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Otto Gotthold Graf [1909-1992]
The Department is deeply pleased to have been able to create a permanent endowment in honor of Otto Graf. Erudite, courtly, and humane, this accomplished scholar, musician, and administrator embodied everything that is best about academia.
We are grateful to Otto's son, Erich, and to the many friends and alums listed below, whose founding gifts made this new endowment in support of our graduate students possible.
A Tribute to Otto Graf by his Son, Erich Graf
There is not a day that passes that I do not think of my father's legacy as a humanitarian, Renaissance man, musician and teacher. There were so many things for me to inherit from him, but Fate chose musical pursuits for me.
With every note I play on my flute each day, I attempt to emulate his ambition to make the world a kinder and more genteel place for everyone through the Arts and the educative process.
I am genuinely touched that the German Department at the University of Michigan has chosen to celebrate his legacy through this endowment process. During his life, my father touched the minds and hearts of countless students world-wide who sought his advice and guidance. I am proud to say that I will always be his strongest advocate.
Erich Graf
Principal flutist, Utah Symphony
President, Local 104, American Federation of Musicians, Salt Lake City
Founding donors to the Otto Graf Endowment
Warmest thanks to these generous benefactors: J. Hayes Kavanagh, Roswitha Lugauer, The Power Foundation, Liina Wallin, Dorothy Wiswall, Helen R. Altman, Frederick Amrine, Dennis H. Bauman, Roger L. Cole, Mary C. Crichton, Sol Gittleman, Werner Grilk, Paul Kuzmich, Christian Noordhoorn, Max Noordhoorn, Eleanor A. Schnitker, Irene Seadle, William and Mary Seeger, Harold M. Simon Jr., Frederick W. Stanton, David Todd, George Valenta
The University's Memorial for Otto Graf
Otto Gotthold Graf, professor emeritus of Germanic languages and literatures, died Dec. 15 at Glacier Hills Nursing Center. He was 82 years old.
Graf came to the U-M as a student in 1927 and devoted his entire professional career to serving the University as a teacher, scholar and administrator. He directed the LS&A Honors Program for outstanding undergraduate students from 1961 to 1980.
From 1930 to 1942, Graf was an instructor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1942 and to professor in 1956 following two brief interruptions in his career for military service. When Graf retired from active faculty status in 1980, the Board of Regents commended him for his long and distinguished service to the University: 'A man of culture, extensive reading and understanding, Otto Graf excelled as a teacher on all levels. His service as an administrator was unmatched in variety, lasting results and national recognition and brought him the respect, confidence and gratitude of his colleagues over the years.'
Graf received bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees from U-M in 1931, 1933 and 1938, respectively. He was the author of several books on German language instruction for elementary school children and many scholarly articles on Germanic literature.
Graf was chairman of the Society of Fellows in 1970-75 and served on the executive committee of the National Collegiate Honors Council from 1966 to 1980.
Graf was born in Indianapolis, Ind., on Dec. 22, 1909. An accomplished pianist, he taught at the Detroit Institute of Arts before joining the U-M.
Graf is survived by his wife, Sarah of Ann Arbor; his son, Erich of Salt Lake City; and a sister, Herta Severance of Florida."
Recollections of Otto Graf Appreciations by alums, friends, family, and former colleagues. We invite you to send your own recollections for posting here.
"Dr. Graf was the closest I ever met to a 'universal man' and my favorite instructor and mentor." Harold M. Simon, Jr.
"Otto Gotthold Graf, Professor Emeritus of Germanic Languages and Literatures, died on December 15, 1992.
Otto Graf was born on December 22, 1909 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He began his teaching career as an instructor at the Detroit Institute of Musical Art in 1930. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in German from the University of Michigan in 1931, 1933, and 1938. During the Second World War he served in the US Army Intelligence Service in both the European and Pacific theaters of operation, and became fluent in Japanese. He was recalled to active duty at the beginning of the Korean War, serving until 1952 with the rank of major. Except for these two periods, he remained at the University of Michigan until his retirement in 1980.
