Klaus Mehnert (October 10, 1906, Moscow, Russia – January 2, 1984, Freudenstadt, Germany) was a globetrotting German political scientist and a journalist. As a scholar, he was a prolific author; as a journalist, he practiced in the USSR as a correspondent, in China as a publisher, and in Germany. He was a professor at two American universities before World War II. In the late 1970s he authored several books on recent youth led political movements (youth movements) in various Western countries.
At the outbreak of World War I, Mehnert's family had to abandon Moscow for Stuttgart, Germany. His father died in Flanders in 1917 as a German soldier. Mehnert attended the University of Tübingen, the University of Munich, the University of California, Berkeley, and finally Berlin University, where he received his PhD under Professor Otto Hoetzsch in 1928. Hoetzsch and Mehnert later took part in the short-lived society to study the Soviet command economy, ARPLAN.
Over the next ten years, he traveled frequently, to America, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China. He married Enid Keyes († 1955) in California in 1933. From 1934 to 1936 he served as a Soviet correspondent for a German newspaper.
Subsequently, Mehnert taught politics at Berkeley and then at the University of Hawaii at Manoa until 1941, where he started intensively studying Russian and Pacific history. Six months prior to America's entry to World War II, he decided to go to Shanghai, where, with funding from the German foreign ministry, he published a journal named XXth Century. The journal was discontinued in 1945, when he was briefly imprisoned.
Returning to Germany after the war, he held various positions as journalist, editor, and professor, as well as government advisor on Sino-Russian matters, and published several books in the field of political science.
Since 2005, the "Europainstitut Klaus Mehnert" has offered a student exchange program between his former university RWTH Aachen and the University of Kaliningrad.
in German (some translated)Ein deutscher Austauschstudent in Kalifornien ("A German exchange student in California"). Stuttgart, 1930Die Jugend in Sowjet-Russland. Berlin, 1932; Youth in Soviet Russia. Transl. by Michael Davidson, Westport, Conn., 1981The Russians in Hawaii, 1804-19. Hawaii, 1939Der Sowjetmensch. Stuttgart, 1958; The Anatomy of Soviet man. Transl. by Maurice Rosenbaum, London, 1961Peking und Moskau. Stuttgart, 1962; Peking and Moscow. Transl. by Leila Vennewitz, London, 1963China nach dem Sturm. Munich, 1971; China today. Transl. by Cornelia Schaeffer, London, 1972in English1952. Stalin Versus Marx: the Stalinist historical doctrine. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 130pp._____ and Maurice Rosenbaum. 1962. Soviet man and his world. New York: Praeger, 310pp.Peking and Moscow. 1963. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 522ppChina Today. 1972. London: Thames and Hudson, 322pp, ISBN 0-500-25032-4China Returns. 1972. New York: Dutton, 322pp, ISBN 978-0-525-08000-8Moscow and the New Left. 1975. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 275pp, ISBN 978-0-520-02652-0Twilight of the Young: the radical movements of the 1960s and their legacy. 1977. New York. 428pp, ISBN 978-0-03-019476-4Youth in Soviet Russia. 1981. Hyperion Pr, ISBN 978-0-8305-0083-3The Russians & Their Favorite Books. 1983. Hoover Inst Pr, ISBN 978-0-8179-7821-1in GermanPeking und Moskau. 1964. DTV, 508ppDer deutsche Standort. 1967. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 415ppChina nach dem Sturm. 1971. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 340pp, ISBN 978-3-421-01593-8Amerikanische und russische Jugend um 1930. 1973. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 297pp, ISBN 978-3-421-01629-4Moskau und die neue Linke. 1973. 219pp, ISBN 978-3-421-01661-4Jugend im Zeitbruch: Woher-Wohin. 1976. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 511pp, ISBN 978-3-421-01753-6Kampf um Maos Erbe: Geschichten machen Geschichte. 1977. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 319pp, ISBN 978-3-421-01825-0 Maos Erben machen's anders. 1979. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 171ppEin Deutscher in der Welt: Erinnerungen 1906-1981. 1983. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 447pp, ISBN 978-3-421-06055-6Uber die Russen heute: Was sie lesen, wie sie sind. 1983. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 352pp, ISBN 978-3-421-06163-8in FrenchLa Rebelión De La Juventud. 1978.In italian"Cina rossa". 1972. Milano: Bietti, 372pp.