Obituary of Professor Hans-H. Münkner

Abstract

Professor Hans-H. Münkner died in November 2023.
His many friends, colleagues, and students around the world will understand that -to paraphrase Amadou Hampâté-Bâ-with him an immense library of knowledge has gone. Not only a library of cooperative law -for which he was most  amous-, but also for cooperative theory, enterprise law in general, development theory and practice, land law… Hundreds of publications written in German, English, French, Spanish, some of which translated into other languages, including Polish, Bahasa Indonesia and Italian, attest to it. Some of his knowledge and wisdom is also preserved in the memories of those who had the privilege to learn from him in person. He had an extraordinary ability to capture the attention of his audience, from China to Honduras and from Finland to South Africa; and he had the rare gift of explaining complex issues “simply”, often with humor, and in a way that was uncompromising, yet always fair vis-à-vis those who disagreed with him.