LOEWENSTEIN, KARL

LOEWENSTEIN, KARL (1891–1973), U.S. political scientist. Loewenstein practiced law in his native Munich and lectured at the university there from 1931 to 1933. He immigrated to the United States in 1934 and two years later became professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College and in 1961 emeritus professor. In 1956 he was appointed professor of law at the University of Munich. During and after World War II, he served first as special assistant to the attorney general (1942–44) and then as legal adviser to the U.S. Military Government in Germany (1945–50). Lowenstein wrote extensively, in three languages, in the fields of public law and comparative government on European and American political systems. His earliest work, Volk und Parlament nach der Staatsauffassung der franzoesischen Nationalversammlung von 1789 (1922) remains a standard work in the subject. His major work deals with U.S. constitutional law and practice, Verfassungsrecht und Verfassungspraxis der Vereinigten Staaten (1959). He also wrote a political science textbook Political Power and the Governmental Process (1957), Hitler's Germany (1939), Brazil under Vargas (1942), Die Monarchie im modernen Staat (1952), and many others, as well as numerous articles, some of which are collected in his book Beitraege zur Staatsoziologie (1961). (Edwin Emanuel Gutmann)