STEINER, Kurt 1912-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born June 10, 1912, in Vienna, Austria; died of pancreatic cancer October 20, 2003, in Stanford, CA. Educator, linguist, political advisor, and author. Steiner was a longtime professor of political science at Stanford University who, early in his career, was involved in the war crimes trials in Japan after World War II, as well as in helping to frame Japan's post-war constitution. After earning a law degree from the University of Vienna in 1935, he practiced law and published anti-Nazi articles. Being Jewish, in addition to having protested against the Nazis, led to his wise decision to flee Austria in 1938. Arriving in the United States, he worked various odd jobs until his gift for languages led him to direct Berlitz schools in Pittsburgh and Cleveland during the early 1940s. Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1944, Steiner learned to speak Japanese and was sent to the Pacific, where he served in the U.S. military government that was organized in Japan after the war. He was instrumental in assisting with the war crime trials there, translating German documents that were used as evidence against Japanese leaders who had destroyed their own documentation. Leaving the army in 1948, Steiner remained in Japan as chief of the Civil Affairs and Civil Liberties Branch of the Legislative and Justice Division, where he helped to write the new Japanese constitution. It was Steiner who wrote many of the liberal laws into the constitution that granted substantially more freedom to Japan's citizenry than had previously existed. Finally leaving Japan in 1951, he went back to school to earn a doctorate in political science from Stanford University in 1955. He then joined Stanford's faculty as an assistant professor, becoming a full professor in 1962 and retiring in 1977. While associated with Stanford, Steiner was a founding faculty member of the university's center near Stuttgart, Germany, and was the director there in 1961. He also helped establish a campus at Semmering, Austria, and directed the Stanford Center for Japanese Studies in 1962. A recognized authority on both Japan and Austria, Steiner wrote, edited, and contributed to a number of books on these subjects, including Local Government in Japan (1965), Politics in Austria (1972), and Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Austria (1982). At the time of his death, he had been working on a history of the Japanese war-crime trials, which is expected to be published posthumously.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

ONLINE

Palo Alto Weekly Online,http://www.paloaltoonline.com/ (January 21, 2004).

Stanford University News Service,http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/ (January 14, 2004).