theory and practice (cameral jurisprudence). The activities of Petrus Ostermann (from 1626), who campaigned for the execution of witch trials, were detrimental to Cologne's reputation. The Cologne professors' turn to practice is also evident early on in their extensive work as expert witnesses. The first known expert opinion dates back to 1398. In 1528, the Cologne faculty refused to provide an expert opinion on behalf of King Henry VIII of England in the divorce affair, despite the high salary on offer. The law professors were very often involved in matters concerning the city. Of the large number of students, only three are worth mentioning: Konrad von Heresbach, who studied in Cologne from 1512, became an important jurist in the service of the sovereigns of Cleves and Jülich-Berg. Dionysius Gothofredus, a pupil of Betzdorp and Gail, became a renowned professor at the University of Heidelberg. Heinrich Gottfried Wilhelm Daniels (1754 - 1827) worked as a lawyer in three eras: he was a professor at the electoral university in Bonn, under Napoleon he worked as a procurator at the courts of cassation in Paris and Brussels, and under Prussian rule he became chief president of the Rhenish Court of Appeal in Cologne. With the dissolution of the university ordered by Napoleon on April 28, 1798, the Faculty of Law was also dissolved. Bonn won the competition to found a new university in the Prussian Rhine Province in 1818. It was not until 1919 that a second university was founded in Cologne. In the winter semester of 1919/20, the Faculty of Law was able to reopen with 255 students enrolled. When it was founded for the second time, the faculty had five full professors: A. von Thur, F. Stier-Somlo, H. Lehmann, H. Planitz and G. J. Ebers. In 1920, A. Baumgarten joined as a criminal law expert. Labour, commercial and business law was particularly emphasized at the young faculty: in this area, H. C. Nipperdey soon made a name for himself alongside Lehmann. In the first two decades, H. Planitz set special accents in the history of law, G. Bohne in the Institute of Criminology and H. Jahrreiß in international law. In 1929, Hans Kelsen, one of the most famous constitutional lawyers of the 20th century, joined the faculty.

II.

The Faculty's relationship with National Socialism was not unambiguous. Hans Kelsen had already been suspended in 1933 due to his "non-Aryan descent" and emigrated to the USA via Geneva and Prague. In 1934 and 1935, the business law expert Hans Walter Goldschmidt and Franz Haymann, Professor of Roman Law and Civil Law, were forcibly dismissed for the same reason. For political reasons, the same fate befell the former rector and canon law expert Godehard Josef Ebers and the constitutional law expert Ludwig Waldecker in 1935. Under Dean Nipperdey, the faculty did not support these proceedings, but instead campaigned in particular for Kelsen and Haymann to remain. At the same time, attempts were made to prevent the politically demanded habilitation of an outspoken National Socialist such as Klemens August Schmelzeisen. The well-known constitutional law expert Carl Schmitt and the later rector of the "Stoßtruppfakultät Breslau", Gustav Adolf Walz, were nevertheless prominent National Socialists who briefly taught in Cologne. Nipperdey and Lehmann also assumed leading positions in the National Socialist-led Academy of German Law. However, their contributions remained politically moderate.

III.

The development of the Faculty of Law since 1945 has been characterized by openness, for more students, for new subjects, for practice, for international relations and, more recently, for different courses of study. The Faculty, which was re-established in 1920, was not a closed society, did not sit in an ivory tower, but saw itself as modern, open-minded and close to life. All of this became much stronger after 1945. Statistics show a steady increase in the number of students at the Faculty of Law since 1945. In the winter semester 1972/73, there were more than 3000 for the first time. In the winter semester 1982/83, the 6000 mark was exceeded. This was the peak. In the winter semester 2022/23, a total of 5783 students were enrolled in the Faculty. There were 5007 students whose goal is the first examination. The number of female students has risen since 1945 and exceeded the number of male students for the first time in the winter semester 2006/07. The number of doctorates was already high after the Faculty was re-established, and this continued after 1945. It has now leveled off at around 70 doctorates per year. The proportion of women has also increased here, but is still slightly behind that of men. The number of university professors has also risen continuously since 1945 and stood at 36 in 2022, with a still low proportion of women at 7. In addition, there are numerous outstanding practitioners who are involved in teaching. A characteristic of the Faculty from the very beginning has been the large number of institutes for individual subjects, which enable a permanent, mutually fruitful connection between the academic field (professors, mid-level faculty and students) and practice. Many of these institutes were and are pioneers in their field. Even before 1945, there were institutes for labor and commercial law (since 1920, i.e. from the very beginning), criminal sciences, international law and foreign public law, canon law and the history of Rhenish canon law, insurance law and tax law. After 1945, the Department of Philosophy of State and Legal Policy and the Institutes of Housing Law, International and Foreign Private Law, Air and Space Law, Banking Law, Roman Law, Public Law and Administrative Theory, Law of the European Communities, Social Law, Modern History of Private Law, Energy Law, Eastern European Law, Procedural Law, Broadcasting Law and Constitutional Law were added until 1986. To this day, the faculty promotes and accompanies current legal developments by establishing new institutes. Among the professors and institute directors of the faculty there have been and still are big names. Karl Carstens, Federal President from 1979 to 1984, the first head of the Institute for the Law of the European Communities, founded in 1960, and Hans Carl Nipperdey, the first President of the Federal Labor Court and head of the Institute for Labor and Commercial Law, have become known far beyond the Faculty. Both remained associated with the faculty in many ways, even in their high offices. The professors and students also have strong ties to their city and university. Once in Cologne - always in Cologne, at least for the students until they graduate. Academic teaching is traditionally related to the final examination, formerly the "state examination", now the "first examination". Only recently has a change begun to emerge through the creation of additional degree courses, some of which are offered in conjunction with the Faculty of Arts. The establishment of a university specialization examination as part of the first examination has increased the opportunities and obligation to specialize during the course of study. The formation of many specializations in the faculty corresponds to its traditional versatility, which is expressed in the large number of its institutes. On the other hand, the Faculty has never overlooked the fact that the centrifugal forces of the individual subjects can only be held together by common traditions and convictions, such as those particularly cultivated in the Institutes of Legal History and Philosophy of State. Consequently, the faculty is planning to expand in both directions, towards new subjects, but also to strengthen the foundations.

Note for all those who would like to know more:
Detailed statistics on students, teaching staff, doctorates and academic institutions at the university from 1919 to the winter semester 1986/87 can be found in Cologne University History, Volume III, published in 1988 to mark the 600th anniversary of the university (traditionally, the university celebrates its first foundation in 1388 more than its re-establishment in 1919). A commemorative publication of the Faculty of Law with characteristic contributions from its professors at the time was also published on this occasion. The history of the faculty was also examined in greater depth in the 2021 book "Die neue Kölner Rechtswissenschaftliche Fakultät von 1919 bis 1950" by Professor Hans-Jürgen Becker.