Arthur Thomas Hatto (11 February 1910 – 6 January 2010) was an English scholar of German studies at the
University of London, notable for translations of the Medieval German narrative poems ''Tristan'' by
Gottfried von Strassburg, ''
Parzival'' by
Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the ''
Nibelungenlied''. He was also known for his theory of epic heroic poetry, and related publications. He retired in 1977, and in 1991 the
British Academy elected him as a Senior Fellow.
Early life and education
Hatto was born in London on 11 February 1910. His father was Thomas Hatto, a solicitor's clerk who later became the Assistant Chief Solicitor in the
British Transport Commission legal service, and his mother Alice Hatto (née Waters), a nurse. The family lived in
Forest Hill
Forest Hill or Forrest Hill may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Forest Hill, New South Wales, a suburb of Wagga Wagga
* Forrest Hill, New South Wales, a suburb of Albury
* Forest Hill, Queensland
* Forest Hill, Victoria
** Forest Hill Chase Sh ...
, and later
Clapham. As an eight-year-old boy at the end of the
First World War, Hatto spent a formative summer "running wild", as he put it, with an aunt in the "still semi-pagan" village of
Barcombe; Hatto's interest in the community and its surroundings, a rural landscape far removed from his London roots as the son of a solicitor's clerk, foreshadowed his interest in the intricacies of human society.
In 1923 Hatto was awarded a scholarship to
Dulwich College. He entered on the "modern" side and studied German, Latin, and French, among other subjects, with middling results. He met more success at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
, where his father, refusing to see his son "loll on a
Sixth Form bench", sent him in 1927. Hatto studied there with
Robert Priebsch
Robert Priebsch (1866-1935) was a German professor and philologist.
From 1898 to 1931 he was a professor at University College London. With one of his students, William Edward Collinson, W. E. Collinson, he published ''The German Language'' (1934) ...
, Frederick Norman, and Henry Gibson Atkins. Norman, who had such an influence on Hatto that he forever after referred to Norman as "my tutor", recognised Hatto's potential in academia. He refused to take back Hatto's books at the end of term, stating "No, not yours, Mr Hatto, you will be needing them in years to come!"
In an effort to improve his German Hatto left in 1932 for the
University of Bern, where, through
John Rupert Firth's earlier instruction, he became a Lektor for English. Hatto also studied under
Helmut de Boor and
Fritz Strich.
In 1934 King's College awarded Hatto a London MA with distinction for his thesis, "A Middle German Apocalypse Edited from the Manuscript British Museum, Add. 15243". Hatto argued that the manuscript had been written in southwestern
Thuringia between 1350 and 1370, and that it was related to the early-15th-century MS Meiningen 57. That same year he returned to King's College, having picked up the local dialect
Bärndütsch, and bringing back with him Rose Margot Feibelmann, a medical student from
Düsseldorf whom he married in 1935. As she was Jewish, the move probably saved her life and the lives of her parents, who followed in March 1939.
Hatto returned to London, settling first in
Radlett
Radlett is a village in Hertfordshire, England, between Elstree and St Albans on Watling Street, with a population of 8,042. It is in the council district of Hertsmere in the south of the county, and is covered by two wards; Aldenham East and ...
and later in
Mill Hill, and took up an assistant lectureship in German at King's College. After four years the position was no longer needed and Norman, a mentor to Hatto, recommended him for a new lectureship at
Queen Mary College, London
, mottoeng = With united powers
, established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College
, type = Public researc ...
. Hatto was chosen over many other applicants, in part, he thought, because the Principal, Sir
Frederick Barton Maurice, admired his skill at rugby.
In 1938 Hatto became the Head of the Department of German, a position he held until his retirement in 1977.
Second World War
Hatto's appointment at Queen Mary College had barely begun when, in February 1939, he was recruited, on the recommendations of Maurice and Norman, to work in the cryptographic bureau in
Room 40 at the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
. Norman was working there also, and on 3 September the two were sent to
Bletchley Park, where they worked under
John Tiltman. At least two other professors of German,
Walter Bruford and
Leonard Ashley Willoughby, had served in cryptography during the
First World War, and many more served during the
Second World War. As a "nursery for Germanists", Bletchley Park included in its ranks Bruford, Leonard Forster, Kenneth Brooke, Trevor Jones, C. T. Carr, D. M. Mennie, R. V. Tymms, Dorothy Reich, William Rose, K. C. King, F. P. Pickering, and H. B. Willson.
Hatto was well-suited to the task of cryptography, given his philological background and his fluent German. At Bletchley Park he scrutinised ciphers to look for hints of future ciphers. One of his successes was discovering three-letter call signs in the preamble to messages that served as the key to communications between the
land,
sea and
air arms of the Third Reich's combined armed forces, the
Wehrmacht, thereby aiding the
Allied forces before the
Allied invasion of Sicily.
After Germany fell part of Hatto's section was dispatched to
Tokyo, by way of
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. Hatto was invited along by
Denys Page but declined, somewhat reluctantly, for his daughter, Jane, had just been born.
Hatto kept silent about his wartime work, even after the work done at Bletchley Park was revealed in
F. W. Winterbotham
Frederick William Winterbotham (16 April 1897 – 28 January 1990) was a British Royal Air Force officer (latterly a Group Captain) who during World War II supervised the distribution of Ultra intelligence. His book ''The Ultra Secret'' was t ...
's book ''The Ultra Secret'', published in 1974. Though he was not named in the book, he was nevertheless alarmed by it. According to one of his colleagues, its publication led him to fear being kidnapped by the Soviets to the
Lubyanka, "so far removed from the Reading Room of the
British Museum".
Postwar career
Wartime duties kept Hatto busy until 1945, although from 1944 onwards he was allowed to lecture in Medieval German at
University College London one day a week. He returned to Queen Mary College in 1945, to find the school struggling with its finances and enrolment. As the war became more distant, however, he developed a strong German Department. He started with just himself and a part-time colleague, but by the time he retired the Department had five full-time staff and one and a half language assistants. In 1946 the
University of London made him a Reader in German and in 1953 he was promoted to Professor.
Though much of his work was addressed to an academic readership, Hatto's best-known works are translations of three Medieval German poems: ''Tristan'' by
Gottfried von Strassburg, ''
Parzival'' by
Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the ''
Nibelungenlied''. These were three of what Hatto saw as the four great German narrative poems of the age (the fourth, ''
Willehalm'', was translated by one of his pupils).
Following the translation of ''Tristan'', published as a Penguin Classic in 1960, Hatto received an invitation from a professor of German at the
University of Auckland to visit for several months in 1965. The ensuing trip around the world took Hatto to
Istanbul,
Delhi,
Kathmandu,
Bangkok,
Auckland,
Wellington,
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
,
Hawaii,
California, the
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...
, and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, where he acquired a
Kirghiz‐
Russian dictionary.
Hatto retired in 1977, by which time he had had at least 72 works published.
Personal life
Hatto and his wife Margot had a daughter, Jane, and a son-in-law, Peter. They remained married until her death in 2000.
Hatto himself died of
bronchopneumonia shortly before turning 100, on 6 January 2010, at Field House in
Harpenden
Harpenden () is a town and civil parish in the City and District of St Albans in the county of Hertfordshire, England. The population of the built-up area was 30,240 in the 2011 census, whilst the population of the civil parish was 29,448. Har ...
.
Publications
For a list of publications through 1977, see ; for some subsequent publications, see .
*
*
** Correction published in
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Reviews
*
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
:* Als
published online*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hatto, Arthur Thomas
Academics of the University of London
Germanists
1910 births
2010 deaths