Rezension: Der Wirtschaftskrieg. Sammlung der in den kriegführenden Staaten verfügten Maßnahmen des wirtschaftlichen Kampfrechtes

Emil Lederer: Review of Der Wirtschaftskrieg (1915)

Lederer’s brief review commends a compilation of wartime economic law issued by the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He first surveys its coverage: payment and trading prohibitions, controls over enemy enterprises and assets, changes to legal rights, intellectual property, customs, and maritime warfare. The organizing distinction is the targeting of enemy economic resources:

Hierbei sind nach Möglichkeit nur solche rechtliche Maßnahmen in die Sammlung einbezogen, welche sich gegen die Volkswirtschaft und das Privatvermögen des Feindes richten.

English translation: In this, so far as possible, only such legal measures have been included in the collection as are directed against the national economy and the private property of the enemy.

This criterion connects measures against national economies with interventions in private property. Lederer then moves from legal scope to comparative significance:

Die Sammlung enthält die Maßnahmen sämtlicher kriegführender Staaten (auch der Zentralmächte) und gestattet so einen Ueberblick über die Art und Weise, wie sich die einzelnen Staaten im Kriege mit der engen weltwirtschaftlichen Verknüpfung auseinandergesetzt haben.

English translation: The collection contains the measures of all the belligerent states (including the Central Powers) and thus permits a survey of the manner in which the individual states have, in the war, come to terms with the close interconnection of the world economy.

The collection’s value thus lies in showing how belligerent states confronted close global economic interdependence through law. Lederer notes that its second edition incorporates measures through 31 July 1915 and closes by crediting Emil Perels with its compilation and systematic arrangement. His praise rests on documentary breadth and organization, with economic interdependence supplying the review’s concise interpretive frame.