Andreas Predöhl

Director of the Kiel Institute

March 1934 – November 1945

* Oct. 26, 1893, † July 18, 1974

After military service and deployment as a fighter pilot in World War I, Predöhl completed his studies of political science in Kiel, where he received his doctorate under Bernhard Harms and also habilitated in 1924. Until 1930 he was assistant director and private lecturer at the Kiel Institute and undertook study trips to North America as a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship holder.

As of April 1933, as Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science, he participated in the expulsion of Jewish and Nazi-distant scientists and was instrumental in serving the regime. In March 1934, he was made head of the Kiel Institute. He advocated the retention of classical economic methodology and its empirical validation. This made the Institute a useful instrument for economic policy and warfare of the "Third Reich". Appointed Rector of the University of Kiel in November 1941, he also became increasingly active in propaganda to stabilize the regime at home and to participate in the "intellectual conquest" of Europe.

In November 1945, initially removed from all positions, he was allowed to return to his chair two years later, but not as director of the Kiel Institute. He later headed the Institute for Transportation Science in Münster, was involved in economic policy committees, including those of the SPD, and from 1965 to 1969 headed the German Overseas Institute (now: German Institute of Global and Area Studies) in Hamburg.