Theodore Fred Abel (November 24, 1896 – March 23, 1988) was an American sociology professor who collected the largest single archive of first person accounts from people who joined Hitler's National Socialist movement.
Those accounts were lost and then rediscovered in the archives of the Hoover Institute in Palo Alto, after which three Florida State University professors arranged to have them transcribed, translated and digitized.
[1] This collection of first person accounts from Nazis before the start of World War II are called the "Theodore Abel papers."
[2] After Abel moved to the United States, he earned an MA degree in 1925 and his PhD in 1929 from Columbia University.
In 1934, as an assistant professor of sociology at Columbia University, Abel offered cash prizes for “the best personal life story of a supporter of the Hitler movement.”[3] In order to qualify, participants had to have been party members before January 1, 1933.