Horst Paul August Ehmke (4 February 1927 – 12 March 2017) was a German lawyer, law professor and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

[1] In 1944, at the age of 17, Ehmke was enrolled as a member of the Nazi Party, although when this became public knowledge in 2007 as part of a media investigation of Nazi archives, he stated that he had made no application and was previously unaware of the enrollment.

[2][3] Following the Expulsion of Germans after World War II he came as a refugee to western Germany.

He studied Law and Economics in Göttingen and Political science and History at Princeton University (U.S.) from 1949 to 1950.

After passing his Habilitation in 1960, he became Professor of public law at the University of Freiburg, where he became the Dean.