Rudolf Arnold Nieberding (4 May 1838 – 10 October 1912) was a German

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. Nieberding was born in

Konitz Unterwellenborn is a municipality in the district Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, in Thuringia, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe af ...

(modern Chojnice, Poland) to Karl Nieberding, a teacher and later director of the "Gymnasium Petrinum" in

Recklinghausen Recklinghausen (; Westphalian: ''Riäkelhusen'') is the northernmost city in the Ruhr-Area and the capital of the Recklinghausen district. It borders the rural Münsterland and is characterized by large fields and farms in the north and indus ...

. He passed his

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

in Recklinghausen and studied law at the Universities of Breslau (modern Wrocław),

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Nieberding finished his studies in 1863 and, after a short period at the regional administration of Breslau, started to work at the

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

n ministry of commerce in 1866. Between 1872 and 1889 he worked at the

Reich Chancellery The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared s ...

in Berlin and became head of the first département at the Reich office of the Interior in 1889. In 1893 he was appointed Secretary of State of the

Reichsjustizamt Reichsjustizamt (English: "Office for National Justice") was the highest authority of the law in the German Empire, and was the predecessor of ''Reichsministerium der Justiz'', the Reich Ministry of Justice. Reichsjustizamt was under the jurisdic ...

, and he remained in this position under the changing chancellorship of

Leo von Caprivi Georg Leo Graf von Caprivi de Caprara de Montecuccoli (English: ''Count George Leo of Caprivi, Caprara, and Montecuccoli''; born Georg Leo von Caprivi; 24 February 1831 – 6 February 1899) was a German general and statesman who served as the cha ...

Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst Chlodwig Carl Viktor, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Prince of Ratibor and Corvey (german: Chlodwig Carl Viktor Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Prinz von Ratibor und von Corvey) (31 March 18196 July 1901), usually referred to as the P ...

Bernhard von Bülow Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow (german: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin Fürst von Bülow ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as the foreign minister for three years and then as the chancellor of t ...

and

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician who was the chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. He oversaw the German entry into World War I. According to biog ...

until 1909. Nieberding coordinated the elaboration of a new German civil code, the

Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch The ''Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch'' (, ), abbreviated BGB, is the civil code of Germany. In development since 1881, it became effective on 1 January 1900, and was considered a massive and groundbreaking project. The BGB served as a template in sev ...

(BGB), the associated Commercial law (Handelsgesetzbuch) and the codes of criminal law and criminal and

civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced; what ki ...

; thus he was responsible for the standardisation of German law after the

Unification of Germany The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federalism, federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with ad ...

. In his opening speech to the parliamentary debate on the BGB in 1896 Nieberding described the legal situation in Germany as a "colorful muddle, .. for so long forgotten, citizens and families have determined their own legal relationships for themselves." In a Reichstag debate on 23 November 1907 he publicly stated that the

lèse-majesté Lèse-majesté () or lese-majesty () is an offence against the dignity of a ruling head of state (traditionally a monarch but now more often a president) or the state itself. The English name for this crime is a borrowing from the French, w ...

laws of Imperial Germany resulted in a "growth of a base and hostile climate of denunciation" in which "even members of the same family, indeed the best of friends, denounce each other for lèse-majesté the minute discord between them occurs", and these laws were "not entirely reconcilable with the general sense of justice." Nieberding retired in 1909 and died in Berlin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nieberding, Rudolf Arnold 1838 births 1912 deaths People from Chojnice People from the Province of Prussia German jurists German Empire politicians University of Breslau alumni Heidelberg University alumni Humboldt University of Berlin alumni German Lutherans 19th-century Lutherans