Wilhelm Eduard Albrecht

Albrecht was most notable as a member of the Göttingen Seven, a group of academics who in 1837 protested against the abrogation of the constitution of the Kingdom of Hanover by King Ernest Augustus.

Albrecht was born in Elbing (Elbląg), West Prussia, and studied in Berlin, Göttingen, and Königsberg.

In 1848, during the March Revolution, Albrecht was a member of the Frankfurt Parliament and a delegate to the Siebzehnerausschuss, whose constitution he prepared.

Albrecht remains a significant figure in jurisprudence for his conception of the state as a purely theoretical legal entity, a view he developed in an 1837 review of Romeo Maurenbrecher's "Grundsätze des heutigen Staatsrechts".

This view stands in opposition to the old Germanic concept of the state as Verbandsperson, a collective person, a position defended by Otto von Gierke.