Dieter Cunz

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Dieter Cunz (August 4, 1910 – February 17, 1969) was a historian who emigrated from Nazi Germany first to Switzerland and then to the United States, where he taught as a professor of German at the University of Maryland from 1939 to 1957, and then at Ohio State University from 1957 until his death in 1969.

Cunz was born in Höchstenbach (in the Westerwald) and grew up in Schierstein (in Hesse), a suburb of Wiesbaden, where he attended a Gymnasium from 1920 to 1929. As a young man, he was at loggerheads with his father, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor who admired Adolf Hitler and hoisted the swastika flag at his church well prior to the Nazi takeover in 1933.[1] He studied political and diplomatic history, the history of religion, and German literature at the universities of Leipzig, Königsberg, and finally Frankfurt. Here in 1931 he met Oskar Koplowitz, a Jewish student of German literature, who became his life partner.

Shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933, Koplowitz left Germany and continued his studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Cunz chose to remain in Frankfurt to complete his Ph.D. in history with a dissertation on Johann Casimir of Simmern, a leader of the 16th-century Protestant League. His dissertation director was Walter Platzhoff, a staunch Nazi who advanced to head the entire university from 1934 to 1945.[2] In 1934, Cunz emigrated to Switzerland to join Koplowitz, who completed his Ph.D. in German literature in 1936. The two soon relocated from Basel to Lausanne. During this time, Cunz co‑authored several detective novels in collaboration with Koplowitz and Richard Plant under the collective pen name Stefan Brockhoff.[3] His study of European constitutional history, Europäische Verfassungsgeschichte der Neuzeit,[4] appeared in 1936, followed a year later by a monograph on Zwingli.[5] His Um uns herum: Märchen aus dem Alltag appeared in 1938.[6]

In 1938 Cunz emigrated with Koplowitz to the United States, where Koplowitz changed his named to Seidlin. Cunz quickly received a grant from the Ferdinand Meyer Fund to work up a historical study of the German-Americans settled in the state of Maryland, published in 1940,[7] a precursor to his The Maryland Germans: A History (1948).[8] In 1939, he received a teaching appointment at the University of Maryland, where he rose through the ranks and long chaired the Department of German. His research on the Maryland Germans was also supported by the Oberlaender Trust of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation.

In 1957, Cunz accepted an offer from the Ohio State University, where he again chaired the German Department for many years. Here he joined his partner Seidlin, and the two built a house in the suburb Worthington. They enjoyed summer vacations in the company of Richard Plant in Manomet, Massachusetts, and Mallnitz, Austria. Plant described Cunz in these terms: "Dieter awakened trust in almost everyone. He radiated an irresistible friendliness and was not just able to avoid disputes, but also to settle them -- a natural mediator and referee. He could win people over, and people believed him when, after carefully thinking things over, he proposed a simple solution that no one else would ever have come up with. When he said he would do something, no one doubted that he would actually do it. At meetings and conferences he broke the ice, established an atmosphere of collegiality, harmony, even confidentiality. Later they called him a 'first-class public relations officer'. But that characterization is not quite correct, because public relations is something that can be learned. But Dieter didn't even have to make an effort - he was a natural-born confidante and, to invoke a term you can encounter in old books, completely guileless."[9] With tongue firmly in cheek, Cunz described himself in these terms: "I am sceptical by nature; I hold dim views about the solvability of the problem that is under discussion; I am the eternal sourpuss — flowers wilt when I enter the room and the milk of human kindness curdles.... Others who know me will say, 'An old curmudgeon like you will see to it that all the Christmas spirit is thoroughly demolished. You will keep us aware that there are more difficulties than there are solutions.'"[1]

Cunz was in declining health during his final years, suffering from high blood pressure and a heart valve defect. Even so, his death on February 17, 1969, at the age of 58, was unexpected and plunged Seidlin into a profound depression. Ohio State University now has a building named after him (Dieter Cunz Hall, at 1841 Millikin Road in Columbus, Ohio).

To the genre of young readers' literature belongs his They Came from Germany: The Stories of Famous German-Americans, published in 1966.[10] He also co‑authored German language textbooks.

See also

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Andreas Sternweiler, Richard Plant: Frankfurt, Basel, New York (Berlin: Rosa Winkel, 1996), p. 38.
  2. ↑ Published as: Dieter Cunz, Die Regentschaft des Pfalzgrafen Johann Casimir in der Kurpfalz, 1583–1592 (Limburg an der Lahn, Druck der Limburger Vereinsdruckerei, 1934).
  3. ↑ Cf. Stefan Brockhoff, Schuß auf die Bühne (Leipzig, Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 1935); id., Musik im Totengässlein (Bern, etc., Goldmann, 1936); id., Drei Kioske am See (Leipzig, Goldmann, 1937); id., Begegnung in Zermatt (Munich, Goldmann, 1955). Another novel, entitled ‘Verwirrung um Veronika’, is said to have been serialized in the Zürcher Illustrierte in 1938. Cf. Angelika Jockers and Reinhard Jahn, eds., Lexikon der deutschsprachigen Krimi‑Autoren (2nd ed., rev.; Munich, Verlag der Criminale, 2005).
  4. ↑ Dieter Cunz, Europäische Verfassungsgeschichte der Neuzeit (Leipzig, Queller & Meyer, 1936).
  5. ↑ Dieter Cunz, Ulrich Zwingli (Aarau, H.R. Sauerländer, 1937).
  6. ↑ Dieter Cunz, Um uns herum: Märchen aus dem Alltag (St. Gallen, Buchhandlung der Evangelischen Gesellschaft, 1938).
  7. ↑ Dieter Cunz, A History of the Germania Club (Baltimore, Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, 1940).
  8. ↑ Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans: A History (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1948).
  9. ↑ Andreas Sternweiler, Frankfurt, Basel, New York: Richard Plant, Schwules Museum, Lebensgeschichten 3 (Berlin, Verlag rosa Winkel, 1996), p. 68-69.
  10. ↑ Dieter Cunz, They Came from Germany: The Stories of Famous German-Americans (New York, Dodd, Mead, 1966).

External links

Cunz's career at Ohio State University

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