GRUENHUT, MAX

GRUENHUT, MAX (1893–1964), criminologist and penal reformer. Gruenhut, who was born in Magdeburg, Germany, taught at Hamburg until 1922, when he went to Jena University. Later he went to Bonn as professor ordinarius. After the   Nazi accession to power he emigrated to Britain where he was appointed reader in criminology at Oxford. In 1948 he published his widely acclaimed work, Penal Reform. Gruenhut, who became a practicing Lutheran, took a special interest in the development of the probation system. He devoted several publications to this subject, stressing the extramural method of peno-correctional treatment as a possible alternative to imprisonment in many cases. The United Nations asked Gruenhut to undertake an investigation of certain problems relating to the efficacy of probation. The results were issued by the UN Social Affairs Department in 1964. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mannheim, in: British Journal of Criminology, 4 (1964), 313–5. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: U. Fontaine, Max Gruenhut (1893–1964) – Leben und wissenschaftliches Wirken eines deutschen Strafrechtlers juedischer Herkunft (1998); H. Kaufmann, Erinnerungsgabe an Max Gruenhut (1965). (Zvi Hermon)