This collection documents the professional work and life of the historian Helmut Hirsch. The primary focus of the collection is on his professional activities and immigration experiences, although some documentation of his family life is also present. The collection consists largely of extensive correspondence but also includes unpublished manuscripts, and a small amount of research material and articles

The collection also contains some personal correspondence, with indications of major events in Helmut Hirsch's life, such as his wartime and immigration experiences, the birth and development of his son Helmut Villard Hirsch, and his moves within the United States and return to postwar Germany. Information on such topics will largely be found among the folders of correspondence with his parents, Hedwig and Emil Hirsch; with his son; and among the extensive correspondence of Wuppertalers, especially with that of friends such as Klaus Goebel. Some information on his immigration, reasons for fleeing Germany in the 1930s, and experiences in France will be found among the restitution correspondence, which additionally includes a large amount of legal and financial correspondence concerning his and his family members' attempts to secure restitution

Further documentation of Helmut Hirsch's professional work in the form of manuscripts and research material comprise Series II. This series includes drafts, often with Hirsch's handwritten notations, of some of his works. Especially prominent are his transcriptions of the letters Eduard Bernstein sent to Friedrich Engels in the late nineteenth century. Some lecture texts and a small amount of research relating to various subjects within Jewish history will also be found in Series II. In addition, this series includes copies of inventories of Helmut Hirsch's papers at other archival institutions

Helmut Hirsch was born on September 2, 1907 in Barmen, Germany, the son of Emil Hirsch, a businessman and active left-wing social democrat, and Hedwig Hirsch née Fleischhacker, a milliner. From 1928 until 1932 Helmut Hirsch studied theater, philosophy, art history and journalism at Berlin, Bonn and Leipzig. In April 1933 Emil Hirsch was arrested by the Nazis; he would be incarcerated in the Kemna concentration camp. As a result of this event, and unable to take his comprehensive exams or publish his completed dissertation on the Marxist journalist Karl Friedrich Köppen, Hirsch made the decision to leave Germany. At first he fled to the Saarland, still independent from the Nazi government; when it too became dangerous after the 1935 plebiscite returned the region to Germany, he went across the border to France along with his wife Eva Buntenbroich-Hirsch. When World War II began in 1939 Hirsch, along with other German refugees, was taken into custody and spent time in the French internment camps of Vierzon. In 1940 he was drafted into the French army and served as a laborer (Prestataire) for them, loaned to the British Expeditionary Forces for a short time. After his eventual release, the couple next went to Marseilles, where they sought and eventually acquired emergency rescue visas for the U.S. in 1941 through the assistance of Prince Hubertus zu Löwenstein and Lee De Blanc with later sponsorship by Oswald Garrison Villard

In 1942 Helmut Hirsch returned to his university studies; from 1942 until 1945 he studied for a time at the University of Wyoming in Laramie before continuing at the University of Chicago where he finally received his doctoral degree in 1945 with a dissertation on the Saarland. In 1945 he also became a history professor at Roosevelt College, later Roosevelt University. In 1957 he returned to Germany, where he taught or lectured at various German universities, including the Düsseldorf Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsakademie and the Gesamthochschule Duisburg. During this time Helmut Hirsch wrote prolifically, producing many books including several biographies as well as works related to Marx and Marxism; his later books were written with the assistance of his third wife, Marianne Hirsch née Tilgner. Helmut Hirsch died on January 21, 2009 in Düsseldorf

6-page typewritten inventory

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