Julius Hirsch (1882-1961) was born in Mandel, Germany to Salomon and Mathilde Hirsch. He studied economics in Bonn and taught at the University of Cologne beginning in 1911. From 1919 to 1922 he served as Secretary of State in the German Ministry of Commerce, and was involved in reparation negotiation and post-war economic development. Thereafter, he was professor of economics at the University of Berlin and the Berlin Graduate School of Business ( Handelshochschule Berlin ). He immigrated to Copenhagen in 1933 and to the United States in 1941, where he worked in the 1940s for the U.S. Office of Price Administration before becoming a private consultant. He was also a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1942 to 1960, and Director of the New School Business Administration Center.
Edith Jarislowsky Hirsch (1899-2003), daughter of Adolph Jarislowsky and Flora Jarislowsky née Bernheim, received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Heidelberg in 1925. She met Julius Hirsch in Hechingen, Germany at the family home of Albert Einstein's wife Elsa, who was close friends with Edith's mother, and they got married in 1927. Edith Hirsch was an economist as well, receiving an MA from the New School in 1943, and she worked together with her husband in his consultancies both in Germany and in the United States. She specialized in food and agriculture economics. Hirsch was also involved with the LBI: she helped editing the memoirs of George Tietz, published in 1965, and also collected and donated to the LBI a range of materials related to the German-Jewish experience.
From the guide to the Julius and Edith Hirsch Collection, Undated, 1810-1982, Bulk 1942-1960, (Leo Baeck Institute)
