Witold Reiss in the light of the acts from the archives of the Faculty of Law and Economics at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun and family accounts

Abstract

This year, the Faculty of Law and Administration, previously the Faculty of Law and Economics of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun is celebrating its 70th anniversary. For decades, it has been educating masses of young lawyers who have been creating legal reality and exerting a great influence on the Polish legal thought. One of the founders and the acting Dean, then the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Law and Economics at Nicolaus Copernicus University in 1945–1946, was Witold Reiss, M.A. Being a great organizer on one hand, and an academic teacher of ill repute on the other he is a very difficult character to assess. However, together with the Chancellor, Professor Ludwik Kolankowski, he undertook to cre ate one of the best Faculties of Law in the post-war Poland. The focus of this article is to bring the history of Witold Reiss’s life to wider public.