Ralf Dahrendorf was a German sociologist and politician who became director of the London School of Economics (LSE). He was born in Hamburg on 1 May 1929, the son of Lina and Gustav Dahrendorf, a member of the Social Democrat party in the Reichstag of 1932, where the Nazis had a majority. Just months later, in 1933, when Hitler gained power, Gustav was arrested. On his release he took his family to Berlin, but continued to work against the Nazis and was sentenced to seven years hard labour in 1944 for his part in a plot against Hitler. Meanwhile Ralf was printing pamphlets against the SS and, at the age of 16, was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, until he was released, starving, in 1945. Ralf entered Hamburg University to study classics, philosophy and social science, gaining his PhD in 1952. He was then awarded a Leverhulme scholarship to study at the LSE and gained his second PhD in 1956. In 1958 he returned to Hamburg as professor of sociology, and then went from one distinguished chair to another, at Columbia University, New York, Tübingen, University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Harvard and Konstanz. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1969 when Brandt formed his first coalition government, and became a commissioner in the European Union in Brussels in 1970, which did not inhibit him from becoming one of its sharpest critics. In 1973 he was offered the chance to become director of the LSE. A year later he was invited by the BBC to give the Reith lecture, which he gave on the topic of liberty, survival and justice in a changing world. He was insistent that governments should plan for a period longer than the usual length of a parliament. After ten years at the LSE, he returned to his chair at Konstanz and then in 1986 spent a year in New York on a research grant. From 1988 to 1997 he was warden of St Antony’s College in Oxford. After becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1988 he joined the Liberal Democratic party and in 1993 received a life peerage. He was married three times, his first two marriages ending in divorce. By his first wife, Vera, he had three daughters – Nicola, Alexandra and Daphne. His second wife was Ellen and his third wife, Christine. He died on 17 June 2009.