HERLITZ, GEORG

HERLITZ, GEORG (1885–1968), Zionist archivist and author. Born in Oppeln (Opole), in Silesia, Herlitz worked from 1911 to 1916 at the Gesamtarchiv der deutschen Juden (see archives ) under the guidance of Eugen Taeubler. In 1919 he was appointed the first director of the Central Zionist Archives and headed this institution first in Berlin and from 1933 to 1955 in Jerusalem. He published numerous articles on general Jewish topics and on Zionist questions in Juedische Rundschau, Haaretz, and Ha-Olam. Herlitz edited the Juedisches Lexikon (5 vols., Berlin, 1927–30; the first two with Bruno Kirschner as co-editor), for which he wrote a number of entries on the history of the German Jews and the history of Zionism. He also compiled a Zionist chronological handbook, Das Jahr des Zionismus (1949), and wrote an autobiography Mein Weg nach Jerusalem (1964). He served for many years as the secretary of the presidium of Zionist Congresses. His daughter ESTHER HERLITZ (1921– ) was a senior member of the Israel Foreign Service and was Israel ambassador to Denmark from 1966 to 1971, and a member of Knesset in 1973–81. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Tidhar, 2 (1947), 945–6. (Michael Heymann)