Professor Graf excelled as a teacher on all levels of instruction, from elementary language courses to advanced seminars on German literary movements and figures of the 18th and 19th centuries. One of his special interests was the influence of Shakespeare on German writers. His broad intellectual horizons, as well as his devotion to all aspects of his profession, were abundantly clear to all who knew him, and are reflected in his many publications. His impressive scholarly accomplishments are equaled by his distinction as an administrator; for example, he served as Director of the LSA Honors Council from 1961 until his retirement, as Chair of the University of Michigan Society of Fellows from 1970 to 1975, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Collegiate Honors Council from 1966 on.
An accomplished musician, he and his wife Sarah often entertained Ann Arbor audiences with their piano duets, and were frequently featured on WUOM.
Otto Graf is survived by his wife, Sarah, and their son, Eric, who resides in Salt Lake City, Utah." Robert L. Kyes
The Spring 1999 issue of Michigan Today contained a lovely recollection of Otto Graf by Sharon Lowen, who went to India on a Fulbright after earning a BA and MA at U of M, and has become an internationally renowned performer of Indian dance:
"When I arrived in 1967, I was extremely fortunate to come in contact with that great man Otto Graf. He was the director of the Honors College, and he admitted me into the College even though I was a little weak in math. Through the Honors College I was able to create an undergraduate program that let me explore my interest in Asia and Asian performing arts at the undergraduate level."
She also recalls that such curricular freedom was unusual for that time. Of course, none of us who remember our grand, cosmopolitan colleague are the least surprised to hear this!
Otto Graf's History of the Dept. of Germanic Languages and Literatures
We are grateful to the Graf family for the following history of the Department, which Otto Graf composed sometime in the late 1970s, and was found among his papers.
The Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, 1940-1975
The Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at The University of Michigan has long enjoyed a substantial reputation on its own campus and among American university departments. Always staffed by an able faculty, it had a position of generally recognized excellence in 1940. From 1890-1940, over forty graduate students had earned the doctorate and generations of undergraduates had passed through one or more years of German study. There was a practical reason for the somewhat unusual degree of this interest: the study of German was very popular in the secondary schools until World War I and college graduates found a competence in German a real asset when searching for teaching positions.
World War I put an abrupt and almost total end to this curious, perhaps even somewhat inflated emphasis on German language and culture in American schools. Thus from about 1920-1940 the department settled into a period of sustained quality, but slow growth.
The year 1940 was one of deep and general anxiety on college campuses and in departmental offices. War had broken out in Europe in the fall of 1939, and it quickly became evident that, regardless of whether our country became a belligerent, the historical upheaval in Europe would profoundly affect academia.
In 1940, the faculty of the department consisted of about a dozen men distributed over the senior and junior ranks. Professor H. W. Nordmeyer had assumed the chairmanship in 1935, having come from New York University. He was to hold this position throughout the tumultuous '40s and the growing enrollments of the '50s until his retirement in 1960.
In addition to a full program of undergraduate courses, the departmental faculty was able to offer a complete series of graduate courses and seminars leading to advanced degrees. This graduate work was in the hands of the senior faculty; the junior ranks, aided by about eight teaching assistants or fellows, as they were called, taught all the elementary work and some junior and senior courses.
In all there were typically about fifteen graduate students, and this number included the aforementioned teaching assistants. So ambitious and varied a program obviously demanded, especially from the senior staff, a teaching responsibility in a variety of fields. In this way a narrow specialization was avoided but the system also imposed a heavy burden on the faculty. Compared with present-day practices, the faculty in 1940 taught more hours and over wider areas than is the case today. Collegiate and graduate catalogues from around 1940 reveal that, on the advanced and graduate levels, five or six faculty members (Professors Nordmeyer, Eaton, Philippson, Reichart, Wahr, and Willey) offered, in alternate years, work covering fairly completely the periods and genres of German literature and philology.
