Rudolf Schottlaender (August 5, 1900 in Berlin, German Empire – January 4, 1988 in East Berlin, East Germany) was a German philosopher, classical philologist, translator and political publicist of Jewish descent.
Rudolf Schottlaender studied philosophy with Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Nicolai Hartmann in Freiburg im Breisgau.
Despite his active interest for phenomenology as a student, Schottlaender referred more to the stoics and to Baruch Spinoza, in whose spirit he left Judaism in 1921.
There, he became the victim of a slander campaign because of his efforts concerning overcoming the Cold War and got into professional difficulties.
Because of his positions critical to East Germany, he was put under close surveillance by the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit or Stasi).