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I was reading a story book where I found this
... und natürlich viele Münchner, die wie er den Samstagnachmittag hier genießen.
that translates in English to:
... and, of course, many people from Munich who, like him, enjoy the Saturday afternoon here.
My question is, why the Nominative pronomen er is used in the above example instead of Akkusativ Personalpronomen ihm? As far as I understand er stands for he in English and ihm stands for him.
'like' functions as a preposition in this English sentence, and while (all?) prepositions in German decline the noun they're acting on, the word 'wie' is not a preposition. Rather, it is a conjunction; in this case, while your translation is more idiomatic, the grammar function of 'wie' corresponds more to the English 'as':
... and, of course, many people from Munich who, as he, enjoy the Saturday afternoon here.
Yes, and just to supplement Glorfindel's answer with a little further explanation:
The er in the German sentence is not only not the object of a preposition (as already explained), but it is the subject, naturally nominative, of a verb that has been left implicit, since the conjunction normally introduces a clause. A close English equivalent completed with the corresponding verb would be:
... and, of course, many people from Munich who enjoy the Saturday afternoon here, as he does.
