The German jurist Otto von Gierke (1841-1921) was a leader of the Germanistic school of legal historians and is best known for his theory of the nature and role of associations, called the Genossenschaft theory.

Otto von Gierke, born on Jan. 11, 1841, in Stettin, was the son of a Prussian official. He spent his early years in a family atmosphere that was highly respectable, cultured, and intensely Prussian. The latter part of his university training was at Berlin, where he was strongly influenced by George Beseler, a Germanist in juristic theory. Gierke's early career was interrupted by wartime service in the army. After holding professorships at the universities of Breslau (1872-1884) and Heidelberg (1884-1887), he succeeded to Beseler's chair at the University of Berlin in 1887. He remained in that post until his death on Oct. 10, 1921.

In Gierke's early years the dominant influence in German legal history and jurisprudence was...