HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN. H. L. Mencken died in his famous
Baltimore row house sometime during the early morning of January 29,
1956. He was 75. His last waking hours were spent in a way that is per-
haps worth particularizing since it carried the lingering flavor of his once
full-bodied life. Toward the end of the winter afternoon he stretched out
on the couch in his second-floor office, listened to a portion of Die Meister-
singer on his radio, and then took a nap. On awakening he came down to
supper. His brother August had built a cheerful fire as usual, and there
was an old friend present. Mencken complained to them of not being well,
but according to August he drank two mild gibsons and felt better. The
conversation was good. Shortly after 9 he went back upstairs to his bed-
room, listened to his radio again (this time to a symphony), and then
went to sleep. He died about 3 or 4 a. m. Long before his death he had,
characteristically, specified the only eulogy he wished: "If, after I depart
this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost,
forgive some sinner and wink at some homely girl."
Mencken's family moved to the row house on Hollins St. when he was
three. His father, half-German August Mencken, Sr., owned a cigar factory
in the city; his mother, Anna Abhau, had been born in Baltimore of German
parents. Young Harry and the other children in his family grew up pleas-
antly and uneventfully in the Hollins St. house. He was considered bookish
and a bit shy but not inordinately so. A good student, he survived the
strict discipline of Professor Friedrich Knapp's school opposite the City
Hall and went on to graduate from the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute at
15. He was, naturally enough, promptly deposited in his father's cigar
business. However, the itch to write proved so strong that he eagerly joined
the staff of the Baltimore Morning Herald as well, even though it meant
devoting his nights to the job after his days at the cigar factory. But he
had no tedious apprenticeship to serve. His striking abilities showed them-
selves almost at once. By 1903 he was city editor of the Herald and by
1906 he was managing the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun, having
already made what was to be a life-long connection with that noted
newspaper.
"Baltimoreans with long memories," wrote Hamilton Owens, the present
editor of the Sun, "will recall the impact of the boisterous youngster on
the columns of the paper." He became known for his pungent descriptions
of the local scene. "The politicians, the policemen, the magistrates, the
judges, and all such worthies were depicted with much more robustness
and much less veneration" than before. And "the humors of the corner-
saloon, the free-lunch counter, and the crab feast emerged." Using his
vigorous wit as one of his main weapons, Mencken joyously began his long
battle "against frauds and stuffed shirts."
[70]
Mencken was to remain a social critic (though he might reject that
heavy term) throughout his life, yet he found so much to laugh at in
American habits that he could never become a fire-breathing reformer.
For that matter, he expressed his criticisms in such roaring generalities that
many—though emphatically not all—of the objects of his satire probably
said in innocence, "Who, me? " Mencken started on the American people
as a whole and then proceeded to anatomize them part by clownish part.
As he once said in the third series of his Prejudices, it was his conviction
that "the American people, taking one with another, constitute the most
timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose-step-
pers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the Middle Ages."
Then he worked out from that.
Literary criticism also attracted Mencken from the time he was a young
man, and his liveliest, best writing appeared when he combined the two.
In his early days with the Sun he often wrote about the theater. His articles
and reviews contained praise for such European dramatists as Ibsen and
Shaw balanced by slashing criticisms of the clumsy dramatic performances
he sat through at home. He wrote George Bernard Shaw—His Plays (1905),
which though brief gained enough attention to make him known to literary
circles in New York. He became friends with the publisher Alfred Knopf
and with another and shrewder drama critic, George Jean Nathan. A New
York magazine called The Smart Set was the brightest periodical of its
time; Mencken went on the staff as literary critic and then helped Nathan
edit it during its prime from 1914 to 1923. In 1924 the two friends started
The American Mercury, with Knopf as its publisher. It nourished phe-
nomenally. During the next nine years Mencken grew to be the most
vigorous and influential literary journalist in the country as well as the
sharp-tongued guardian of the individualism of the '20's. He cultivated
what he called "a certain ferocity" of expression and used it against all
forms of "tribal impulses," though he still retained the right to be a social
conservative.
He was not a conservative in literature, however. He fought with happy
fervor against the fraudulent popular successes among the established
writers (the Harold Bell Wrights, for example) and for such newcomers as
Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and Scott Fitzgerald. It was as critics
of American society that they made their basic appeal to him. In their
various ways they pointed out the fatuousness of American culture, and he
approved of that. But he also approved of the fact that their writing
belonged to this country instead of being an imitation of foreign models.
During the Harding-Coolidge era he maintained his supremacy bril-
liantly. However, the history of American taste shows that it has taken
many a turn, and Mencken's reputation suffered an eclipse throughout the
1930's. Two causes brought this about. The first was the depression.
People found very little of the ridiculous in an economic catastrophe, and so
Mencken's view of life as a circus—a view which remained essentially
unaltered despite bread lines and mass unemployment—lost much of its
appeal. The new taste-makers were distinguished by their consuming in-
terest in economic reform, sometimes Marxian, more often not. But at any
rate they focussed on matters of most concern to the depression-ridden
public. Mencken, on the other hand, scoffed at the New Deal measures of
the '30's just as heartily as he had at the tribal puritanism of the '20's. He
offered the WPA the same contempt he had offered Prohibition. The second
reason for the dimming of his reputation lay in the Germanic flavor of his
writing. The rise of Hitler's Third Reich meant a corruption of the many
[71]
good traits in German culture. Hitler blackened the reputation of all things
German throughout the world, and this—it may be suggested—had its
effect even on the standing of Mencken. Mencken himself, moreover, made
the mistake of taking Hitler too lightly, just as he had the Kaiser. It took
some time for him to see that Hitler was not simply a buffoon.
