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Johann Michael Franz Birnbaum
Born	(1792-09-19)September 19, 1792 Bamberg, Germany
Died	December 14, 1877(1877-12-14) (aged 85) Giessen, Germany
Occupation	Law Professor
Awards	Order of the Netherlands Lion
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Erlangen, University of Landshut
Academic work
Discipline	Law
Institutions	State University of Leuven, University of Bonn, University of Freiburg, University of Utrecht, University of Giessen

Johann Michael Franz Birnbaum (September 19, 1792 – December 14, 1877) was a German legal scholar and legislator. He is remembered today principally for originating the concept of a legal good.

Early life and education

On September 19, 1792, Johann Michael Franz Birnbaum was born in Bamberg. His parents were Johann Georg Birnbaum, the butler at the court of the Bishop of Bamberg, and his wife Maria Anna Neubauer.

Although many of his siblings no longer lived in the parental home, his youth was marked by cramped and impoverished conditions. On April 22, 1806, the father of the then 14-year-old Birnbaum died. This led to a further deterioration of the situation and living conditions.

From that point on, Birnbaum had to provide the funds for his own maintenance and, above all, for his schooling and later his academic career, a problem that would haunt him for a long time to come, because even his long-awaited doctoral thesis was to be delayed for a long time because he lacked the necessary funds for his living expenses. To finance his schooling, he worked as a tutor in Bamberg, thus even providing a small income for his mother and siblings.

Financial constraints hampered Birnbaum's development and knowledge. In 1811, thanks to the mediation of influential friends, that he was able to begin his studies at the University of Erlangen. On November 15, Birnbaum attended a lecture by the pandectist Christian Friedrich von Glück and then wrote in his diary: “The erudition of this man and his lively lecture astonish me; I immediately fell deeply in love with jurisprudence in the first few days.”

Birnbaum wrote and published some poems and a drama entitled “Der Schicksalsspruch” during this time. Works “in the spirit of patriotic enthusiasm [...] that dominated youth in those years”, or his main work of this time, a trilogy about the 10th-century German military leader Adalbert von Babenberg.

In 1813, Birnbaum transferred to the University of Landshut. This also gave him the opportunity to study under legal scholars such as Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach, Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier and Friedrich Carl von Savigny. Birnbaum developed a lifelong friendship with Mittermaier inspired him in his career. Although Mittermaier was only five years older than Birnbaum, he had been a professor of law at the University of Landshut since 1810. The friendship that developed from this lasted a lifetime, despite some professional controversies, and influenced Birnbaum like no other.

On September 1, 1814, Birnbaum completed his studies in Landshut with the first state examination in law and then, not for the first time, found himself penniless.

In 1815, he was able to start his legal dissertation to obtain his doctorate. After his doctorate, birnbaum found his way to Bamberg. It was only with time and with permanent employment as a Hofmeister that Birnbaum had to give up his poetic works and devote himself entirely to jurisprudence.

Personal life

On September 9, 1824, in Freiburg im Breisgau, Birnbaum married Clara Wilhelmine Laumayer (born August 11, 1800; died February 3, 1867), daugher of a professor of medicine at the University of Freiburg. The couple had several children, including the agronomist and Reichstag member Karl Joseph Eugen Birnbaum (1829-1907), and the professor of medicine Karl Friedrich Joseph Birnbaum, who was the father of the politician Maria Birnbaum.

Career

In Leuven

At the age of 24, Birnbaum was offered a professorship at the State University of Leuven. During this time, he also distinguished himself through his school with Mittermaier. Birnbaum came to comparative legal work through Mittermaier and thus knew both domestic and foreign legal systems well. He was entrusted with the task of reviewing the draft of a new Dutch penal code. Elected rector of the University of Leuven in 1822/23 and 1824/25, Birnbaum strove to establish an exchange program with the surrounding universities. He was awarded the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 1829.

During this period Birnbaum turned his back on poetry altogether and at the same time finally had a regular and sufficient income. He used the money at his disposal for trips to Germany, Switzerland, and later to France, Italy and Hungary. Among those he met in his travels was his future wife Clara Wilhelmine Laumayer, whom he married in 1824. Beginning in 1826, he began to publish his and his colleagues' work in the journal Bibliothèque du jurisconsulte et du publisciste.

In Bonn, Freiburg and Utrecht

Opening page of Birnbaum's 1834 essay on legal goods.

In 1830, Birnbaum left the Netherlands and began lecturing at the University of Bonn. His broad repertoire of comparative law knowledge earned him the position, causing friction with his older professorial colleagues, who saw him more as a competitor than a colleague.

Due to the tense situation, Birnbaum only spent two years in Bonn and then accepted a position at Freiburg im Breisgau. During this time Birnbaum devoted himself more actively to civil and public law than he had before. Birnbaum accepted his appointment in Freiburg for financial reasons, as he also received the title of “Grand Ducal Court Councillor”. The annual salary there was set at 2000 Dutch guilders, 800 guilders higher than in Bonn. In Freiburg as in Bonn, his colleagues viewed his position sekptically. Although his contributions during his time in Freiburg were not as numerous as in Bonn, his most important work, “Concerning the Need for a Right Violation in the Concept of a Crime”, was written in Freiburg. “Through him criminal law theory received the impetus to overcome formalistic abstraction in the formation of the concept of crime”.

