Siegfried Kurt Baschwitz (2 February 1886, Offenburg – 6 January 1968 Amsterdam), was a journalist, a professor of press, propaganda and public opinion, scholar on newspapers, and crowd psychology. Baschwitz, who, as was customary in German middle class, was known by his second name Kurt, was a German Jew and a friend of Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank. Baschwitz was called upon as an expert to advise on the publication of the Diary of Anne Frank and later again authenticate it. Education Baschwitz studied at several universities in Germany and graduated in economics and held pronounced liberal views. He was awarded a doctorate with a thesis supervised by social reformer, Lujo Brentano. Career in Germany After conclusion of his academic studies Kurt Baschwitz started his career as a journalist writing for several German national newspapers. During World War I he was correspondent for a Hamburg newspaper in neutral Rotterdam and learned to speak Dutch. Influenced deeply by allied atrocity propaganda and what he considered to be humiliating terms forced on German at the end of the war, his political opinions veered considerably towards the right although he soon recognized the potential dangers of extremism in German society. In 1923 he wrote his first book, about the reaction of public opinion to propaganda and national stereotypes on Germans abroad. In addition to his work as a journalist he became an erudite and popular public speaker, including on radio. In 1930 he was offered a position on the faculty of the University of Heidelberg but he refused, on account of the growing anti-Semitic climate in Germany which would make his life and that of his family difficult. He had meanwhile become editor-in-chief of the journal of newspaper publishers, but was fired as a consequence of the new anti-Jewish laws. Baschwitz continued to write on the history of the press, the hatred of groups in society and censorship. Career in the Netherlands Early in 1933, after Hitler came to power and when it was no longer possible for his work to be published in Germany, Baschwitz fled from Nazi-Germany to the Netherlands. There he started to work for the research agency of Alfred Wiener which gathered information about antisemitism and the dark side of German National Socialism. In 1935 he started to lecture on the history of newspapers at the University of Amsterdam; In 1936-37 he was also offered a position