| Born: | 06-07-1904 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled teacher |
Adolf Leo OPPENHEIM, born on June 7th, 1904 in Vienna, was assistant teacher and librarian at the Institute of Oriental Studies (head: Prof. Viktor Christian) at the Philosophiccal School of the University of Vienna in 1938.
He received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1933, subsequently worked as a librarian at the institute and was persecuted under National Socialism for racist reasons and was suspended on March 22nd, 1938 and later dismissed. Instead, Pd. (ao.Prof.) Erich Frauwallner, then in secondary school service, was assigned to the Oriental Institute.
Adolf Leo Oppenheim was able to emigrate to the USA via France in 1941. His wife Elisabeth, née Munk (1911-1993) - they had been married since 1930 - also managed to escape, while his parents perished in Theresienstadt in 1942 and 1943.
Oppenheim first worked in New York (1941/42 at the Public Library, 1944-47 at the Asia Institute) and Philadelphia (1945 at Johns Hopkins University, 1945/46 at Dropsie College).
From 1947 he worked at the Oriental Institute/University of Chicago (from 1949 as assistant, from 1950 as associate, from 1954 as full professor until his retirement in 1973). He was an important Assyrologist and co-editor and later editor of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.
Prof. Adolf Leo Oppenheim died on July 21st, 1974 in Berkeley, CA/USA.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/Rektoratsakten; wikipedia; Robert D. Biggs, J. A. Brinkman (Hg.), From the Workshop of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim. Chicago 1964, Eerle Leichty, in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 95, 1975, 369–370; Hermann Hunger in DNB 1999.
Herbert Posch
