Walter Arthur Berendsohn

Walter Arthur Berendsohn (10 September 1884, Hamburg – 30 January 1984, ) was a German literary scholar. He was an active member of the Deutsche Liga fur Menschenrechte (League for Men's Rights), a spinoff of the pacifist Bund Neues Vaterland, until 1933 when he fled for Sweden when the group was dissolved by Nazis.

Berendsohn was educated at the universities of Berlin, Freiburg, Munich, and Kiel, in German studies, Scandinavian studies, and philosophy. He obtained his doctorate at Kiel in 1911 and after completing his habilitation, became a professor at the University of Hamburg, teaching German literature and Scandinavian studies. Besides his academic career, he lectured and officiated at baptisms and weddings for the Hamburg Free Religious Community (freireligiösen Gemeinde) and the German Monist League. He was also a member of the humanist, non-Christian Rising Sun Lodge as well as the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

In 1933, the Nazis seized power and introduced the legislation known as the Berufsbeamtengesetz, which, among other things, dismissed all Jews, including Berendsohn, from their government jobs. Three years later, further persecution by the state stripped Berendsohn of his German citizenship and Aryanized his property. He escaped imminent arrest by immigrating to Denmark, where he was assisted by a stipend from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom in 1938–40, and again to Sweden during the rescue of the Danish Jews. He was appointed a guest professor at and lived in the city until his death in 1984.