Otto Kahn-Freund
1900 - 1979

Otto Kahn-Freund was born on November 17, 1900 in Frankfurt on the Main. He was the only child of the Jewish merchant and factory owner Richard Kahn-Freund and his Jewish wife Carrie (Carolin) Freund, born in Dresden (Saxony) in 1873. The Kahn-Freund family lived at Gutleut street 21 until 1900 and then at Blittersdorff-Platz 43. Otto grew up in a cultivated Jewish home. For example, his father became a member of the Frankfurter Verein für Geographie und Statistik (Frankfurt Society for Geography and Statistics) in 1900, was also a member of the Patronatverein bei Dr. Hoch's Conservatorium (patronage association of Dr. Hoch's Conservatory), which promoted music education in Frankfurt, and was actively involved in the Deutsch-Französische Gesellschaft (German-French Society), which was founded in 1928 to promote better understanding between Germany and France.

Otto Kahn-Freund was not a believer. Nevertheless, his awareness of being Jewish was the reason for his striving for justice and his concern for the disadvantaged. And both formed the basis for his interest in labor law and his social democratic convictions. He became a member of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD, Social Democratic Party of Germany), in 1922 and was active in trade union education, including as a lecturer at the Academy of Labor in Frankfurt on the Main.

Carrie Kahn-Freund died in Frankfurt on the Main in November 1921. At this time, her husband was already living as a pensioner and was no longer working. In August 1931, Otto Kahn-Freund married Elisabeth Klaiss, then a law student and daughter of Friedrich Klaiss. Elisabeth studied law at the universities of Leipzig and Berlin, was also a member of the SPD and a student at the Academy of Labor. They both had a daughter, adopted in 1954, who was born in Germany.

After fleeing Germany, the Kahn-Freunds lived in Great Britain from 1933. Richard Kahn-Freund continued to live on Blittersdorff-Platz after the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship. He then moved to Jüdel street 7 around 1935. This was his last address in Frankfurt on the Main before emigrating to Great Britain, too. Otto Kahn-Freund was also listed at this address in the 1936 Frankfurt address book, although he had already been living in London for three years at the time. According to a letter in the Hessian Main State Archive in Wiesbaden, Otto Kahn-Freund lived in the British capital from 1933, but was still registered with the police in Frankfurt on the Main until August 1935.

Otto Kahn-Freund attended the pre-school of the Wöhler Realgymnasium and then the Goethe Gymnasium in Frankfurt on the Main. After passing the "Notreifeprüfung" in June 1918, he did military service in the Field Artillery Regiment 63 in Frankfurt from June to December 1918. At the same time, he enrolled at the University of Frankfurt on September 26, 1918. Interestingly, his enrollment card at the University of Frankfurt first noted medicine as his subject of study, but then crossed it out and entered philosophy. His parents' address is given as his home address: "Blittersdorfplatz 43".

Otto Kahn-Freund initially studied history and law at the universities of Frankfurt, Leipzig and Heidelberg, but from the summer semester of 1921 to the winter semester of 1922/23 he only studied law. In July 1923, he passed his first state examination in Frankfurt on the Main. Otto Kahn-Freund obtained his doctorate under Hugo Sinzheimer, who held a professorship for labor law and sociology of law at Frankfurt University from 1920 to 1933, with the thesis "Umfang der normativen Wirkung des Tarifvertrages und Wiedereinstellungsklausel" (Scope of the normative effect of the collective agreement and reemployment clause), which was published in 1928 by Reimar Hobbing publishing house in Berlin as the 15th issue of the Schriften des Instituts für Arbeitsrecht an der Universität Leipzig (Publications of the Institute for Labor Law at the University of Leipzig). Hugo Sinzheimer wrote in his expert opinion on Otto Kahn-Freund's dissertation in December 1925:

"Bei allem entwickelt Kahn-Freund seinen Gedankengang in klarer, einfacher Sprache. Nirgends zeigt sich eine Uebersteigerung in irgend einer Richtung. Die Argumentation ist sicher und doch bescheiden. Alles Vorzüge, die sich aus der völligen Stoffbeherrschung des Verfassers ergeben. Ich habe keine Bedenken, die vorliegende Arbeit mit der ersten Note (ausgezeichnet) zu begutachten. Dem Verfasser ist dringend zu empfehlen, die Arbeit zu veröffentlichen." (In everything, Kahn-Freund develops his train of thought in clear, simple language. Nowhere is there an exaggeration in any direction. The argumentation is confident and yet modest. These are all advantages that result from the author's complete mastery of the subject matter. I have no hesitation in awarding the present work the first mark [excellent]. The author is strongly recommended to publish the work.)

