Theodore Fred Abel

Theodore Fred Abel (November 24, 1896 – March 23, 1988) was an American sociology professor who collected the largest single archive of first person accounts from people who joined Hitler's National Socialist movement. The collection of men's accounts was published in 1938 in a book titled Why Hitler Came to Power. The women's accounts were set aside to publish at a later date. Those accounts were lost and then rediscovered in the archives of the Hoover Institute in Palo Alto, after which three Florida State University professors arranged to have them transcribed, translated and digitized. This collection of first person accounts from Nazis before the start of World War II are called the "Theodore Abel papers."

Education and early years Theodore Abel was born in Łódź, Russian Empire (Russian partition of Poland) on November 24, 1896. He died in Albuquerque, New Mexico on March 23, 1988. In order to qualify, participants had to have been party members before January 1, 1933. Among the recurring themes of the letters were people who were hoping Hitler would bring back order and their distrust of the press due to the press being what they considered overcritical of Hitler and his ideas. The women's accounts are especially interesting given the historical context of German's Women's movements at the time.Top-quality high schools for girls had existed since the 1870s, and German universities were opened to women at the beginning of the 20th century. Many German women became teachers, lawyers, doctors, journalists and novelists. In 1919, German women got the vote. By 1933, women, of whom there were millions more than men – Berlin had 1,116 women for every 1,000 men – voted in roughly the same percentages as men for Hitler and National Socialist candidates.

Published works Protestant Home Missions to Catholic Immigrants, Harper, 1933 Why Hitler Came Into Power, Prentice-Hall, 1938 (Editor) Freedom and Control in Modern Society, Van Nostrand, 1954 Systematic Sociology in Germany, Octagon, 1966 The Nazi Movement, Atherton, 1967 The Foundation of Sociological Theory, Random House, 1970