Such was the Department's situation at the time of our entry into WW II. It was not possible to anticipate even the immediate effect of this event on the University or the Department. Older faculty members, recalling the virtual abandonment of German studies during and after World War I, feared a repetition. Surprisingly, and perhaps as an indication of growing cultural maturity in the nation, this did not happen in 1941-1945. To be sure, as with all departments in the University, there was a very large decrease in the number of male students because of their entry into the armed forces. Younger faculty members were affected also: Professor Otto Graf, for example, soon joined the armed forces and eventually attained the rank of major in the intelligence services. Even so, several male graduate students were able to continue their studies and, in one or two cases, able to complete their work for the doctorate.
In 1943 an event occurred that was to transform the campus and many of its departments fundamentally. The nation was now involved in a truly global war in Europe and the Orient. Successful waging of such a war demanded not only the men and implements of war but also the intellectual resources of the nation. Accordingly, thousands of army and navy men were sent to college and university campuses for a great variety of specialized and newly created courses, devised by various departments and schools of the universities. Like many University faculty, the departmental staff was almost totally involved in this Army Specialized Training Program: intensive courses in language and area studies taught to members of the armed forces in small groups. Indeed, the available personnel of the language departments needed to be augmented by faculty from other departments and even by qualified war refugees. And so for a brief period in the University's history there was the exciting and sometimes amusing spectacle of the eradication of sacrosanct departmental and disciplinary boundaries: philosophers taught history, classicists taught German and French, professors of literature taught government and social organization. And although the whole prodigious enterprise lasted only a short time, curricular change and innovation, which became so prominent in succeeding decades, received initial impetus and a trial run during 1943-1944. Language faculties enjoyed a totally new and unexpected, albeit short-lived, prominence.
With the end of the War began that enormous expansion of college enrollments which was to affect all of higher education in the country profoundly. Departmental faculties had to be greatly increased. Beginning in about 1947, the department had for some years a busy traffic in new, mostly younger, faculty members. Most of these remained only two to four years; positions were opening up everywhere and movement was brisk. Not all of the additions were temporary, however: Frank X. Braun, who had spent the war years in defense industry, and Clarence K. Pott, who had finished his doctoral studies in 1943, were appointed instructors and eventually attained tenure. Meanwhile, Professor Otto G. Graf returned from army service to resume his career. Other additions that proved to be permanent were made during the '50s and '60s: A. P. Cottrell, R. C. Cowen, M. C. Crichton, E. E. George, V. C. Hubbs, R. L. Kyes, R. H. Paslick, H. Scholler, and I. Seidler. All of them, throughout their careers at Michigan, added to the distinction of the department through their teaching and scholarly research.
In 1948, the department suffered a heavy loss when one of its senior professors, J.W. Eaton, lost his life and that of his young son in a drowning accident on the Huron River at Christmas time. He was widely esteemed, also beyond the department, as a debonair gentleman whose knowledge, judgement, and wit were prized in College and University councils. And when Professor Norman L. Willey retired in 1954, the department secured as his replacement Professor Herbert Penzl from the University of Illinois. Professor Penzl's subsequent scholarly work in Germanic and general linguistics earned for him a position of eminence in university circles here and abroad.
Two factors that became operative during the '50s and '60s necessitated additions and changes in the curricular offerings of the department. The influx of so many new faculty members, each with his or her own specialized competence, enabled the department to broaden the curricular appeal greatly. The department now had students in sufficient numbers to elect these new offerings. While retaining older, established courses, additions were made, particularly in the graduate program: more work in medieval literature, new courses in the 16th and 17th centuries, literary criticism, modern and contemporary literature. Almost no existing course remained as it had been, and the demands for new courses stimulated a deeply satisfying and beneficial faculty activity expressed in greatly increased scholarly publication by the staff - an activity always strongly emphasized and ardently championed by Professor Nordmeyer and his senior colleagues. The younger men and women who joined the department's faculty during the '50s and '60s thus added to the reputation of the department as an important center of germanistic studies.
During the decade of the '60s, two modest programs in other Germanic languages and literatures were added: Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Old Norse language and literature), and Netherlandic. The Scandinavian work was made possible by the addition to the staff of Professors Alan Cottrell and Claiborne Thompson; an arrangement with the Netherlands Ministry of Education provided the department with a visiting scholar annually to conduct the work in Netherlandic.
