Professor Sir Otto Kahn‐Freund

Date01 November 1979
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1979.tb01555.x
Published date01 November 1979
THE
MODERN LAW REVIEW
Volume
42
November
1979
No.
6
PROFESSOR
SIR
OTTO
KAHN-FREUND
THE world of legal scholarship has been robbed of a giant by the
death of Otto Kahn-Freund on August
16,
1979. Without any doubt
he was one of the greatest jurists of the twentieth century. For us in
The Modern Law Review,
the loss creates an irrecuperable gap. From
the foundation of the
Review
he was a regular contributor; and as
a
member of the Editorial Committee since 1945 his counsels have
been such that they can find no equal.
Readers of this
Review
all knew him as a scholar of incomparable
breadth, experience, and originality. As a tribute to his remarkable
career, three years ago the Editorial Committee, in conjunction with
our publishers, planned the volume which was eventually published
in
1978 as
Selected Writings: Otto Kahn-Freund.
This
is not the place
to repeat all that was said in the Introduction to that volume.
No
one
who was at the meeting where this project was ultimately revealed
to him will forget the spontaneous joy which it evoked and the
immediate pleasure which hc expresscd in being able to join in
the preparation
of
such
a
work rather than being presented with the
traditional
Festschrift.
Now, one year later, we can
in
our grief take
some small comfort that this project came to fruition during his
lifetime when he could appreciate it. Often such gestures are too
long delayed; in the publication
of
the volume we in the
Review
were able to express to him our feelings of esteem and affection while
he still lived.
The very bibliography of his writings included in that volume
revealed the astonishing and masterly range of the contributions
which he had made to so many areas of the law. The articles even-
tually selected (and characteristically up-dated with
skill
and care)
by
him for publication in the book related largely to Comparative
Law, Conflict
of
Laws, Family Law and Labour Law. His academic
leadership in those fields received recognition during his lifetime
throughout the world. In all
of
them he was able to paint upon
a
canvas denied to others, one which encompassed
so
many various
systems of foreign law and, more lately,
of
European Community
Law. to which he had
a
special devotion.
In
all of them, especially
perhaps in his contributions to family law and matrimonial property
609
VOL
42
(6)
1

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