Abstract
The famous Lüth-judgment (1958) of the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) developed the horizontal application of fundamental rights in Germany (enforced as between private citizens rather than vertically as against the state). The judicial reasoning in Lüth has since been widely used by other courts to establish their own reading on the horizontal application of human rights. To understand this landmark decision, this contribution will first set the scene of the circumstances leading to it, including the conception of fundamental rights under the German Constitution, before analyzing the judgment in depth.
