Hans Lamm (1913–1985)

Hans Lamm was born to a working-class Jewish family in Munich, Germany.

In 1932, he graduated from high school and began studying law at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. After the Nazi seizure of power the following year, he switched to journalism because he knew that as a Jew, he would be unable to get a job as a lawyer. From 1934 to 1937, he worked for the Munich Jewish Community before emigrating to the USA in 1938. He studied sociology at the University of Missouri.

At the end of World War II, he went back to Germany as a U.S. citizen and representative of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). For several years, he also served as a translator and court interpreter for the American authorities, including at the Nuremberg Trials. In 1951, he earned a PhD from the University of Erlangen and returned to working for the Jewish Community in Munich, helping to rebuild Jewish life in Germany. From 1960 until his retirement in 1976, he was head of department at the Munich Volkshochschule, the largest adult education center in Germany, and also active as a public speaker. He wrote and edited a number of books and collections of writings, including

Von Juden in München (Of Jews in Munich, 1958); Hans Lamm: Deutsch-Jüdischer Publizist. Ausgewählte Aufsätze 1933–1983 (Hans Lamm: Selected Essays, 1933-1983);

Der Eichmann-Prozess in der deutschen öffentlichen Meinung. Eine Dokumentensammlung (The Eichmann Trial in German Public Opinion: A Collection of Documents, 1961);
and Vergangene Tage. Jüdische Kultur in München (The
Last Days: Jewish Culture in Munich, 1982).