Dr Vincent C. Frank died in Basel on 6 February after a long illness.
Vincent Frank was born in 1930 in Berlin as the son of the Mainz writer and theatre man Rudolf Frank and his wife Anna (- Klein).
During the National Socialist era, the family was separated and forced to leave Germany. On a circuitous journey, Vincent Frank came to Basel, where he took up a career as a national economist after completing his studies with a PhD in Policial Science.
From 1980 to 1996, Vincent Frank, who was not related to the family, succeeded Otto Frank as president of the Anne Frank Fonds, which was founded by Otto Frank in Basel in 1963. He was not only highly committed to the worldwide publication of Anne Frank's diary but was also responsible for the definitive and authoritative edition of the various versions of the diaries.
In addition to his family - Frank was married to Martina (-Steiner) - he was particularly interested in the work and estate of his father Rudolf Frank, whose book with the somewhat martial title ‘Der Schädel des Negerhäuptling Makaua’ (The Skull of the Negro Chief Makaua) from 1931 he managed to publish in an unexpectedly successful new edition in 1982 under the title ‘Der Junge der seinen Geburtstag vergass’ (The Boy Who Forgot His Birthday). In 1998 he also arranged for the publication of his father’s previously unpublished novel from 1938 ‘Fair play oder es kommt nicht zum Krieg’ (Fair Play or There Will Be No War) about the family’s emigration to Vienna.