Peter Felix Ganz (3 November 1920 – 17 August 2006) was a German-born

Germanist German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...

who emigrated to Britain in 1938, translated conversations of German nuclear scientists during

Operation Epsilon Operation Epsilon was the codename of a program in which Allied forces near the end of World War II detained ten German scientists who were thought to have worked on Nazi Germany's nuclear program. The scientists were captured between May 1 and ...

in 1945, and became a professor at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

Early life and education

Peter Ganz was the son of Dr. Hermann Friedrich Ignaz Ganz and Dr. Charlotte (Lotte), née Fromberg. His younger brother, then Ludwig Hermann Ganz, was the historian of Africa Lewis H Gann. Ganz attended the but was forced to leave it since his family was classed as Jewish. In November 1938, he was held for six weeks in the concentration camp at

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

but was then able to emigrate to England. After internment on the Isle of Man, he joined the

Royal Pioneer Corps The Royal Pioneer Corps was a British Army combatant corps used for light engineering tasks. It was formed in 1939, and amalgamated into the Royal Logistic Corps in 1993. Pioneer units performed a wide variety of tasks in all theatres of war, in ...

, then worked for the

Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre The term Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) was used for facilities in the UK, the continent (Belgium and Germany) between 1942 and 1947, the Middle East, and South Asia. They were run by the British War Office on a joint basis ...

(CSDIC) with Fritz Lustig.

Career

At the end of the war he worked at

Farm Hall A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

listening to the reactions of captured nuclear scientists including Heisenberg, Otto Hahn and others after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. From 1948 to 1949 Ganz worked as assistant lecturer at

Royal Holloway College, London Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

and from 1949–60 as Lecturer in German Philology and Medieval Literature at

Westfield College, London Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

. From 1963 to 1972 he was a Fellow at

Hertford College, Oxford Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main ga ...

, Professor of Medieval German Language and Literature and Fellow of

St Edmund Hall, Oxford St Edmund Hall (sometimes known as The Hall or informally as Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university ...

from 1972 to 1985 where his successor (until 2012) was Nigel F Palmer. He was a Resident Fellow at the

Herzog August Library The Herzog August Library (german: link=no, Herzog August Bibliothek — "HAB"), in Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony, known also as ''Bibliotheca Augusta'', is a library of international importance for its collection from the Middle Ages and ear ...

, Wolfenbüttel from 1985 to 1988. He co-founded the Anglo-German Colloquium, a biennial meeting of British and German medieval Germanists, and edited the Oxford German Studies from 1978 to 1990 and the from 1976 to 1990.

Personal life

Peter Ganz during the Anglo-German Colloquium

In 1949, he married Rosemary Allen (died 1986). They had two sons: Adam Ganz (a writer who also wrote a play on his father's experiences at Farm Hall) and David Ganz (until 2010 Professor of Paleography 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 ...

), and two daughters: Deborah Ganz and Rachel Ganz. After Rosemary Allen's death, he married Nicolette Mout (Professor of Modern History at Leiden) in 1987.

Orders and awards

In 1973, he received the in acknowledgement of his services in establishing scholarly exchange between English and German Germanists, and in 1993 an honorary doctorate of the

University of Erlangen–Nuremberg University of Erlangen–Nuremberg (german: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, FAU) is a Public University, public research university in the cities of Erlangen and Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. The name Friedrich–Alexander ...

. He was also an Honorary Professor at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

Selected publications

* ''Der Einfluss des Englischen auf den deutschen Wortschatz'' (1957) * '' Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan'' (1978) * editor: ''

Dukus Horant ''Dukus Horant'' is a 14th-century narrative poem in Judeo-German (Proto-Yiddish). Importance ''Dukus Horant'' is the best known of a number of works which survive in the Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This manuscript was discovered in the Cairo ...

'' * editor: Burckhardt's lectures ''Über das Studium der Geschichte'' (1982, also as volume 10 of the ''Kritische Gesamtausgabe'', 2000)

References

External links

Oxford Dictionary of National BiographyCelebration of his 100th birthday
at the University of Oxford {{DEFAULTSORT:Ganz, Peter 1920 births 2006 deaths Academics of the University of Oxford Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Fellows of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Germanists People interned in the Isle of Man during World War II British Army personnel of World War II Royal Pioneer Corps soldiers German emigrants to the United Kingdom Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford