Heinrich A. Rommen Papers

Heinrich Albert Rommen (1897-1967) was a noted professor of Government at Georgetown University from 1953 to 1967. Born in cologne, Germany, Rommen received doctorates from the universities of Bonn and Muenster and headed the Brand Hitze School near Muenchen-Gladbach. this school was closed in 1933 and Rommen arrested by the Gestapo for writing anti-Nazi literature and participating in the "Koningswinter Circle," a Catholic social action group that organized the famous Catholic Social Weej of 1932. Released from prison after six weeks, he remained in Germany, working as a writer and legal consultant until 1938, when he came to the United States with the aid of the Episcopal Committee for Catholic Refugees.

In America Rommen held a wide variety of academic positions, teaching economics at St. Joseph's College in Connecticut from 1938 to 1946, and political science at St. Thomas College in Minnesota from 1946 to 1953. At Georgetown University, Rommen gave courses in political theory, constitutional government, and political ethics. For his outstanding work as a teacher and scholar, he was appointed by the University to the rank of "Distinguished Professor," the first Georgetown faculty member to be so honored. his other academic awards included honorary degrees from Boston College and the University of Granada, Spain, as well as a Fulbright grant to lecture at the University of Nijmegen, in Holland, in 1956.

Among the many books and articles written by Rommen, the bestk nown, and perhaps the most enduring, are The state in Catholic Thought, published in 1945, and The Natural Law, published in German in 1936 and translated into English, French, and Japanese.