Wolfgang Friedmann

Wolfgang Gaston Friedmann (25 January 1907 – 20 September 1972) was a German American legal scholar. Specializing in international law, he was a faculty member at Columbia Law School.

Biography

Born in Berlin, Friedmann finished his studies of law at the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1930. Being Jewish, he immigrated to London in 1934, shortly after the Nazis' seizure of power in Germany. He obtained a University of London LLM, taught at University College London, became a British citizen in 1939 and served in the British Army during the Second World War.

He went as Professor to the University of Melbourne (1947-50) and then to the University of Toronto Law School (1950-55).

In 1955, he became a professor of international law at Columbia Law School, where he founded the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. In 1972, he was robbed and stabbed to death in front of Public School 36 at Amsterdam Avenue between 122d and 123d Streets near Columbia's campus in Manhattan. The Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award was established in his honor.

Selected bibliography 2nd ed. - 1971.