The plaque reads:
Hans Kelsen
1881-1973
Schüler des Akademischen Gymnasiums 1892-1900
Mitgestalter der Bundesverfassung von 1920
und Schöpfer der Reinen Rechtslehre
Hans Kelsen-Institut und Freunde des Akademischen Gymnasiums
[English translation courtesy of Google Translate]
Hans Kelsen
1881-1973
Student of the Academic Gymnasium 1892-1900
Co-designer of the Federal Constitution of 1920
and creator of the Pure Theory of Law
Hans Kelsen Institute and Friends of the Academic Gymnasium
The following information about Hans Kelsen is from Wikipedia (
visit link) :
"Hans Kelsen (October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. Due to the rise of national socialism in Germany and Austria, Kelsen left his university post because of his Jewish ancestry, and departed to Geneva in 1933, and then to the United States in 1940. In 1934, Roscoe Pound lauded Kelsen as “undoubtedly the leading jurist of the time.” While in Vienna, Kelsen was a young colleague of Sigmund Freud and wrote on the subject of social psychology and sociology.
By the 1940s, Kelsen’s reputation was already well established in the United States for his defense of democracy and for his magnum opus The Pure Theory of Law. Kelsen’s academic stature exceeded legal theory alone and extended to political philosophy and social theory as well. His influence encompassed the fields of philosophy, legal science, sociology, the theory of democracy, and international relations.
Late in his career while at the University of California at Berkeley, Kelsen rewrote The Pure Theory of Law into a second version of his magnum opus to a widespread international reception. Kelsen throughout his active career was also a significant contributor to the theory of judicial review, the hierarchical and dynamic theory of positive law, and the science of law. In political philosophy he was a defender of the state-law identity theory and an advocate of explicit contrast of the themes of centralization and decentralization in the theory of government. Kelsen was also an advocate of the position of separation of the concepts of state and society in their relation to the study of the science of law.
The reception and criticism of Kelsen's work and contributions has been extensive with both ardent supporters and detractors. Kelsen's contributions to legal theory of the Nuremberg trials was supported and contested by various authors including Dinstein at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Kelsen's neokantian defense of continental legal positivism was supported by H. L. A. Hart in its contrasting form of Anglo-American legal positivism, which was debated in its Anglo-American form by scholars such as Ronald Dworkin and Jeremy Waldron. In the 21st century, Kelsen's influence continues to be supported, debated and criticized in books and conferences concentrating on his contemporary and historical influence."