The second reviewer, Prof. Dr. Friedrich H. Klausing, who had been teaching at the University of Frankfurt since 1921, also came to a very positive conclusion: "Für eine Erstlingsschrift in der Tat eine ungewöhnlich reife Leistung, der ich auch die Note I. zuerkennen möchte." (For a first thesis, this is indeed an unusually mature achievement, which I would also like to award the grade 1.) At the time of his doctoral examination at the end of 1925, Otto Kahn-Freund was working at the district court in Frankfurt on the Main. During his legal clerkship, he worked in the office of Hugo Sinzheimer at Goethe street 26. In May 1927, he passed the second state examination in Berlin and then went to the USA and Great Britain from June 1927 to September 1928 to study Anglo-Saxon law.

In 1928, Kahn-Freund moved to Berlin and initially worked as an assistant judge at the Charlottenburg District Court and from November 1928 at the Berlin 2 Regional Court. From the end of January 1929, he worked as an assistant judge at the Berlin Labor Court and from October 1929 as a district court judge and full-time chairman there. Dr. Otto Kahn-Freund was a member of the Vereinigung sozialdemokratischer Juristen (Association of Social Democratic Lawyers). He published numerous articles in German legal journals until 1933, as well as the book "Das soziale Ideal des Reichsarbeitsgerichts" (The social ideal of the Imperial Labor Court) in 1931. He also co-authored a commentary on the Works Councils Act. He fled to Great Britain as early as 1933.

Otto Kahn-Freund's exact date of joining the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club is currently unknown. He is not listed in the directory of members from 1925, so he can only have joined after this year. According to the Nachrichten-Blatt of the Frankfurt on the Main section from February 1928, he and Georg B. Wagner, who joined the section in 1920, recommended the admission of Dr. Alfred Bock, authorized signatory and resident at Hans-Thoma-Straße 11. Dr. Bock (1888-1967) was non-Jewish, but had been married to the Jew Margarete Alice Mayer since 1913, who was deported to Auschwitz in January 1943 and murdered there in February 1943. In 1928, members had to have been in the section for at least one year before they could act as guarantors for new members. Consequently, Otto Kahn-Freund joined the Frankfurt section after 1925, but before February 1927.

Whether the Frankfurt section expelled Otto Kahn-Freund with the introduction of the so-called "Arierparagraf" (Aryan paragraph) in 1933 resp. 1934, or whether he himself left the section beforehand, we are currently unable to say due to a lack of relevant sources. A move to the Berlin section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club also seems possible. However, he is not listed in the Berlin membership directory for 1929 or in the supplements for 1930 and 1931.

Due to the National Socialist "Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums" (Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service) of April 7, 1933, Otto Kahn-Freund, as a Social Democrat and Jew, was dismissed from his position as a judge in a letter dated July 24, 1933. However, he had already been on leave since March 1933. Shortly afterwards, Kahn-Freund fled to Great Britain with his family and became a post-graduate law student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in 1935. The following year, he was admitted to the bar. In mid-1936, he brought his father Richard Kahn-Freund from Frankfurt on the Main to London. Richard died in June 1942, shortly before his 80th birthday, in Haslemere (Surrey) in the south of England.

Otto Kahn-Freund's German citizenship was revoked by an announcement on March 30, 1939. In May 1939, he was then stripped of his doctorate by the University of Frankfurt on the Main. However, he was granted British citizenship in June 1940.

From 1935, Otto Kahn-Freund taught at the London School in various positions. His wife was active as a psychiatric social worker in the early 1950s. He held a professorship in Comparative Law at Oxford University from 1964 to 1971. In Great Britain, Otto Kahn-Freund was a highly respected law professor who was even knighted in 1976. Today, he is considered one of the most important representatives of English and international labor law after 1945.

Otto Kahn-Freund passed away in August 1979.