Herz, John H. 1908–2005

(Eduard Bristler, John Hermann Herz)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born September 23, 1908, in Düsseldorf, Germany; died December 26, 2005, in Scarsdale, NY. Political scientist, educator, and author. A professor emeritus at City College of the City University of New York, Herz was also a Woodrow Wilson prize winner who often wrote on world politics. He graduated from the University of Cologne with a Ph.D. in 1931 and in 1938 received a diploma from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. Soon after, Herz, a Jew, published a book critical of the Nazis, The National Socialist Doctrine of International Law (1938). Though he released it under the pseudonym of Eduard Bristler, he knew the Nazis would quickly discover who the author was. Immigrating to the United States, he found work at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1939. The appointment lasted only two years, but Herz thankfully found a welcome at Howard University. Here he taught for another two years before being hired as a political analyst for the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, DC. After the end of World War II, he filled the same roll for the State Department. Part of his work involved attending the Nuremburg trials, as well as working on plans to form a new democratic government in West Germany. Leaving government work behind in 1948, Herz returned to Howard University. During this period, he released his Woodrow Wilson Prize-winning history, Political Realism and Political Idealism (1951). After four years at Howard, he joined the faculty at City Col-lege, where he would teach from 1952 until his 1977 retirement. Specializing in government and international politics, Herz proved prescient in his warnings of the dangers of overpopulation on both the environment and international relations. He wrote on this topic in his 1959 work, International Politics in the Atomic Age (revised edition, 1961). Among his other publications are The Nation-State and the Crisis of World Politics: Essays on International Politics in the Twentieth Century (1976) and From Dictatorship to Democracy: Coping with the Legacies of Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism (1982).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, December 28, 2005, p. B8.

Washington Post, January 25, 2005, p. B5.