Walter Friedländer was a prominent leader of the reform movement in the fields of social policy, social welfare and public health in Weimar (pre-Hitler) Germany. Friedländer, an active Social Democrat and a Jew, was forced to flee Nazi Germany in March of 1933, and eventually immigrated to the United States via France, where he continued to play a leading role as an educator and leader in the field of social work and social welfare education in this country.

Walter Friedländer was born on September 20, 1891 in Berlin, the oldest son of Hugo and Ernestine (Lichtenstein) Friedländer. He grew up under the socialist-oriented influences of his father, a founding member of the pacifist Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft, and later under the influences of his uncle, socialist politician Hugo Haase. In autobiographical statements, Friedländer describes the influences of the youth movements (Jugendbewegung) in Weimar Germany and his membership in the Sozialistischer Studentbund during his student years in Berlin. As a law student in Berlin and Munich (1910-1914), Friedländer became interested in the development of juvenile justice and volunteered his time doing probation work. He also met and later became engaged to Li Bergmann (1914), also involved in the youth movement in Berlin, and they were married in February 1919.

Friedländer served in the German army from 1916 to 1918, and after his return to Berlin in 1919, became actively involved in politics. He was first elected as a delegate for the USPD (Independent Social Democrats) to the district assembly in Schmargendorf in 1920, and, in April 1921, to district councilor in the Prenzlauer Berg section of Berlin.

Friedländer's first involvement with the field of youth welfare and social work was through the juvenile justice movement, which was just gaining momentum in Berlin around the time he began his legal studies. His teachers included Paul Kahl and Franz von Liszt, leaders in the juvenile justice movement. The influence of Liszt and his daughter, Elsa von Liszt, led to Friedländer's involvement in the Deutsche Zentrale für Jugendfürsorge, a private youth welfare organization in Berlin, where he at first participated on a voluntary basis, and later served an internship during the first two years of World War I.

Social democratic policy regarding youth welfare was developed in Germany after 1918 by a relatively small group of individuals, among them Hans Caspari, Marie Juchacz, Helene Simon, and Walter Friedländer. The central idea of social democratic youth welfare policy was the child's right to education and material assistance provided by the state, set up by the Arbeiterwohlfahrt, the workers' welfare organization founded by the Social Democrats in 1919. The Fachkommission für Jugendwohlfahrt (Youth Welfare Commission), created in 1925 and attached to the headquarters of Arbeiterwohlfahrt, was chaired by Friedländer from 1925 until his dismissal in 1933. Its members included Helene Simon, Hedwig Wachenheim, Hans Maier, Otto Krebs, Rudolf Schlosser and Louise Schröder. The youth welfare committee drafted parliamentary resolutions for the SPD, formulated reform proposals and compiled reports on problems of youth welfare. In addition, the intent was to provide youth welfare committee members with representation at major youth welfare conferences and on central committees of the established youth welfare organizations. Friedländer also became Chairman of the Deutsche Zentrale für freie Jugendwohlfahrt in 1931.

In his 12 years as District Councilor and Director of Youth Welfare in Prenzlauer Berg, the district gained a reputation for developing new and innovative programs in social, and especially youth, welfare, with particular emphasis on the areas of juvenile delinquency (rehabilitation) and youth unemployment.

Friedländer escaped from Germany in February 1933, ostensibly to attend an international conference of the International League of Social Welfare in Geneva in March of 1933. He was officially dismissed from his position in March 1933 and remained in Switzerland after the conference, where his wife and young daughter joined him in May.

He left for Paris in June 1933 at the invitation of the French Minister of Education, however his promise of employment evaporated with the fall of the French cabinet. Instead, Friedländer became co-director of a legal counseling service for political refugees from Germany and helped to set up other organizations to aid his fellow refugees. With the aid of a fellow political refugee from Germany, (John) Otto Reinemann, who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1934, Friedländer received an invitation to lecture at the University of Chicago in 1936 and left Paris in December of the same year.

The Friedländers arrived in Chicago in January 1937, where Walter lectured in the Department of Social Welfare of the University of Chicago until 1943. He also worked as a librarian for the Chicago Jewish vocational service and, at the same time, set up a refugee organization, Selfhelp for Immigrants, patterned after a similar organization founded by Paul Tillich in New York.

In 1943, the same year he became an American citizen, Friedländer left Chicago to lecture at the University of California in Berkeley, where he eventually became professor in the School of Social Welfare and taught until his emeritation in 1959.

Although Friedländer's career in the U.S. became less politically active, he continued to maintain his contacts with Social Democrats and members of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt in post-war Germany, and his correspondence with U.S. politicians is evidence to his continued interest in political affairs.

Friedländer's primary focus in the U.S. became his teaching and writing. Social work training had always been a strong concern for Friedländer during his tenure as stadtrat (councilor) in Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin) and teaching consumed a considerable portion of his energies even during this time period. In addition to pursuing an active teaching career at the Social Welfare Departments of the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, Friedländer continued to publish monographs and later textbooks in the field of social work and social welfare. His most successful work, Introduction to Social Welfare (first published in 1955, and reprinted in 1957, 1968, 1974 and 1979), became the standard basic textbook for social welfare courses throughout the United States. Friedländer also continued to pursue his interest in comparative social work, as evidenced both in his active participation in numerous international social welfare conferences, as well as his publications (including Concepts and Methods of Social Work, 1958 and 1976, and International Social Welfare, 1975).

He died December 20, 1984 in Oakland, California.