On August 22, 1970, the constitutional legal scholar Adolf Julius Merkl died at the age of 80 in Vienna.
Merkl studied law at the University of Vienna and was a participant in Hans Kelsenʼs seminar. With his considerations in particular on the gradual construction of the legal system, Merkl became the co-founder of the world-famous “Pure Theory of Law” (Reine Rechtslehre). From 1918 he was involved in the preparatory work for the Federal Constitutional Act of 1920, the constitution that is still valid in Austria today.
Under National Socialism, Merkl was retired as a professor at the University of Vienna. Despite his refusal to join the NSDAP, he was appointed professor in Tübingen in 1943. In 1945 he was one of the few “non-loaded” (Unbelastete) to continue teaching and returned to the University of Vienna in 1950.
In 1990 a monument to Adolf Merkl was unveiled in the arcaded courtyard of the main building of the University of Vienna.
