Full Name: Leo Strauss.
Nickname: Didn't have a Nickname.

Father: Hugo Strauss.
Mother: Jennie David.
Sister: Bettina Kraus (d. 1942).
Wife: Marie Bernsohn (m. 20-Jun-1933).
Son: Thomas (stepson).
Daughter: Jenny Ann Kraus (adopted niece).
Grandchildren: 3 grandchildren, unknown name.

Date of Birth: 20 September 1899.
Birth Place: Kirchhain, Prussia, Germany.

Date of Death: 18 October 1973 (aged 74).
Death Place: Annapolis, Maryland, United States.
Cause of Death: Pneumonia.
Remains/Buried: Knesseth Israel Synagogue, Annapolis, MD, USA.

Religion: Atheist.
Race or Ethnicity: White.
Education: University of Hamburg (1921), Gymnasium Philippinum.
Occupation: Philosopher, Critic.
Region: Western Philosophy.
Nationality: United States.

Influenced By: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Maimonides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schmitt.

Major Writings: What is political philosophy? (1943-57), Persecution and the art of writing (1952), The City and Man (1978), Studies in Platonic political philosophy (1985), The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism (1989), Natural Right and History, On Tyranny (1991), Liberalism, ancient and modern (1995).

German–American political philosophers and classicists (20 September 1899-18 October 1973) were one of the most controversial thinkers of modern times who specialized in classical political philosophy. He wrote several books on such political philosophers as Thomas Hobbes, Niccolò Machiavelli, Benedict de Spinoza and Socrates.

Early Life & Childhood: Leo Strauss was born on 20 September 1899 in Kirchhain, Prussia, Germany. His father was named Hugo Strauss and his mother was named Jennie David. In 1912, he was admitted to the Gymnasium Philippinum after finished study at the Kirchhain Volksschule and the Protestant Rektoratsschule and completed his graduation in 1917. From July 1917 to December 1918, Strauss served in the German army during World War I. Then He was admitted to the University of Hamburg, where he received his doctorate in 1921. Strauss also attended courses at the Universities of Freiburg and Marburg, including some taught by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In 1932, he left his position at the Academy of Jewish Research in Berlin for Paris after gaining a Rockefeller Fellowship.

Personal Life & Family: On 20 June 1933, Leo Strauss married a widow with a young child, Marie Bernsohn. He adopted his wife's son. The couple later adopted his sister's daughter Jenny Strauss Clay who was born in 1942 and three grandchildren. 

Later Life & Death: Because of the Nazis' rise to power, Strauss moved to England and he gained temporary employment at the University of Cambridge in 1935. He moved again in 1937 to the United States because he of not find permanent employment in the UK. He secured a position at The New School after ending Research Fellow in the Department of History at Columbia University. In 1944, he became citizen United States. Strauss was appointed as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago in 1949. Strauss begins with a critical work by the epistemology of Max Weber and continues with a discussion of the evolution of natural rights via an analysis of the thought of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. He concludes by critiquing Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke. At the heart of the book are excerpts from Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. Much of his philosophy is a reaction to the works of Heidegger. In 1969 Strauss moved to Claremont McKenna College in California and the next year to St. John's College, Annapolis in 1970. He died on 18 October 1973 and was buried at Knesseth Israel Synagogue in Annapolis, Maryland, United States.