Gerhard Anschütz (10 January 1867 in Halle (Saale) – 14 April 1948 in Heidelberg) was a noted German teacher of constitutional law and the leading commentator of the Weimar Constitution. His principal work (with Richard Thoma) is the two-volume legal encyclopedia Handbuch des deutschen Staatsrechts; his constitutional commentary saw 14 editions during the Weimar Republic. Anschütz, a proponent of legal positivism, taught constitutional law in Tübingen (after 1899), Heidelberg (1900), Berlin (1908) and again Heidelberg (1916). A Democrat by conviction even during World War I, he resigned his teaching position in 1933 after the Nazis seized power. After World War II, he served as a consultant to the US military government and in this position was one of the fathers of the constitution of the Bundesland Hesse.

Selected literature