Cornelius, who was a consistent opponent of World War I, joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1918 and in the 1920s, he promoted the plan of a European confederation. He supported the idea of a League of Nations in his paper Völkerbund und Dauerfriede (1919).
Hans Cornelius married Emilie (Mia) von Dessauer (1862–1946), a daughter of Heinrich von Dessauer (1830–1879), a physician and founder of the German hospital in Valparaiso, in 1887; Ingeborg Karlson (1894–1924), from Liljeholmen near Stockholm, in 1915, in his second marriage; and Friedrike Rosenthal, widowed Reissner (1886–1939), in 1925, in his third marriage. In 1941 he entered into a fourth marriage with Hedwig Krämer, widowed Drechsel (born 1896). Four children came from the first marriage: the later geologist Hans Peter Cornelius (1888–1950), Wolfgang (born 1890), Friedrich (1893–1976) and Evi (born 1894). The second marriage resulted in two sons, Yngor [Yngve] (born 1921) and Hans Wolfgang Amadeus (1923–2013).
Cornelius retired in 1928. He died in 1947 in Gräfelfing.
References
^ John Abromeit, Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 57–60.
^Michael Wertheimer, Max Wertheimer and Gestalt Theory, Routledge, 2017, ch. "Emergence of Gestalt Theory".