Ehrmann, Henry Walter, 1908-....

Henry (Heinrich) Walter Ehrmann, a political scientist and professor of law, was born in Berlin in 1908. He attended the French Lyce in Berlin before studying Law and Political Science at Berlin University, from which he graduated with a law degree (LL.B.) in 1929. In 1932, Ehrmann obtained a doctorate in jurisprudence at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and was appointed as a judge in Berlin. In 1933, he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the Oranienburg concentration camp for his contacts with the German Social Democratic Party. Ehrmann escaped to Czechoslovakia and eventually fled to France where he was a political refugee from 1934 to 1940 and worked as a journalist, a corresponding member of the Institute for Social Research, Columbia University, New York, and an associate of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

During his stay in France, Ehrmann became a member of the Neues Beginnen, a small underground anti-fascist group of German exiles. Having been interned as a German in 1940, he managed to escape with his wife, Claire Sachs, through Spain and Portugal to the United States. After coming to the United States, Ehrmann became a research associate on the graduate faculty of the "University in Exile," the New School for Social Research in New York City (1940). Between 1941 and 1943 he was also the editor of "In Re: Germany," published monthly in New York City. From 1943 to 1947 Ehrmann served as a consultant to the Office of War Information and the War Department in Washington, DC, and lectured at re-education courses for selected German prisoners-of-war.

From the description of Henry W. Ehrmann papers, 1932-1998. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122566479