Hermann Kuno Julius Kranold (also Hermann Kranold-Steinhaus; 1888, Hannover â 1942, Talladega, Alabama) was a German political writer and politician active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he was arrested and then went into exile in the United States where he became a college professor.
Following the German Revolution, Kranold worked with Otto Neurath and Wolfgang Schumann on the Programm Kranold-Neurath-Schumann in Saxony. All three subsequently went to Bavaria, where Neurath was appointed President of the Central Economic Administration for the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
Kranold served as the Landrat (district administrator) of the Sprottau district in the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia from 1925 to 1932. Following the Prussian coup of July 1932, he was dismissed. He subsequently became the Bürgermeister (mayor) of Haynau in Silesia (today, Chojnów in Poland).
After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he was arrested on the day of the Reichstag fire and imprisoned. However, his uncle, Max Planck, was able to arrange his release and exile. After a short period in London, he found a teaching job at Talladega College in Alabama. He received financial help from the American Friends Service Committee for the travel costs for him and his family who arrived in the US in 1936. Here, he did work on the economic situation of African Americans in Alabama and elsewhere.
He married "Red Sophie" Steinhaus, an art historian and revolutionary. They had three children, Candida ("Candy"), Peter, and Johanna Kranold who were born in Sprottau, Silesia. Both Hermann and his wife died of heart disease in 1942.