| Born: | 01-26-1917 |
| Faculty: | Law School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Kurt Erich Maria BAIER, born on January 26th, 1917 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian Empire [Austria] (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Mödling/Lower Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), stepson of Emil Baier (dentist in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia) and Maria Hunna, née. Csala (1894-1988), lived in Mödling/Lower Austria, Fürstenstrasse 12, and studied law from 1935 and was last enrolled in the 3rd semester at the School of Law in the spring term of 1938.
He grew up in a middle-class, conservative, strictly Catholic family with his stepfather and only found out shortly before the Anschluss that his biological father was considered a “full or half Jew” according to Nazi racial criteria, which is why he was forced to drop out of his studies and leave the University of Vienna for racist reasons after the Anschluss.
He had to flee Austria and describes the situation at the time as follows from his memory in 1988:
“Anyone who witnessed this and who saw the ruthless brutality and unbridled cruelty with which the elimination of all political opponents and the persecution, maltreatment and humiliation of the Jews was carried out immediately or very soon after the “Anschluss” will harbor doubts about the golden Viennese heart for the rest of their lives.
And anyone who saw the great and certainly justified fear felt by many of those who had not been illegal Nazis, or who, like some of our acquaintances, could not credibly pretend to be, soon had to realize that many would deny or betray their politically incriminated or Jewish friends out of this understandable fear and that the latter should therefore not place much hope in the so-called “other Austria”. For those who did not want to sacrifice their lives out of political conviction in the fight against this inexorably rolling avalanche, it was advisable to disappear as soon as possible.” (Baier in: Stadler II 1988)
And in 1938, after overcoming many difficulties, he managed to obtain an exit permit and visa for England in August, where he wanted to wait briefly for an entry permit to Brazil, as he had acquaintances there who could support him. However, the entry permit was refused and he had to laboriously build up a livelihood in England, which he managed to do to some extent. In June 1930, however, he was interned as an “enemy alien” and deported to Australia on the infamous prison ship “Dunera”. After landing in Sydney, they were taken by train to an elongated internment camp for two days. After several transfers, he ended up in a camp in Victoria, where he was able to take part in the state's distant learning program. With the support of a local helper from the Australian Student Christian Movement, he was able to enrol as a foreign student at the university, received books and scripts, as well as a deferral of tuition fees, and was able to sit the oral and written exams in the camp. This enabled him to complete his first year of study - he had switched to philosophy - while still interned.
After an interruption due to his enlistment in the British army, he was able to complete his philosophy studies at the University of Melbourne in 1947 with an M.A. (Master of Arts), became an assistant at the philosophy institute there and was granted study leave to study for his doctorate in Oxford, England, which he completed in 1952.
After a year at Cornell University/New York, he returned to Melboume. In 1956 he became a full professor of philosophy at Canberra University College (later Australian National University) where he met and married Annette Stoop, a well-known philosophy professor and Hume researcher, in 1958. In 1962 he was appointed to the University of Pittsburgh/USA, where he taught for the next three decades until his retirement in 1995.
He worked in various areas of practical philosophy such as ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law and his works include The Moral Point of View: A Rational Basis of Ethics (1958), Values and the Future: Impact of Technological Change on American Values (1969 ed. with Nicholas Rescher), The Rational and the Moral Order: The Social Roots of Reason and Morality (1995) and Problems of Life and Death: A Humanist Perspective (1997). After his retirement, he retired to New Zealand, the home country of his wife Annette.
He was President of the Eastern Division of the APA|American Philosophical Association in 1977 and Chairman of the APA Board of Directors from 1983-86.
He delivered the Paul Carus Lectures in Philosophy and was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2001 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Karl-Franzens University of Graz.
Prof. Dr. Kurt Baier died on October 23rd, 2010 at the age of 93 in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") Law School 1935-1938; Kurt E. Baier, Zeitzeugenbericht, in: STADLER II 2004 [1988], 125-132; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 357; interview of Christian Fleck with Kurt E. Baier from August 26th, 1986 in the "Archiv für die Geschichte der Soziologie in Österreich" in Graz/Austria; wikipedia; J. B. Schneewind, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 84, No.2 (November 2010), 185-187; obituary; Portrait by Erwin Fabian, 1942 (Australian National Portrait Gallery); wikipedia.
Herbert Posch
