Distinguished Professor Fled Nazi Germany for UW Law

Roman Law scholar Ernst Levy went from being a judge to serving as dean of the faculty at law at three prestigious German universities before taking flight during WWII and landing a professorship at UW Law.

UW Law has assisted a number of refugee scholars over the years, most recently two Afghan law professors who had to leave their country and have since taught courses here in recent academic quarters. One distinguished UW Law faculty member (1937–52) who sought refuge during WWII was Professor Ernst Levy.

Born in Berlin in 1881, Levy received his doctorate in law from the University of Berlin in 1906. He served as a judge for a dozen years, and then in 1914 started his academic career at his alma mater. After an interval of service with the German army during World War I, Levy became Professor of Roman and German Law at Goethe University Frankfurt and subsequently taught at the University of Freiburg for six years and at the University of Heidelberg for seven years. He served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law at all three of those German universities.

Because he was Jewish, he was forced from Heidelberg and left Germany. In 1936 he joined UW Law faculty as the Walker-Ames Professor of Roman Law.

His main field of research was legal history of the ancient world, and he taught courses in Roman Law, modern civil law and comparative law, contributing to the rapid growth of our global law offerings in the years following World War II. Gallagher Law Library hosts several of his books on the continuation of Roman Law during the transition period from ancient Rome to the Middle Ages. Ernst Levy was an internationally known legal scholar, and we’re privileged to have had him on our faculty for fifteen years.