A Tribute to Sir Otto Kahn-Freund (1900–1979)

Extract

When I first met Otto Kahn-Freund in 1920, his charm made me his lifelong friend. His was the cheerfulness of a rich nature, but also a penetrating mind and the readiness to stand on his opinion and to express it forcefully.

After the First World War Kahn-Freund studied history and, later on, law; partly at his home-town university Frankfurt-am-Main and partly in Heidelberg and Leipzig. In a circle of animated students he was one of the most remarkable. He finished his law studies in 1925 summa cum laude with a doctoral thesis on the effects of collective labour agreements. From early on labour law was one of the topics nearest to his interest, perhaps urged by his socialist conviction, certainly stimulated by our teacher Professor Hugo Sinzheimer. Kahn-Freund belonged to the inner circle of Sinzheimer's pupils and also worked some time in his advocate's practice. Labour law was to become a leitmotif in Kahn-Freund's own professional way, up to his last work—a series of lectures he called “Labour Relations —Heritage and Adjustment”, which he held in 1978 in the British Academy under the auspices of the Thanksgiving Offering to Britain Fund donated by Jewish refugees settled in England (the lectures were published in 1979).