Hermann Fränkel

Who was Hermann Fränkel?

Hermann Ferdinand Fränkel was a German American classical scholar. He served as professor of Ancient Greek philology at Stanford University until 1953.

Son of professor Max Fränkel and younger brother of de:Charlotte Fränkel, Fränkel studied classics at Berlin, Bonn and Göttingen. He later lectured at Göttingen, but was denied a professorship after the Machtergreifung. Eluding increasing racial discrimination by the Nazis, Fränkel immigrated to the United States in 1935. He was offered a professorship at Stanford only short after. He also held guest professorships at University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University.

Fränkel made important contributions to Early Greek poetry and philosophy interpretation. His son Hans Fränkel became a noted scholar of Chinese.