Koschaker, Paul

Paul Koschaker (1879-1951), born in Klagenfurt (Austria), was one of the most prominent Roman law scholars and legal historians in the first half of the 20th century. He is considered as the founder of the field of cuneiform law and one of the most distinguished pioneers in the branch of comparative legal history. From the 1930s onwards, Koschaker was renowned for having attempted to reaffirm the authority of Roman law, which was experiencing a major crisis at German universities at the time, mainly due to the Nazi’s regime disdain for this subject. Above all, he sought to emphasize the role Roman law played as the cornerstone of European legal tradition, as he masterfully depicted in his book 'Europa und das römische Recht', published in 1947.