Heinrich A. Rommen Papers

Heinrich Albert Rommen (1897-1967) was born in Cologne, Germany, and 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 "Koeningswinter Circle," a Catholic social action group that organized the 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 US 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 taught courses in political theory, constitutional government, and political ethics from 1953 to 1967. He received the rank of "Distinguished Professor," the first Georgetown faculty member to be so honored, and also was given honorary degrees from Boston College and the University of Granada, Spain. Rommen also garnered a Fulbright grant to lecture at the University of Nijmegen, in Holland, in 1956.

Among the many books and articles written by Rommen, the best known are perhaps The State in Catholic Thought (1945) and The Natural Law (1936).