Fritz Baade

Director of the Kiel Institute

April 1948 – March 1961

* Jan. 23, 1893, † May 15, 1974

After studying classical philology, medicine and finally economics until 1922, Baade worked during the Weimar Republic as an economic policy advisor, especially on agricultural policy, and as a member of parliament (in the Reichstag for the SPD). Deprived of his posts and mandate by the National Socialists, he emigrated to Turkey in 1935, where he worked as a university lecturer and advisor to the government. After the end of the war, Baade worked as a journalist in the USA, campaigning against the Morgenthau Plan and the dismantling in Germany.

In April 1948 he received a call to Kiel and headed the Kiel Institute until his retirement in March 1961. Here he restored the scientific and moral reputation of the institute. With the founding of an international guest house (Haus Welt-Club), he also created a place of international understanding, which his wife Edith led with great commitment for over two decades. As an economist and politician - from 1949 to 1965 for the SPD in the Bundestag - he was particularly committed to the economic and political integration of Western Europe. As a visionary of epochal issues such as world food supply, world energy supply and disarmament, he attracted renowned scientists to Kiel.

From 1961 until his death, he continued his commitment to development cooperation as Director of the Research Institute for Economic Issues of Developing Countries in Bonn.