100 Jahre MPI – 40 Jahre Verein der Freunde: Gemeinsame Geschichte(n)

A Dual Anniversary

With the symposium “100 Years of the MPI – 40 Years of the Friends of the Institute: A Shared History”, the Friends of the Institute association organized a special annual meeting in recognition of the Institute’s centennial anniversary.  On 26 June 2026, new board members Jennifer Trinks and Walter Doralt welcomed roughly 80 Institute friends as well as current and former staff members to an afternoon of history and stories about the Institute and the two disciplines making up its name: comparative law and private international law.

First, Jasper Kunstreich, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, examined a significant episode in the Institute’s history, focusing his talk on the period after World War II, when the Institute’s founder, Ernst Rabel—who had emigrated to the United States in 1939 after being forced to retire in 1937—sought to return to the Institute. Under the title Wiedergutmachung? Ernst Rabel und das Institut nach 1945 [Redress? Ernst Rabel and the Institute after 1945], Kunstreich used numerous fascinating historical documents to trace the history of this attempt at redress, which ultimately proved only partially successful. Although Ernst Rabel did return to the Institute, he did not reassume his position as its director. 

How significant was the influence of the Nazi reign on private international law? This question was the focus of the lecture by Institute Director Ralf Michaels.  In his address „Fern von den Stürmen des Tages“? Kollisionsrecht im Nationalsozialismus und die Zeitschrift für ausländisches unter internationales Privatrecht [‘Far from the Storms of the Day’? Conflict of Laws under National Socialism and the Journal of Comparative and International Private Law], Michaels challenged the widespread assumption that private international law is a “technical discipline”—and therefore apolitical. To this end,  he examined various authors and publications of the time and took a close look at   the Journal of Comparative and International Private Law, which was founded at the Institute in 1927 and is now known as the Rabel Journal.  

In a lecture titled Es ist wie ins Gebirge kommen [It’s Like Going into the Mountains]—a reference to a quote by Institute founder Ernst Rabel—Mathias Reimann of the University of Michigan Law School provided an overview of 100 years of comparative law at the Institute. In his lecture, he traced the highs and lows of comparative law at the Institute: from the successful founding phase under the leadership of Ernst Rabel and the academic decline during the Third Reich, to the discipline’s gradual rebuilding in Hamburg and its later “ascendance to world-class status” under Director Konrad Zweigert. His summary of the developments was followed by a lively discussion among the audience members.  

The Friends of the Hamburg Max Planck Institute Association was founded in 1986 to mark the Institute’s 60th anniversary. It is open to all former staff members and friends of the Institute. The association actively maintains the extensive network of former staff and friends and supports the Institute’s ongoing academic activities. In addition, each year it organizes a symposium that is followed by a networking event. Anyone who feels linked to the Institute and would like to nurture that bond is warmly invited to become a member.

For more information, visit: Friends of the Hamburg Max Planck Institute