Edgar and Brigitte Bodenheimer Collection

Edgar Bodenheimer was born in Berlin on March 14, 1908, the son of the bank director Siegmund Bodenheimer and his wife Rosa (called Rosi, née Maass). After completing his schooling at the Joachim-Friedrich-Gymnasium and the Grünewald-Gymnasium he began to study law and political science, attending the universities of Geneva, Munich, Heidelberg, and Berlin. In 1930 he passed his first state examination (Referendarexam) in Berlin and then participated in the required legal internships. In 1933 he received the degree of Doctor of Laws (Doctor Utriusque Juria, magna cum laude) from the University of Heidelberg. His thesis was titled Das Gleichheitsprinzip im Aktienrecht (The Principle of Equal Treatment of Shareholders in Corporation Law) and was published in 1933.

In 1933 Edgar Bodenheimer lost his internship due to being Jewish. The following October he immigrated to the United States, where he found a position in a New York City law office. This law office handled the liquidation of a well-known fraudulent case at this time, Ivar Kreuger's International Match Corporation.

Brigitte M. Levy was the daughter of Ernst Levy, a professor and scholar of Roman Law at the University of Heidelberg, and Marie Levy (née Wolff). Brigitte had studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Munich, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Main, and in 1934 received her doctoral degree in jurisprudence from the University of Heidelberg while having immigrated to New York City in 1933. In New York, she studied at Columbia University. In 1935 Edgar Bodenheimer and Brigitte M. Levy married.

The same year the new couple moved to Seattle, Washington, where they both studied law at the University of Washington. In 1937 they received their Bachelor of Law (L.L.B.) degrees. Edgar Bodenheimer joined the Washington Bar Association in 1939 once he had become a citizen. The following year Edgar Bodenheimer received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Law Librarianship and Brigitte Bodenheimer passed the state bar exams, also being admitted to practice law in Washington State.

Edgar Bodenheimer's book Jurisprudence was published in 1940. In 1942 it was published into Spanish and in the late 1980s, into Chinese. In addition he wrote a number of other books, such as: Treatise on Justice (published in 1967); Power, Law, and Society: a Study of the Will to Power and the Will to Law (1972); and Philosophy on Responsibility (1980); textbooks included An Introduction to the Anglo-American Legal System: Readings and Cases (1980); Readings on the Philosophy of Responsibility and Punishment (1977); and Readings in Jurisprudence (1962).

In 1940 Edgar Bodenheimer accepted a position as attorney in the Solicitor's Office of the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. In 1942 he was transferred to the office of Alien Property Custodian, with the position of Principal Attorney in the Division of Patent Administration. In Washington, D.C. Brigitte Bodenheimer worked for the Federal Public Housing Authority. Edgar Bodenheimer was transferred in 1945 to Robert H. Jackson's Office of Chief Counsel for the prosecution of Axis Criminality (the Nuremberg Trials), where Edgar worked primarily on the legal brief on Germany's economic preparations for aggressive war.

In 1946 Edgar Bodenheimer took a position as associate professor of law at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Until 1950 he also worked as a law librarian. In 1951 he was made full professor, and held the position until his departure in 1966. He taught courses on various topics, including: the history of civil law, the history of common law, elements of law, jurisprudence, constitutional law, equity, modern social legislation, unfair trade practices, and international law. In 1962 his book Jurisprudence was re-published with new materials under the title Jurisprudence: The Philosophy and Method of the Law; he had begun working on the updated version in 1955.

Once the Bodenheimer family moved to Utah, Brigitte Bodenheimer pursued legislative work there, primarily in the fields of divorce, marriage, and juvenile court legislation. She also worked as an assistant to the state's attorney general. In 1962 she began teaching part-time at the University of Utah, becoming a full-time professor in 1964, where she taught courses in family law and justice court law.

In 1966 Edgar Bodenheimer became professor of law at the University of California at Davis. His teaching there included courses, among others, on introduction to law, conflict of laws, jurisprudence, international law, and philosophy of responsibility and punishment. In 1975 he became Professor Emeritus.

In Davis, Brigitte Bodenheimer worked as a research associate at the University of California's law school. In 1965 she was appointed a Commissioner of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which dealt with the problems of child kidnapping in custody disputes. She also authored the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, which was accepted in 1968. In 1966 she had joined the faculty of the university's law school, becoming full professor in 1972. Much of her research was in the areas of child custody, adoption, divorce, and community property. In 1970 she became a consultant to the California Law Revision Commission, preparing a study on changes in child custody and guardianship law, and later a study on revising the California adoption law. In 1979 she became Professor Emeritus. She had been appointed the U.S. delegate to the Hague Convention on Private International Law, authoring the Hague Draft Convention on International Child Abduction in 1980, an international treaty on the problems of child abductions between countries. She died in 1981 at the age of 68.

Edgar Bodenheimer held visiting professorships at several universities: Heidelberg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Texas, Southern California, Princeton, and Yale. He was also a lecturer at many universities, including the National University of Mexico and in Europe the universities of Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Salzburg, Münster, and Erlangen-Nürnberg. He received three Fulbright teaching grants, research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment from the Humanities. In addition to other professional associations, he was Director of the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law and member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Jurisprudence. In 1975 he was named an Outstanding Educator of America.

Edgar and Brigitte Bodenheimer had three children: Peter, Thomas, and Rosemarie. Peter became a professor of astrophysics at the University of California, Thomas became a doctor, and Rosemarie an author and professor of English literature at Boston College.

In 1982 Edgar Bodenheimer married Brigitte Schoenberg. He died in 1991 in Davis, California.