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Carl Joachim Friedrich
Carl Joachim Friedrich (1901-1984) was a German-American professor and political theorist. His writings on law and constitutionalism made him one of the world’s leading political s...view moreCarl Joachim Friedrich (1901-1984) was a German-American professor and political theorist. His writings on law and constitutionalism made him one of the world’s leading political scientists in the post-WWII period. He is one of the most influential scholars of totalitarianism.
Born on June 5, 1901, in Leipzig, the site of the first significant defeat of the Napoleonic armies, Friedrich was the son of renowned professor of medicine Paul Leopold Friedrich, the inventor of the surgical rubber glove, and a Prussian countess of the von Bülow family. He attended the Gymnasium Philippinum from 1911-1919. He graduated from the University of Heidelberg in 1925 and also attended several other universities.
In the 1920s, while a student in the U.S., he founded, and was president of, the German Academic Exchange Service. In 1926, he was appointed as a lecturer in Government at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Heidelberg in 1930. When Hitler came to power, he decided to remain in the United States and become a naturalized citizen. He was appointed Professor of Government at Harvard in 1936.
During WWII, Friedrich helped found the School of Overseas Administration to train officers for military work abroad and served as its director from 1943-1946. He also served on the Executive Committee of the Council for Democracy. From 1946-1948, he served as Constitutional and Governmental Affairs Adviser to the Military Governor of Germany, General Lucius D. Clay.
Between 1955-1971, Friedrich taught alternately at Harvard University (Eaton Professor of the Science of Government) and the University of Heidelberg (Professor of Political Science). He later taught at the University of Manchester and Duke University, among others.
In 1967, Friedrich was awarded the Knight Commander’s Cross of the German Order of Merit by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
He died in Lexington, Massachusetts on September 19, 1984, aged 83.view less