Then: Law Student

Later: President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany

The horror of the Holocaust prompted Berlin-born Jutta Limbach to pursue studies in law. Limbach attended a Seminar session on American Law and Legal Institutions in 1961—one month before the construction of the Berlin Wall—that helped shape her legal thinking and offered her first exposure to an international community. She returned to Salzburg for another session in 1999 on the responsibility of judges. As the first woman to head Germany’s highest court, she argued for the prosecution of Erich Honecker, the former leader of communist East Germany, and of former members of the East German secret police. She later led the Limbach Commission, which settled disputes over art seized by the Nazis.