With the close of the '50s came the retirements of the two remaining senior men, Professors Wahr and Nordmeyer. Professor Wahr, in a career of more than 40 years, guided generations of students through modern and contemporary German literature; a large number of doctoral candidates testifies to his effectiveness. Professor Nordmeyer, who led the department through difficult times for twenty-five years, still found time to contribute substantially to scholarly literature. For decades he prepared the Annual Bibliography of the Modern Language Association, a major task in the performing of which he placed all scholars in his debt. In recognition of his stature and work, the Association bestowed upon him its highest honor in 1961: the Presidency. Professor Clarence K. Pott succeeded him as department chairman until 1971. He in turn was followed in the chairmanship by Professor V.C. Hubbs, who served until 1976.
In 1965, perhaps the time of the department's greatest numerical flourishing, the regular faculty numbered well over twenty; over thirty graduate assistants taught the hundreds of undergraduates in the course work of the first two years. There were more than seventy undergraduate concentrates and from 70-80 graduate candidates for master's and doctoral degrees. Since 1940, the department has awarded 106 doctoral and 364 master degrees.
Through its staff the department also contributed substantially to those programs that cut across departmental lines. The College's Great Books Program, introduced and supervised by the late Professor of Classics, Clark Hopkins, involved German faculty from the beginning, and at its peak as many as five members taught sections of these courses. On the graduate level, the department welcomed the students of Comparative Literature to its courses. For fourteen years, Professor Graf was the Chairman of the committee which directed this program. He has also for eighteen years been similarly involved as the Director of the Honors Program of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. In recognition of his yeoman services, an Honors Scholarship has been established in his name.
The revived emphasis on foreign languages that the Great War had brought about resulted in a number of activities, some sponsored by the federal government. In 1959, for example, the University was to host a summer National Defense Education Act Institute. The University's modern language departments naturally played a major role in this effort, and Professor Graf was named its director, supervising the work of 110 high school teachers of modern languages.
Other activities more directly connected with the German Department included a collaborative effort with several other universities (Wayne State, Wisconsin, Michigan State) in establishing a successful Junior Year Abroad in Freiburg, Germany. Largely through the efforts of Professors Braun and Hubbs, a Deutsches Haus was established on our own campus, as was the Max Kade Visiting Professorship, under the terms of which the department has been enabled to bring a number of distinguished foreign Germanists to the campus on a yearly basis. Professor Hubbs was chiefly instrumental in securing this professorship for the department and the college. And in 1965 Professor Harald Scholler undertook a major task: the organization of a Conference on Medieval Studies, which attracted a number of scholars of international stature from home and abroad. The papers presented at this conference were published under the editorship of Professor Scholler.
Over the years 1940-1975, the contributions of a number of the department's faculty have been officially recognized: Professor Braun was the recipient of the Class of 1923 Award for Excellence in Teaching; Professor Mary C. Crichton received the Mary Sinclair Award for her dedicated work as a counselor in the College Honors Program; likewise, Professor Roy C. Cowen, who is the current departmental chairman (1979), was recognized for excellence as a Teacher of the Humanities. Professors Robert L. Kyes and W.A. Reichart received Distinguished Faculty Awards on the junior and senior level respectively. For Professor Reichart, this was the capstone of his long career as a productive scholar of international reputation.
The rapid university faculty exchanges of the '50s and '60s did not leave the department untouched. In 1963, Professor Penzl accepted a professorship at the University of California (Berkley). The department filled this vacancy with the eminent linguistic scholar, Professor William H. Bennet from Notre Dame University's Medieval Institute. Professor Max Dufner left the department in 1969 to accept the chairmanship of German and Russian at the University of Arizona at Tuscon.
The growth of the department in staff and number of students, which had begun during the chairmanship of Professor Nordmeyer, continued at an increased rate during the years of Professor Pott's tenure. Today, a capable, energetic roster of professors carries on the sound reputation of the Department.
