Georg Petschek

Born:	07-20-1872
Faculty:	Law School
Category:	Expelled teacher

Georg PETSCHEK (born on July 20th, 1872 in Kolin, Bohemia/Austro-Hungaria [Kolín/Czech Republic], died on September 5th, 1947 in Cambridge/USA) was Pd. (o. Prof.) for Austrian civic procedure right at the Law School of the University of Vienna Georg Petschek studied Law at the German University in Prague an graduated in 1896. He habilitated in 1902, became an extraordinary ("ao.") professor in 1907 and a full ("o.") professor in 1910 for civil procedure right at the University of Czernowitz [Чернівці, Tscherniwzi/Ukraine], than Bukowina/Austro-Hungaria. After his expulsion in 1919 from the romanized University of Czernowitz, then Romania, he emigrated to Vienna, habilitated again in 1920 and became a "Privatdozent" with the title of a full professor (tit. o. Prof.) at the University of Vienna in 1920. He also became the editor of the "Zentralblatt für die juristische Praxis" since 1925. He was persecuted in times of Nazism as a Jew lost his position and was thrown out of the university on April 8th, 1938 (and lost his venia legendi on April 22, 1938). He was able to emigrate to the USA in June 1939 – twenty years after his emigration from Czernowitz/Romania – a became a research associate at Harvard Law School. Georg Petschek deceased on September 5, 1947 in Cambridge (Mass.) because of a stroke. On the occasion of the NS-provenance research, which was started in 2004, several books of Petschek were found at the Library of the University of Vienna. In 2009 the books were restituted to the heirs, they took one as a remembrance and donated the others to the University of Vienna.

Lit.: information from Markus Stumpf, Vienna 2009; STUMPF 2009; Olechowski/Ehs/Staudigl-Ciechowic 2014, 414f.; NS-provenance research and restitution / University Library Vienna: PETSCHEK 2009.

Herbert Posch