A Luminous Trace. Commemorating the Frankfurt Lawyer and Historian of International Law Michael Stolleis (20 July 1941–18 March 2021)

Abstract

Perhaps it is not an inappropriate idea to have a profile of the late pioneer of global international legal history and emeritus editor of this journal, Michael Stolleis, begin in a Munich attic room. So let’s travel back a few decades, to Munich in the late 1960s, where Stolleis, a doctoral student and later postdoctoral lecturer, received crucial inspiration for his style of thinking.* The story about the influential author and teacher of public law thus begins with his own teacher. Michael Stolleis has often, readily and with affectionate admiration, reported on the decisive intellectual imprint of Sten Gagnér on him. And it was and is worth listening to him when Stolleis praised his character traits decades later: ‘He probably had his greatest gifts as a teacher and as a role model. He loved his pupils, he accompanied them throughout their lives, rejoiced and worried with them. And they, in turn, felt not actually a “school”, but connected by this very unusual, unacademic person.’ Wasn’t that Stolleis himself?