Bienenfeld, Franz Rudolf
BIENENFELD, FRANZ RUDOLF
BIENENFELD, FRANZ RUDOLF (1886–1961), lawyer, writer, and Zionist. Born and educated in Vienna, Bienenfeld became an active figure in Zionist and in Jewish communal affairs. He succeeded Robert *Stricker as chairman of the Austrian section of the *World Jewish Congress. Under the nom de plume Anton van Mueller, Bienenfeld published Deutsche und Juden (1936; The Germans and the Jews, 1939), an analysis of the relationship between Jews and Germans in the period of Hitler, and followed it with Religion der religionslosen Juden (1938; Religion of the Non-Religious Jews, 1944). In 1939 he fled to England where he worked on the staff of the World Jewish Congress, later becoming a member of the executive, and drafted the claims for German *reparations after World War ii. Bienenfeld took part in the juridical preparations for the Nuremberg processes. His book Rediscovery of Justice (1947) argued the claim of the Jews to compensation. His writings on Austrian civil law include Die Haftung ohne Verschulden (1933).
add. bibliography:
H. Goeppinger, Juristen juedischer Abstammung im "Dritten Reich" (19902), 269–70; R. Heuer (ed.), Lexikon deutsch-juedischer Autoren 2, (1993), 428–30 (bibl.).
[Josef J. Lador-Lederer]