Helene Lieser, Rezension: Devisenrecht (1933)

Helene Lieser’s short review compares five publications on German foreign-exchange law, assessing how effectively they make a complex, changing regulatory system usable. Its starting point is the international reach of German economic regulation:

Die weitgehende Verflechtung Deutschlands in den internationalen Handel gibt den deutschen Vorschriften über die Devisenbewirtschaftung auch für das Ausland große Bedeutung.

English translation: Germany’s extensive involvement in international trade gives the German regulations on foreign-exchange control great importance for other countries as well.

Lieser establishes the scale of the interpretive task by counting 43 sections in the principal ordinance, 22 in its implementing ordinance, and 140 provisions in the guidelines, alongside numerous decrees. Her concern is practical orientation within this accumulation of rules; she does not evaluate the economic merits of exchange controls.

The review proceeds publication by publication, beginning with Koppe and Blau’s loose-leaf arrangement. Its particular advantage is that revisions can be incorporated where they belong:

Dadurch bleibt die Möglichkeit gewahrt, Ergänzungen und Abänderungen an der richtigen Stelle einzuschalten.

English translation: This preserves the possibility of inserting additions and amendments in the appropriate place.

Here, editorial format becomes an instrument for keeping legal guidance current. Lieser also values the work’s systematic exposition, foreign-exchange calendar, bibliography, index, and comparative table of foreign regulations. Pröhl offers a different strength: a legal-scholarly commentary addressing doubtful questions, with updates reserved for a supplementary volume. Goldbaum follows similar principles and additionally includes Germany’s standstill agreements.

Behrbohm and Sudau separate statutory texts and commentary into two convenient volumes. Their directory of administrative offices and collection of forms connect legal exposition directly to applications, monthly reports, and affidavits. Lieser’s observation that the index has proved useful in concrete cases reinforces the review’s practical standard of judgment. Jaffa, finally, attaches explanatory provisions to each section:

Sie erfüllen ihren Zweck, dem Beamten, der die Vorschriften anzuwenden hat, dem Kaufmann, der sie beobachten muß, und dem Juristen, der seine Klienten zu beraten hat, Wegweiser zu sein.

English translation: They fulfil their purpose of serving as a guide to the official who has to apply the regulations, the merchant who must observe them, and the lawyer who has to advise his clients.

The concluding assessment makes explicit the audiences underlying the whole review. Lieser distinguishes scholarly clarification, navigational aids, and administrative tools while treating each as a means of making emergency law workable. The review’s significance lies in this account of legal mediation: internationally consequential controls require not merely publication, but organized, updatable guidance for those administering, obeying, and interpreting them.