West, Franklin C.

Franklin C. West is an American scholar whose research is focused on modern German history. He was born in 1934 in Portland, Oregon and is a professor emeritus in the department of history at Portland State University.

Emil Ludwig was born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) in 1881. In the 1920s, he became well-known for his biographies, which combined fact, fiction and psychological analysis; these works earned him international fame, with his novels translated into twenty-five languages. His books were among those burned by the Nazis on May 10, 1933. In 1940, Emil Ludwig immigrated to the United States, where he continued to write. He died in Moscio, Italy in 1948.