BAECK, LEO (1873–1956), rabbi and theologian, representative spokesman of German Jewry during the Nazi era. Born in Lissa, Posen (at that time part of Prussian Germany), a son of the local rabbi, Baeck first pursued his higher education at the university in Breslau and the moderately liberal Jewish Theological Seminary. In order to study with the distinguished scholar of religion Wilhelm Dilthey, Baeck transferred to the university in Berlin, where he earned a doctorate in 1895. Two years later, he was ordained as a rabbi at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, a leading institution of Liberal Judaism. Baeck then held pulpits in Oppeln (Silesia) and Düsseldorf, and in 1912 he was called to Berlin where, with the exception of a stint as chaplain during World War I, he remained until his deportation to a concentration camp by the Nazis. During his years in Berlin, Baeck...