Rudolf Olden

Rudolf Olden (January 14, 1885 in Szczecin – September 18, 1940) was a German lawyer and journalist. In the Weimar period he was a well-known voice in the political debate, a vocal opponent of the Nazis, a fierce advocate of human rights and one of the first to alert the world to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in 1934. He is the author of Hitler der Eroberer. Entlarvung einer Legende ("Hitler the Conqueror, Debunking of a Myth") which is considered part of the German exile literature. The book was promptly banned by the Nazis. Shortly after its publication by Querido in Amsterdam, Olden's citizenship was revoked and he emigrated, together with his wife, first to the United Kingdom and then, in 1940, to the United States. On September 18 both died in the U-boat attack on the SS City of Benares in the Atlantic.

Rudolf Olden was born in Stettin (now Szczecin) as the son of the author Johann Oppenheim, (who changed his name to Hans Olden in 1891) and the actress Rosa Stein and the younger brother of the author Balder Olden. After completing his education, he chose a military career and joined the Leib-Dragoner-Regiment Nr. 24 (a cavalry regiment) in Darmstadt. During World War I, he was first stationed in Belgium, but was transferred to the Eastern Front in 1915. Olden survived the war as a first lieutenant.

The war left a lasting impression and, once it had ended, Olden left the army and started as editor of the pacifistic periodical Der Friede ("Peace") in Vienna and Der Neue Tag. In 1920 he married the psychoanalyst Marie-Christine Fournier (the daughter of the Viennese historian Professor August Fournier) and was soon absorbed into the circles of journalists and writers. After Der Neue Tag went bankrupt, he founded a magazine (Er und Sie, "He and She"), dedicated to Lebenskultur und Erotik, which was soon at the center of a heated debate about public morals and common decency.

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