Max Rheinstein was born on July 5, 1899, in
Bad Kreuznach, the only son of wine merchant Ferdinand Rheinstein (1842-1904) and Rosalie Bernheim (1858-1928). He fought in the
German Army in
World War I, and subsequently studied law at the
University of Munich. In the spring of 1919 Rheinstein participated in the overthrow of the
Bavarian Soviet Republic. Becoming an assistant of
Ernst Rabel, Rheinstein received his doctorate in law in 1924. He subsequently followed Rabel to Berlin as a research lecturer at the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign and International Private Law, where he supervised the institute library. He joined the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1928. Unlike other SPD-members and
Jews, Rheinstein was not dismissed from his position after the
Nazi seizure of power, due to the fact that he had fought the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. In February 1933, he received a scholarship from the
Rockefeller Foundation, and emigrated to the United States, where he began working at
Columbia Law School. In 1936 he was appointed Max Pam Professor of American and Foreign Law and Professor of Political Science at the
University of Chicago Law School, a position he held until his retirement in 1968. Rheinstein became an American citizen in 1940. After
World War II, Rheinstein returned to Germany, where he was a member of the Legal Division of the
Office of Military Government and served in a division of the
Allied Control Council in Berlin. In 1953, Rheinstein was awarded the
Ordre des Palmes académiques and the
Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954. Until 1968 he was a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rheinstein moved to
Palo Alto, California in 1976 for health reasons. He died in
Bad Gastein, Austria on July 9, 1977. ==Selected publications==