Oskar R. Lange - Personal Life

Personal Life

Lange was born in Tomaszów Mazowiecki as son of Arthur Julius Lange and Sophie Albertine Rosner. He studied law and economics at University of Krakow, where he received a B.A. (1926) and a Masters of Law (Ll.D, 1928). From 1926 to 1927 Lange worked at the Ministry of Labor in Warsaw. This was followed by a research assistantship at the University of Krakow (1927–1931). He married Irene Oderfeld in 1932. In 1934, a Rockefeller fellowship brought him to England, from where he emigrated to the United States in 1937. He then became a professor at the University of Chicago in 1938, and was naturalized U.S. citizen in 1943. Joseph Stalin was so impressed with Lange's work that he not only prevailed on President Franklin D. Roosevelt to obtain a passport for Lange to visit the Soviet Union to speak with him personally, but also proposed offering him a position in the future Polish cabinet. Towards the end of World War II, Lange broke with the Polish government-in-exile in London and transferred his support to the Lublin Committee sponsored by the Soviet Union. As a result of this trip, the Polish American Congress condemned Lange and defended the Polish government-in-exile. Lange returned to the United States at the end of May, met with Free Polish London Exile Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who happened then to be in Washington, D.C., stressed how reasonable Joseph Stalin was prepared to be, and asked the State Department to put pressure on the exiled Poles. Subsequently, Lange served as a go-between for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin during the discussion on post-war Poland.

After the War ended in 1945, Lange returned to Poland. He then renounced his American citizenship and returned to the United States in the same year as the new Polish Communist régime's first Ambassador to the United States. In 1946, Lange served as the Polish delegate to the United Nations Security Council. He went back to Poland in 1947, where he continued working for the Polish government, while continuing his academic pursuits at the University of Warsaw and the Main School of Planning and Statistics. Lange was deputy chairman of the Polish Council of State 1961–1965 and as such one of four acting Chairmen of the Council of State (head of state) from August 7, to August 12, 1964.