Justus Möser

Jurist

• Born: December 14, 1720
• Birthplace: Osnabrück, Münster, Germany
• Died: January 8, 1794
• Place of death: Osnabrück, Germany

Biography

Justus Möser was born on December 14, 1720, in Osnabrück, Münster, Germany, near the Dutch border, where he lived for most of his life. Möser studied jurisprudence at the universities of Jena and Göttingen before returning to Osnabrück to practice law. Möser rose to prominence by carrying out legal work for nobleman Johann Friedrich von dem Bussche-Hünnefeld, who introduced Möser to the work of English writers. Citizens of Osnabrück appointed Möser to the position of state attorney in 1747. When Prince Frederick was named to the lay Protestant bishopric of Osnabrück, Möser became the new ruler’s legal advisor, remaining in that position for twenty years.

From 1762 to 1768, Möser was chief justice of the criminal court in Osnabrück. During the Seven Years War, he came into contact with many English officers and officials, and at the end of the war he was sent to England to negotiate on behalf of Osnabrück. In 1768, he was named privy councilor of justice.

A pivotal figure during the German Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century and a precursor of the later Sturm und Drang movement, Möser was especially influential from the 1760’s onward as a statesman, administrator, publicist, economic theorist. and writer. Though a poet of note and a dramatist, Möser is best known for his nonfiction.

Möser’s book, Harlekin: Oder, Vertheidigung des Groteske-Komischen (1761; Harlequin: Or, A Defence of Grotesque Comic Performances, 1766), was a pioneering approach to history as organic development and drew parallels between England and Germany. As part of his thesis, he maintained that the German traditions of liberty sprang from the development of English common law, thanks to the power of the landowning class. His Osnabruckishe Geshichte (1768), a history of his hometown, is one of the first attempts to write history on the basis of regional geography.

Particularly important in light of later events in Germany and elsewhere is Möser’s four-volume Patriotische Phantasien, which is now considered an early expression of the principles of conservatism and a basis of what would become known as Christian Democracy. In this series of essays, Möser argued against globalization, and the entrepreneurial Jewish merchants that abetted it, as a force undermining local economy. He also defended local laws and guilds, railed against smallpox vaccinations because they prevented the extermination of the lower classes, and condemned ordinances giving illegitimate offspring the same rights as legitimate children.

Möser died on January 8, 1794. Two of his works, Vermischte Shriften, a witty insight into human nature, and Die Tugend auf der Schaubühne: Oder, Harlekins Heirath, were published posthumously. A statue of Möser was erected in Osnabrück in 1836, and his collected works, Sämtliche Werke, were published in ten volumes from 1842 through 1844.