Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde was a Professor emeritus of Public Law at the University of Freiburg. He is one of the best-known and most influential German legal scholars in the post-war period. From 1983-1996 he served as Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. In the 1960s, Böckenförde was one of the founders of the journal Der Staat - Zeitschrift für Staatslehre, Öffentliches Recht und Verfassungsgeschichte. He was a member of the Social Democratic Party and served as a long-time legal advisor to it.