Claus-Wilhelm Canaris


Claus-Wilhelm Canaris is a German jurist. Until his retirement in 2005 he was professor of Private Law, Commercial law and Labour law the University of Munich.

Life

Canaris was born in Liegnitz, Germany. His father was Constantin Canaris. Canaris went to school in Königsberg, Miesbach and Düsseldorf. He studied law, philosophy and Germanistics in Paris, Geneva and Munich, where he passed the first state exam ' in 1961. He became scientific assistant ' of Karl Larenz at the University of Munich and graduated with the dissertation Die Feststellung von Lücken im Gesetz in 1964. He habilitated in Munich in 1967 . His habilitation theses was a groundbreaking study on the theory of legitimate expectations equal in rank to Rudolf von Jherings operationalization of culpa in contrahendo.
He was appointed full professor at the University of Graz in 1968, at the University of Hamburg in 1969 and finally returned to Munich in 1972 taking the chair of his academic teacher Karl Larenz. In 2000 the German Minister of Justice, Herta Däubler-Gmelin, made him a member of the committee for the reform of the German law of obligations . He is professor emeritus since 2004.

Memberships and honours