Ernst Fraenkel (1) (1898–1975)

Ernst Fraenkel was born to a German Jewish merchant family in Cologne. He was drafted into the German Army during World War I, and after being demobilized, studied law in Frankfurt. There he met Franz Leopold Neumann and Leo Löwenthal, with whom he joined the Socialist Democratic Party (SPD). During the Weimar Republic, he worked in partnership with Neumann in Berlin as a labor lawyer, representing trade unions. He published several scientific and technical articles. As a former soldier, he was permitted to work to a limited extent after the Nazis came to power in 1933, but was forced to flee to the UK in 1938; a year later, he went to the USA. After studying American law, Fraenkel lectured at the New School for Social Research. In 1941 he published his classic study, The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship, in which he analyzed the political system of Nazi Germany. From 1945, Fraenkel was an adviser to the U.S. government but was greatly disappointed by the lack of free elections in South Korea after the Korean War. Fraenkel returned to Germany in 1951. He was appointed a lecturer at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (German University for Politics) in Berlin and later a professor at the Freie Universität (Free University) of Berlin, where he founded the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies.