Biographical/Historical Information
The scholar, historian, and teacher Adolf Leschnitzer was born in Posen on February 3, 1899. After serving in the German army until 1918, Leschnitzer studied German philology, history, philosophy, and education in Berlin and in Heidelberg, where he earned his doctoral degree in 1923. He taught in several municipal high schools in Berlin until 1933, when he was asked by Leo Baeck, then the head of the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (National Federation of Jews in Germany), to head the Department of Education. For the next six years, until his emigration in 1939, Leschnitzer dedicated his work to organizing and supervising Jewish schools and teachers' seminars throughout Germany. Upon arrival in the United States in 1940, Leschnitzer worked in various academic, governmental, and military organizations, and he was professor at the Department of German and Slavic Languages at City College in New York from 1946 to 1972. Adolf Leschnitzer died in Centerport, Long Island, NY on July 24, 1980.
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Citation
Adolf Leschnitzer : passport photo, Leo Baeck Institute, F 25117.