The beginnings

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Our law firm was founded in 1891 by the solicitor Dr. Edmund Klée-Gobert. The office was initially based at Neuer Wall 5 in the centre of the Hamseatic City of Hamburg. In 1892, Dr. Klée-Gobert introduced Dr. Ernst Hass as partner to the law firm and in 1898 another partner followed with Dr. Edmund Schlüter. It was during this time of expansion that the firm moved to new offices at the corner of Jungfernstieg and Alsterarkaden.

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Dr. Edmund Schlüter came from an old Hamburg family (the family gave their name to the Schlueterstrasse) and was married to a daughter of the former first mayor Dr. Burchardt (Burchardtstrasse, Burchardtkai). He mainly practiced inheritance law, dealing with estate matters and the execution of wills.

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In 1929, the solicitor Dr. Alfred Heynen then joined the partnership. Dr. Heynen was mainly active in the area of civil law, focussinig primarily on corporate and commercial law. In particular, he dealt with shipping and inland waterway transport issues as Hamburg at that time was the centre of inland shipping in northern Germany. Indeed, there existed lively inland waterway traffic to Eastern Europe and in particular to Czechoslovakia, which operated its own inland waterway port in Hamburg.

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After the death of Dr. Klée-Gobert in April of 1933, the partnership consisted only of Dr. Schlüter and Dr. Heynen for several years. Then, in 1939, Dr. Hans Radischat, born in Hamburg in 1912, joined the law firm shortly after passing his bar exams. Dr. Radischat had already established personal contacts with several consulates in Hamburg during his legal traineeship and so, after joining the law firm, he was able to align the law firm internationally. A few years later, Dr. Schlüter passed away in July 1943 and it was during this time of heavy air-raids upon the city that the office was completely destroyed.