Hirsch, Helmut, 1907-2009

Hirsch was associated with the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Helmut Hirsch was born on September 2, 1907 in Barmen, Germany, the son of Emil Hirsch, a businessman and active left-wing social democrat, and Hedwig Hirsch née Fleischhacker, a milliner. From 1928 until 1932 Helmut Hirsch studied theater, philosophy, art history and journalism at Berlin, Bonn and Leipzig.

In April 1933 Emil Hirsch was arrested by the Nazis; he would be incarcerated in the Kemna concentration camp. As a result of this event, and unable to take his comprehensive exams or publish his completed dissertation on the Marxist journalist Karl Friedrich Köppen, Hirsch made the decision to leave Germany. At first he fled to the Saarland, still independent from the Nazi government; when it too became dangerous after the 1935 plebiscite returned the region to Germany, he went across the border to France along with his wife Eva Buntenbroich-Hirsch. When World War II began in 1939 Hirsch, along with other German refugees, was taken into custody and spent time in the French internment camps of Vierzon. In 1940 he volunteered for the French army where he served as a laborer ( Prestataire ) for them, loaned to the British Expeditionary Forces for a short time. After his eventual release, the couple went to Marseilles, where they sought and eventually acquired emergency rescue visas for the U.S. in 1941 through the assistance of Prince Hubertus zu Löwenstein and Lee De Blanc with later sponsorship by Lee de Blanc and Oswald Garrison Villard.

In 1942 Helmut Hirsch returned to his university studies. From 1942 until 1945 he studied for a time at the University of Wyoming in Laramie before continuing at the University of Chicago where he finally received his doctoral degree in 1945 with a dissertation on the history of the Saarland. In 1945 he also became a history professor at Roosevelt College, later Roosevelt University. In 1957 he returned to Germany, where he taught or lectured at various German universities, including the Düsseldorf Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsakademi and the Gesamthochschule Duisburg. During this time Helmut Hirsch wrote prolifically, producing many books including several biographies as well as works related to Marx and Marxism; his later books were written with the assistance of his third wife, Marianne Hirsch née Tilgner.

Helmut Hirsch died on January 21, 2009 in Düsseldorf.