Background
Eric Gutkind was born in Berlin and educated at the Humanistic Gymnasium and the University of Berlin.
Eric Gutkind was born in Berlin and educated at the Humanistic Gymnasium and the University of Berlin.
He studied anthropology with J. J. Bachofen, and also worked in philosophy, mathematics, the sciences and the history of art
Eric Gutkind belonged to a pacificist-mystical circle of European intellectuals which at different points included Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber, L. East. J. Brouwer, Henri Borel, Frederik van Eeden, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Oppenheimer, Walter Rathenau, Romain Roland, Upton Sinclair and Rabindranath Tagore. His second book, The Absolute Collective, published in London in 1937, was hailed by Henry Miller as "true in the highest sense, entirely on the side of life."
When he came to the United States in 1933 and began teaching at the New School and the College of the City of New York, Eric Gutkind already had an influential following. Gutkind sent a copy of his book "Choose: The Biblical Call To Revolt" to Albert Einstein in 1954.
Einstein sent him a letter in response.
This letter was sold at an auction for $404,000 in 2008, then for $3,000,100.00 via eBay in 2012 to an unknown buyer. He died in Chatauqua, New York, on August 26, 1965.