Ernst Fraenkel was a lawyer and specialized in labour law. He was committed to the trade unions and the SPD and later to those persecuted by the Nazi regime. He fled Germany in 1938 and was granted asylum in the USA. There he worked for the US government and developed plans for Germany's post-war reforms. At the end of 1945, he went to Korea as an advisor to the US administration. His task was to establish a new legal system there. In 1946, he was involved in the preparations for the all-Korean election (which was never held), advised the South Korean parliament and lectured at the University of Seoul. After the outbreak of the Korean War, he was transferred to Japan, where he was responsible for Korean issues within the US occupation administration until April 1951. He then moved to Berlin and in 1953 was given a chair in political science at the Otto Suhr Institute at the Free University of Berlin. In 1963, he became the founding director of the John F. Kennedy Institute. Fraenkel is regarded as one of the main theorists of democratic pluralism.