 Knut Wolfgang Knörr is an External Scientific Member at the MPIeR.Under Helmut Coing the research focus of the MPIeR was placed on the history of private law in Europe and its correlation to economic history.Dieter Simon, Walter Wilhelm, Michael Stolleis and Marie Theres Fögen gradually broadened the research scope of the institute to the theory and sociology of law, the history of public law, international law, criminal law, the law of modern Eastern Europe and the Europe of Dictatorship in the 20th century.