Obituary: Henry A. Lea, professor emeritus of German
Henry A. Lea, 92, of Amherst, professor emeritus of German, died April 4 after a long illness.
Born in Berlin, Germany, he and his brother, Rudolph, immigrated to Philadelphia in 1934 after the Nazis took power. In 1938 he graduated as first honor man from Philadelphia’s Central High School and won the Mayor’s Scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania.
Shortly after completing his bachelor’s degree in 1942, he joined the U.S. Army and became one of the Ritchie Boys, a special military intelligence unit made up mainly of German-speaking immigrants trained at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. Lea interrogated German prisoners of war in Belgium and Germany.
In 1947-48, he was court interpreter and instantaneous translator at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and in 1948-49 served as a translator for the U.S. military government in Frankfurt.
After returning to the U.S., he completed his master’s degree in German literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1952, he accepted an appointment as an instructor in the German Department. In 1962, he was awarded a Ph.D. in German literature by the University of Pennsylvania and was promoted to assistant professor. He was appointed an associate professor in 1967 and promoted to professor in 1984. He retired from active teaching in 1985.
His scholarly work includes the book “Gustav Mahler: Man on the Margin,” a study of the writer Wolfgang Hildesheimer, who had been a fellow interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, and numerous papers on German-Jewish and musical topics.
He leaves his brother, Rudolph of Elkins Park, Pa.; two nephews and a niece, three grandnephews and a grandniece.
A memorial gathering will take place on Saturday, May 4, at 2 p.m. at the Amherst Woman’s Club, 35 Triangle St.
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Thursday, April 18, 2013
