MEMORANDUM

process was delayed. In September 1928 Leontief wrote to the Dean of the Philosophical
Faculty to ask for extension of the deadline as the dissertation would not appear in print
until 1 December 1928.
The Philosophical Faculty granted the extension. But two months later, in November
1928, Leontief was forced to ask for an additional postponement of one month until 1
January 1929. The dissertation had been published as Leontief (1928) but the required
number of offprints could not be provided by the publisher until the latter date. The
Faculty accepted, exceptionally, to proceed with Leontief’s promotion on 19 December
1928 even though printed copies might not arrive at the Dean’s office until 1 January 1929.
At the end of 1928 Leontief had worked for one year at the Kiel Institute. He became
pressured for time for reasons which will be apparent below and decided at a rather late
stage not to go to Berlin for the Promotion. He sent on 18 December 1928 a telegram to
the Faculty: “Please proceed with promotion in absence – I am prevented from coming.
Leontief.” Adolph Löwe, Leontief’s head of department, corroborated: “…for urgent
reasons of completion of a scientific research project he cannot be given leave until the end
of the year.”
The Philosophical Faculty accepted the “urgent reasons” and sent the diploma in the
mail after Leontief had submitted in writing the solemn vow of Promotion: “I engage
myself to guard the honor the Faculty today awards me from any blemish and
henceforth … to pursue truth alone, without respect for any external concerns. Kiel, 24. Jan.
1929, sgn. Wassily Leontief”.
The Kiel years 1928-1931
Bernhard Harms had been director of the Institut für Seeverkehr und Weltwirtschaft in
Kiel since it was founded in 1914. 106 The Kiel Institute was affiliated with Kiel University
but not part of it. Its mission was to study the world economy. At the time it may have
been the only institute in the world with this overall specialization. The Kiel Institute early
achieved a reputation for its research in international economics and had attracted a number
of highly qualified scholars, some with interests in other matters than sea transport and the
world economy. The Institute published Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, which had become a
leading German language economics journal, highly regarded internationally. The journal
served as a conduit for promoting research conducted at the Institute. Bernhard Harms had
established a research library which at the time when Leontief arrived reputedly was the
world’s largest economics library.
106 Seeverkehr was dropped from the Institute’s name in 1934. Today the official name is the Kiel
Institute of World Economy.
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