Otto von Gierke

Otto Friedrich von Gierke, born Otto Friedrich Gierke, was a German legal scholar and historian. He is considered today as one of the most influential and important legal scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries. In his four-volume magnum opus entitled Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, he pioneered the study of social groups and the importance of associations in German life, which stood between the divide of private and public law.