Martin Buber

Born:	02-08-1878
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Martin BUBER (born on February 8th, 1878 in Vienna, died on June 13th, 1965 in Jerusalem), had graduated at the Philosophical School at the University of Vienna in Philosophy on July 19th, 1904 with the academic degree 'Dr. phil.' (dissertation: 'Zur Geschichte des Individuationsproblems').
In times of Nazism he was deprived of his academic degree on July 14th, 1942 with the racist argument, that he as a Jew was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ('eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwürdig').
It took 13 years since the deprivation - and a very long time since the end of Nazism - until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place on May 15th, 1955.

The philosopher and theologist was also a representative of cultural sciences and religous sciences. He was influenced by Kant, chassidism and zionism and is a very important partner for the christian-jewish dialog. He studied in Vienna, but also in Berlin, Leipzig and Zurich. In Vienna he founded the jounal 'Die Welt', later in Berlin the monthly journal 'Der Jude'. In 1930 he got a call to the University of Frankfurt am Main/Germany, which ha lost after nationalsocialism coming to power in 1933. He left Germany in 1938 and went to Palestine/Israel were he became a professor of social philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Many philosophical and religious publications. He was honoured with the Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels in 1953, the 'Grossen Oesterreichischen Staatspreis' in 1961 and the Erasmus-Price in 1963. The Institute for Judaism at the University of Cologne/Germany is named 'Martin-Buber-Institute'.

Lit.: Buber, Begegnung. Autobiographische Fragmente; SILVERMAN 2012, 263n2.