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Rudolf Wendt was born in Wunstorf and completed his Abitur at the Städtisches Neusprachliches Gymnasium Erkelenz. Thanks in part to a scholarship from the Cusanuswerk, he studied law at the universities of Munich and Cologne from 1965 to 1970. After passing the first state law examination at the Judicial Examination Office at the Higher Regional Court in Cologne, he initially worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Constitutional Law at the University of Cologne under Professor Dr. Karl Heinrich Friauf. He then completed his legal clerkship and was awarded his doctorate in law (Dr. juris utriusque) on 12 February 1974 with a thesis entitled ‘Die Gebühr als Lenkungsmittel’ (Fines as a Means of Influencing Behaviour) at the Faculty of Law in Cologne.
After passing the second state law examination at the State Examination Office in Düsseldorf, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Constitutional Law at the University of Cologne under Professor Dr. Karl Heinrich Friauf from 1975 and also took up a teaching position at the Academy of Administration and Economics in Cologne in the winter semester of 1978/79. On 17 February 1983, he qualified as a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Cologne in the subjects Constitutional and Administrative Law and Tax Law with his thesis ‘Eigentum und Gesetzgebung’ (Property and Legislation). In the following summer semester, he took over a chair at the University of Cologne and a teaching position in public law at the University of Trier. On 17 August 1983, he was appointed Professor of Public Law at the University of Trier.
Succeeding Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Knies, Professor Wendt took over the Chair of Constitutional Administrative, Economic, Financial and Tax Law at Saarland University on 1 November 1988. Since then, he has remained loyal to Saarbrücken—despite offers of professorships at the Free University of Berlin in 1993 and the University of Cologne in 1997—and has also established a tax law programme that is aimed equally at prospective lawyers and business administration students. Since the summer semester of 1990, he has also taught at the Saarland Academy of Administration and Economics, where he has been deputy director of studies since 2004. Since 1999, the renowned expert has also been acting as an advisor to the state government, particularly in the areas of financial constitutional law, including state debt and budget law. In addition, he represented Saarland on several occasions in complex constitutional disputes concerning fiscal equalization between the federal states before the Federal Constitutional Court.
As an experienced observer of higher education policy, Wendt was particularly involved in academic self-administration, acting as the Chair of the Department of Law at the Faculty of Law and Economics at Saarland University in 1993/1994 and from 2001 to 2004 as Senator and from 2004 to 2006 as the Dean of the Faculty of Law and Economics. Professor Wendt, who is also a member of the Association of German Constitutional Law Professors and the German Tax Law Association, remained active after his retirement in 2013. He has been a member of the Constitutional Court of Saarland since 11 December 1995 and its Vice-President since 20 February 2008.
His academic work includes numerous monographs, essays, commentaries, contributions to commemorative publications and other anthologies, and expert opinions. In addition to work on various aspects of financial constitutional and tax law, Wendt has focused on central issues of the protection of freedom and equality, especially in the field of tax, fiscal and economic law, throughout his academic career. Wendt has a particular interest in protection of property under Article 14 of the German Basic Law and the freedom of expression guaranteed in Article 5 of the German Basic Law as well as the debate on the general principle of equality and the special principles of equality under the law. Wendt’s focus and achievements were reflected in the title of the commemorative publication dedicated to him on his 70th birthday in 2015, ‘Freiheit, Gleichheit, Eigentum – Öffentliche Finanzen und Abgaben’ (Freedom, Equality, Property—Public Finances and Taxes). The considerable number of doctoral students he has supervised is testament to his support and encouragement of young academics.
Contact:
Dr. Wolfgang Müller, Universitätsarchiv
E-Mail: dr.wolfgang-mueller@t-online.de
