Saul K. Padover (1905-1981)
Saul K. Padover (left) is shown here with the Ambassador of Germany, Heinz L. Krekeler (center) and A. Wilfred May, an economist and editor, on December 12, 1953 at the Harmonie Club on 4 East 60th Street, New York City.
Photo: Roy Bernard Co.
Saul Kussiel Padover was born in Vienna on April 13, 1905. At the age of 15 he emigrated to Detroit with his father Keva Padover, a U.S. citizen, and his mother Frumet Goldman Padover and his brother. Padover recived his B.A. from Wayne State University, did graduate work at Yale University and received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
After academic research positions he worked for the Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes as a personal assistant and Assistant Secretary of the Interior (1938-44) and then joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He followed the front lines of the U.S. Army from Normandy to the defeat of the Nazis and occupation of Germany, interviewing prisoners of war and civilians (among them political leaders in towns such as Aachen).
As an OSS analyst on German public opinion he provided expert advice to military leaders such as General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wrote a popular memoir about his experience, Experiment in Germany: The Story of an American Intelligence Officer (1946), later also published in Germany as Lügendetekor: Vernehmungen im besiegten Deutschland 1944/45 (1999).
Returning to the U.S. he joined the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York City, a university started during World War II by German exiles. He taught history and political science at the New School until his death. He also directed the New School’s General Seminar, the interdisciplinary faculty seminar.
He made a name for himself as a liberal anti-communist Cold Warrior. He wrote many books in his long life as an academic. His main research areas were early American history – the Constitution and the founding fathers. He wrote biographies of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and six books on the career of Thomas Jefferson. Karl Marx and Marxism was his other main field of research; he wrote seven books on Karl Marx. He also wrote biographies of Joseph II of Austria and Louis XVI of France and late in his life on Nehru of India.
Saul K. Padover passed away on February 22, 1981 at the age of 75 in New York City.