His other two works from his time in Freiburg also demonstrate the intellectual acuity and education that Birnbaum had acquired in the years before. In-depth knowledge from Roman, French and English criminal law flows into these works, which, however, have hardly been received and therefore received even less attention than the thematically related work.

After his time in Freiburg, he took a position at the University of Utrecht, where he was academically productive. After five years, Birnbaum left the Netherlands and spent the rest of his life in Giessen.

In Giessen

Birnbaum arrived in Giessen in 1840 and began his position as a Geheimer Justizrat at the University of Giessen. He was proposed as rector in the winter semester of 1844/45 and appointed by the Grand Duke.

He soon had to stop his teaching after he was entrusted with the position of chancellor of the university in 1847. This office required him to head the academic administration. His position as chancellor of the University of Giessen also gave him a seat in the First Chamber of the Grand Duchy of Hesse.

Birnbaum increasingly distanced himself from academic activities and became more involved in politics. He became a member of the Pre-Parliament in 1848. From 1847 to 1849 and from 1851 to 1875 he was a member of the First Chamber of the Landstände of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. In 1849 and 1850, the Grand Duke Louis III entrusted him with the task of attending the bishop's election in Mainz as the sovereign's authorized representative.

In 1850 Birnbaum was appointed a member of the House of States of the Erfurt Union Parliament. He was elected as the rapporteur of the committee in parliament that was to decide on the draft law for the establishment of an imperial court. In many of these and subsequent votes, Birnbaum made it clear that he was aligned with the “Erfurt Right”. For example, he spoke out firmly against the introduction of universal suffrage and supported the Prussian three-class franchise.

Birnbaum hardly published any scientific writings at all during his time in Giessen, and only rarely gave lectures to students. He was much more involved in practical matters and, for example, in September 1846, he spoke out firmly in favor of a prison reform initiative pushed by his friend Mittermaier.

In 1872, after 43 years of marriage, Birnbaum's wife died of a stroke. In the same year, his first-born son also died. Birnbaum died at age 85 on December 14, 1877.

Selected works

• Deduktion der Rechte des Herzogs von Looz-Corswarem auf das Fürstentum Rheina-Wolbeck. Aachen 1830.
• Die rechtliche Natur der Zehnten. Bonn 1831.
• Ueber das Erforderniß einer Rechtsverletzung zum Begriffe des Verbrechens, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den Begriff der Ehrenkränkung, in: Archiv des Criminalrechts, 1834, pp. 149–194.
• Commentatio de Hugonis Grotii in definiendo jure naturali vera mente. Bonn 1835.

Bibliography

• Ludwig Harscher von Almendingen: Darstellung der rechtlichen Imputatio. Juristische und staatswissenschaftliche Schriften, Theil I. Gießen 1803.
• Knut Amelung: Rechtsgüterschutz und Schutz der Gesellschaft. Untersuchungen zum Inhalt und zum Anwendungsbereich eines Strafrechtsprinzips auf dogmengeschichtlicher Grundlage. Athenäum, Frankfurt am Main 1972.
• Carl Gareis: Johann Michael Franz Birnbaum – Ein Cultur- und Lebensbild. Verlagsbuchhandlung von Emil Roth, Gießen 1878.
• Hannelore Götz, Klaus-Dieter Rack: Hessische Abgeordnete 1820–1933, Ergänzungsband: Biographische Nachweise für die Erste Kammer der Landstände des Großherzogtums Hessen (= Darmstädter Archivschriften 10), Darmstadt 1995, S. 40.
• Hans-Werner Hahn, Helmut Berding, in: Gebhardt: Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte. Band 14: Reformen, Restauration und Revolution 1806–1848/49, Klett, Köln 2010.
• Herman Haupt, Georg Lehnert: Chronik der Universität Gießen, 1607–1907. Alfred Tölpelmann, Gießen, 1907, p. [54] (Digitalisat).
• Jochen Lengemann: MdL Hessen. 1808–1996. Biographischer Index (= Politische und parlamentarische Geschichte des Landes Hessen. Vol. 14 = Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6, pp. 76–77.
• Eva-Maria Lohse: Johann Michael Franz Birnbaum (1792–1877) als Strafrechtslehrer. In: Beiträge zur Freiburger Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte vol. 33, 1966, S. 126–190.
• Klaus-Dieter Rack, Bernd Vielsmeier: Hessische Abgeordnete 1820–1933. Biografische Nachweise für die Erste und Zweite Kammer der Landstände des Großherzogtums Hessen 1820–1918 und den Landtag des Volksstaats Hessen 1919–1933 (= Politische und parlamentarische Geschichte des Landes Hessen. Vol. 19 = Arbeiten der Hessischen Historischen Kommission. NF Vol. 29). Hessische Historische Kommission, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-88443-052-1, No. 60.
• Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, Deel 7, Birnbaum, Johann Michael Franz (ndl.)