KOBLER, FRANZ

KOBLER, FRANZ (1882–1965), lawyer, pacifist, and writer. Kobler, who was born in Vienna, edited Der Strahl, the Austrian pacifist publication in Vienna, wrote extensively on legal problems and pacifism (Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit, 1928), and practiced law there from 1914 to 1938. In 1938 Kobler left Austria and subsequently took refuge in Switzerland, England, and finally in the U.S. Kobler's contribution to Jewish scholarship consisted of his pioneering anthologies of Jewish letters: Juden und Judentum in deutschen Briefen… (1935); Juedische Geschichte in Briefen… aus Ost und West (1938); and the two-volume Letters of Jews Through the Ages (1952; published in the U.S. as A Treasury of Jewish Letters, 1953). Kobler also contributed to Jewish periodicals, and published Napoleon Bonaparte's 1799 proclamation to the Jews, which he had discovered (New Judaea, 16 (1939/40), 189–90; 17 (1940/41), 18–19; 36–37; 69–70).