Arthur Prinz, 1898-1981
Arthur Prinz was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on December 3 1898, the son of Hermann Prinz and Clara née Gutmann. His father had emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1876 and was a naturalized U.S. citizen who became a plantation owner in Guatemala; his mother was a teacher. In 1904 Hermann Prinz took the family to Berlin so his parents could meet their grandchildren, and died suddenly while there, leaving Clara Prinz to raise their three children, Walter, Arthur, and Alice. It was Clara Prinz who taught her son, Arthur, English.
Arthur Prinz attended the Bismarcks-Gymnasium in Berlin until 1918, then continued his studies at the University of Berlin where he studied economics, history, and philosophy. In 1923 he graduated magna cum laude, but his dissertation, Das Marxsche System in psychologischer Betrachtungen, was not published due to the rising inflation during this time in Germany. Revision of the thesis was well underway in late 1932 and two publishers were interested in it, but Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor doomed such plans. From 1923 until 1933 Prinz taught economics at Humboldt University in Berlin. But here again the events of 1933, and specifically the exclusion of Jews from the education sector, disrupted his career, and he was dismissed in July 1933.
In 1933 Arthur Prinz was conducting research for the Streseman-Stiftung to write on international migration after World War I. It was while researching this topic that Prinz became involved with the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland (German Jewish Aid Society). He worked for this agency from 1933 until 1939. Here he was primarily responsible for editing the organization’s bulletin Jüdische Auswanderung . In addition, he conducted lectures on the subject of refugee and relief matters. On the evening of November 9/10, 1938, he was arrested and then released.
In 1939 Prinz went with his sister Alice, who was very ill, to Palestine, intending to return to Germany and his work with the Hilfsverein once she was settled there. His colleagues in Germany convinced him to remain there, where he lived until 1947, working as a free-lance teacher and writer for newspapers. It was in Palestine that Arthur Prinz met and married his wife, Fanny Haber. In 1948 he emigrated to the United States and found a position teaching economics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He maintained an active interest in Jewish and Israeli affairs as well as American socio-economic and political developments, and his prolific journalistic output in the period after his immigration to the United States documents these intellectual concerns. Arthur Prinz died in San Diego on August 27, 1981.
From the guide to the Arthur Prinz Collection, 1908-1980, (Leo Baeck Institute)
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creatorOf | Arthur Prinz Collection, 1908-1980 | Leo Baeck Institute. |
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associatedWith | Dickinson College | corporateBody |
associatedWith | Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland | corporateBody |
associatedWith | Prinz, Arthur, 1898-1981 | person |
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Germany History 1933-1945 | |||
Palestine History 1929-1948 | |||
Germany History 1918-1933 |
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Person
Birth 1898
Death 1981