LISZT, FRANZ VON (1851-1919), German jurist, cousin of the composer, Franz Liszt, was born in Vienna on March 2, 1851. He qualified in 1875 as a teacher of criminal law at Graz in Austria, was a professor at Giessen 1879, Marburg 1882, Halle 1889, and in Berlin in 1899. In 1912 he became a member of the Fortschrittliche Volkspartei (Progressive People's party) in the Reichstag. Liszt's life work was the scientific foundation and reform of the criminal law of which the basic principles are con tained in his treatise Der Zweckgedanke im Strafrecht (1882). It opposes the principle of regarding punishment as a reprisal and sets up the claim of systematic prevention of a special nature. In the fight against the law breaker, Liszt, together with the Dutchman Van Hamel and the Belgian Prins, founded the Inter nationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung (International Criminalist Union) in 5889 in which all reforms, which became the basis of modern criminal law, were initiated. Liszt's claims in favour of
conditional sentence and pardon as well as postponement of pun ishment later passed into practice. At Marburg he created the Criminalist Seminary, at which later in Halle and especially in Berlin students from all lands met. Liszt was also a leading au thority on international law. He died at Seeheim on June 22, 1919. His chief works are Meineid und falsches Zeugnis (1876) ; Lehrbuch des deutschen Strafrechts (1881, 21st ed. 5919) ; Lehrbuch des Volker rechts (1898, nth ed., 1918) ; Strafrechtsfalle zum akademischen Gebrauch (13th ed. 1922) ; Strafrechtliche Aufsiitze und Vortrdge (1905). See also Abhandlungen des Kriminalistischen Seminars (1889, etc.) ; Mitteilungen der Internationalen Kriminalistischen Vereinigung (1890, etc.).