Karl Bünger: Pioneering scholar of Chinese law
Ever since its founding as part of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the Institute has employed dedicated experts in the legal systems of certain countries. One of the first fellows to occupy one of these so-called “country desks” at the Institute was Karl Bünger, who joined the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Foreign and International Private Law in 1934 to study the civil and commercial law of China. Thus began Bünger’s pioneering career as a scholar and teacher of Chinese law.
Karl Bünger (1903–1997) studied law and Sinology in Berlin and finished a doctorate in 1931 with a dissertation on comparative law. In 1934, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Foreign and International Private Law hired him as a referee on Chinese law. He also maintained an affiliation with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Foreign and International Public Law.
That was then. The Centre of Expertise on China and Korea at the Institute today was set up and is currently led by legal scholar and Sinologist Knut Benjamin Pißler. This year’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Institute’s founding has been an occasion for Pißler to reflect on Karl Bünger’s legacy as a scholar. Pißler invited Peter Seidel, former German Consul General in Strasbourg and Ho Chi Minh City, and Kerstin Storm, professor of Sinology and director of the Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies at the University of Münster, to the Institute. It promised to be an interesting conversation: Seidel, who completed his doctorate in 1983, was the last of Bünger’s doctoral students; Storm is writing his biography. “For Bünger’s biographer to meet face to face with a contemporary of his, who knew him, demonstrates the importance of personal contacts in the history of science”, says Pißler. “It’s a happy coincidence that we were able to organize this meeting during our centennial year”.
The combination of subjects that interested Bünger, along with his unshakeable interdisciplinary orientation, made him one of that rare sort of scholar who achieves major recognition working at the boundaries between disciplines. His career path, however, shows a man straining at the boundaries between professions and clearing hurdles between them. For example, he went to China in 1937 on a long sabbatical from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society; there, he worked as a legal advisor to the Imperial German Embassy in Nanjing and taught European law in Shanghai. When he returned to Germany in 1947, Bünger, who had been a member of the Nazi party and part of the paramilitary SA, was interned in Ludwigsburg. He eventually habilitated at Tübingen in 1951, meaning that he qualified to be a professor of Sinology in the German university system, and took a professorship at Freiburg. In 1960 he entered a long period of service with the West German diplomatic corps, culminating in an ambassadorship to Seoul and a consulate general in Hong Kong. All the while he continued to research and publish. He was named an honorary professor of Sinology by the universities of Bonn and Tübingen in 1969 and 1970, respectively.
Image: © Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law / Marlena Staak
