Arnold Ferdinand Arnold (ne Schmitz) was born in Königstein Germany in 1921. His family was a very old German family from the Frankfurt area - mostly Jewish but occassionally Catholic. It can be traced back to the beginning of the concept of the German state.
His grandfather on his mother's side was a highly successful entrepreneur. He founded one of the first department stores in Germany - in Mainz - after spending many years as an itinerate peddler. Both of his later brothers-in-law are also well known globally. Arnold's oldest sister, Doris, later married Peter Drucker. His middle sister Lötte, married the archeologist and linguist Theo Gastor.
In 1933, Arnold and many of his immediate and extended family escaped Hitler's Germany and moved first Holland and then to the UK. Arnold was educated at Bedales and in London at St. Martins School of Art and London University.
He moved to the United States in the late 1930's, and there met his first wife, Eve Arnold (later OBE).
They were married before the war although Eve subsequently lied about this to disassociate herself with her husband. Arnold also served as a member of an elite intelligence force in France where he was badly wounded when his jeep ran over a mine. He survived and returned to the United States. This is when he legally changed his last name, apparently in reference if not homage to a famous cartoonist of the day.
He had one son with Eve Arnold, Francis, later known as Frank. Arnold taught at the New School in New York while she honed her photography craft. He was also one of New York's top commercial designers and children's game creators. He designed the Parker Brother's logo.
The couple separated in the early sixties. Eve moved to the UK to follow up on contacts set up for her by Arrnold and put Frank in boarding school at Bedales. She refused to divorce him (until almost 40 years later in an attempt to disinherit his other children).
Arnold met Gail E. Haley in 1965 and who he also mentored into becoming one of the world's best-known children's book authors and illustrators.
He also had two children with Gail.
In the 1970's, Arnold and his family moved back to the UK. He lived with his family in London. Tragically, his partner, Gail managed to kidnap his two young children out of the country in 1980, while Eve and Frank both facilitated the kidnap by never appearing in High Court to defend his attempt to gain full custody. He never saw his other two children again as children. His youngest son was later adopted and never saw him again.
In later life Arnold wrote about strategy, war, cybernetics and ethics. His career however never achieved the heights that it had in New York.
Broke and alone, suffering from complications from his old war wounds and deserted by his oldest son in the UK, Arnold moved from London to Petersfield, location of his old boarding school Bedales and remained here during the last years of his life. Here he finally appeared to find a family who would look after him, and he is pictured here with his "Godless godson" Ben, the grandchild he longed for. Tragically, his daughter, Marguerite, was the only one of his biological children who ever tried to reunite with him in an attempt to bring him back to Germany. She could not find him however, as she was kept away from him, even in his last months by her older brother, Frank Arnold over inheritance issues.
Arnold was cremated, and his ashes spread in a place that he always loved. He never returned to Germany.
His books however, have a lasting value. In 2014, Dover republished one of them in CD form.
