Centennial events



18 May 2026

Kick-off event

  • Lecture by Reinhard Zimmermann:
    "Der Nachfolger: Leben, Werk und Wirken von Ernst Heymann (1870–1946)" (in German)
    In his lecture, Reinhard Zimmermann will speak about the second director of our predecessor Institute, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht. Heymann assumed the leadership of the Institute in 1937 after founding director Ernst Rabel was deprived of the position on account of the Nuremberg Race Laws.
  • Exhibition opening


26 June 2026

Annual meeting of the Friends of the Institute with a symposium on the history of the Institute

Lectures (in German):

  • Jasper Kunstreich: Wiedergutmachung? Ernst Rabel und das Institut nach 1945
  • Ralf Michaels: „Fern von den Stürmen des Tages“? Kollisionsrecht im Nationalsozialismus im Spiegel der Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht,
  • Mathias Reimann: „Es ist, wie ins Gebirge kommen.“ Ein Überblick über 100 Jahre Rechtsvergleichung am Hamburger Max-Planck-Institut


1 / 2 October 2026

English-language academic symposium: "Thinking Ahead in Private Law"

Lectures:

  • Nils Jansen: Precedents and Time in European Laws
  • Annelise Riles: Reimagining Hosting
  • Fernanda Nicola: Contesting Family Law Exceptionalism: The Sexual, Economic, and Natural Family
  • Rüdiger Veil: Corporate Law in Transformation. The Art of Integration under the Rise of European Business Law


2 October 2026

Ceremony and Senate reception at Hamburg City Hall (in German)


14 November 2026

Open house

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