Kurt Baschwitz

Siegfried Kurt Baschwitz (2 February 1886, Offenburg – 6 January 1968 Amsterdam), was a journalist, a professor of press, propaganda and public opinion, scholar on newspapers, and crowd psychology.

In 1930 he was offered a position on the faculty of the University of Heidelberg but he refused, on account of the growing anti-Semitic climate in Germany which would make his life and that of his family difficult.

There he started to work for the research agency of Alfred Wiener which gathered information about antisemitism and the dark side of German National Socialism.

A few days later, his daughter Isa (Gisela) Baschwitz, who later became active in the anti-Nazi Dutch Resistance movement, achieved his release with the help of a combination of real and false identity papers.

In July 1948 he founded and became the first director of the Dutch Institute for the Science of the Press which organized courses for the training of young journalists, as well as established ones.

Baschwitz was considered to be a pioneer in communication science and mass psychology and contributed much to the international exchange of information and research among scholars in the field.