Felix Klein was born in Vienna on January 17th, 1911. His interest in graphology was wakened when he was 13 years old. After apprenticing as a salesman in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) for one year he returned to Vienna in 1931. In Vienna he worked in his father's furniture store. In June 1935 he got married to Lisl Friedmann with whom he later had three sons. From June 1938 until the end of April 1939 he was interned at the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. There he studied his fellow prisoners' handwritings and developed the Theory of Directional Pressure, later to become a standard procedure in the science of graphology. After his release from the concentration camps he left for London and was a trainee for a year. He arrived in New York in April 1940. (After several years of unemployment he worked in different jobs, he later learned to be a watchmaker.) In 1969 he began to work at "Gain Handwriting Service Inc." which later became "Manhattan Handwriting Consultant." In 1972 he founded the National Society for Graphology, a renowned institute for analyzing handwritings and teaching graphology. Felix Klein was well known within the circle of graphologists, attending congresses and writing articles for newspapers and magazines. He regularly wrote for the Newsletter of the National Society for Graphology and was also a witness in court when handwriting was in question. Besides that he was a dedicated teacher. In 1986 he married Janice Bottenus. Felix Klein died on June 26, 1994.
From the guide to the Felix Klein Collection, 1930-2001, bulk 1965-1994, (Leo Baeck Institute)