With the coming of the '40's and then the first half of the '50's Mencken
reestablished himself through his growing eminence in a field where few
have expected it. His energy in writing and his wit had been admitted from
the start but hardly anyone realized the orderliness ingrained in the man.
Out of his interest in American writing had come his interest in the Ameri-
can language, and as early as 1919 he had published the first results of his
orderly culling of that writing. Many critics were doubtless surprised to
discover him at work on something both time-consuming and scholarly. Yet
he did not stop. With each revision and supplement The American Lan-
guage gained in stature and authority, until it could justly be said that
the Baltimore newspaperman stood out as the leading student of his native
tongue.
A byproduct of this same orderly method was his New Dictionary of
Quotations. In his research for the first book he had made a practice of
filing the proverbs and sayings that he came across. As the years passed,
his files thickened and by 1942 he could issue a work as thorough as any
in its area.
Of less value are his treatises. He published these in mid-career. They
are ordinarily assemblages of his opinions, without much coherence or
depth; yet they add up to an interesting minority report, and they always
have the thrust of his style. Notes on Democracy (1926) is an example.
It frames an indictment of the flaws in democracy with a zest no political
scientist could command. It contains many a sentence still relevant today.
In point: surrounded as we are by the clamor to solve foreign problems
no administration can solve, we see vividly what Mencken meant when he
said sardonically, "It is one of the peculiar intellectual accompaniments of
democracy that the concept of the insoluble becomes unfashionable—nay,
almost infamous. To lack a remedy is to lack the very license to discuss
disease."
In his final literary phase Mencken turned to autobiography. Here his
contribution cannot be rated as high as in criticism and philology; notwith-
standing, his three volumes afford a colorful view of the man and his times.
Happy Days (1940), Newspaper Days (1941), and Heathen Days (1943)
describe his life from 1880 to 1936, and they provide a mellow contrast to
his earlier writings.
Inspite of these diversified contributions, there was one kind of writing
he always practiced. That was newspaper reporting, of an opinionated,
witty, and choleric sort peculiarly his own. He maintained his generally
pleasant connection with the Baltimore Sun for over forty years. From
1912 to 1917 he conducted a column called "The Free Lance" which had
all the sharpness its title implied. For years afterward he contributed a
Monday evening article in keeping with the astringent tone of his former
column. He also took on special assignments every now and then. The
Republican and Democratic national conventions always yielded him more
than his share of guffaws and so he covered the sessions regularly. The
most famous single spectacle he attended as a reporter was the John T.
Scopes trial in 1925. When this young Tennessee schoolteacher was charged
with teaching Darwinism instead of Genesis to his science students, the
[72]
noted agnostic Clarence Darrow defended him and William Jennings Bryan
led the prosecution. Mencken enjoyed the contest keenly, cheering and
jeering as it went along.
He reported likewise on many a less sensational event for the Sun.
Through its columns he often influenced his native city, and he swayed the
policy of the Sun itself. Indeed, he "exerted an immeasurable influence,"
according to Mr. Owens. "His hatred of pusillanimity and sham was not
exhausted by his attacks on outsiders; he insisted that the paper to which
he had given his allegiance live up to the standards for forthrightness,
courage, and, above all, vitality, which he had set for himself."
As a matter of fact, the words of the Sun the day after he died are
perhaps his best valedictory. Writing of Mencken and his effect on his
fellow workers, the Sun said, "To those who exerted the effort, even when
their product fell short of the ideal, he was sympathetic, helpful, and en-
couraging. To many outsiders who had been scourged by his pen, he was
the embodiment of evil, as their anguish efforts at reprisal showed, but to
those of his colleagues who knew that his battle was waged against sham
and hypocrisy and not against individuals as such, he was simple, com-
passionate, and even humble. In short: a warm, loyal, and understanding
friend. We shall not soon see his like again."
CARL BODE
*
ARNO C. SCHIROKAUER. With Arno Schirokauer, who from 1951
until the time of his death was Vice-President of the Society for the History
of the Germans in Maryland, the Germanic scholars in the United States
have lost one of their most outstanding and most prolific interpreters of
medieval German literature and civilization.
Arno C. Schirokauer was born in Cottbus, Germany, on July 20, 1899.
After serving in the First World War, he studied at the Universities of
Berlin, Halle and Munich, at the last of which he received his doctorate in
1921. From 1924 to 1927 he was assistant librarian of the Deutsche Büche-
rei in Leipzig. In 1928 he became director of the department of cultural
relations of the German Broadcasting Company. His opposition to the new
regime led to his dismissal in 1933. Then came the dark years of resistance,
of concentration camps and of emigration to America. In 1939 he came with
his wife Erna (nee Moser), his son Conrad and his daughter Annette to
the United States. His first academic position here was an assistant pro-
fessorship at Southwestern University in Tennessee from 1939 to 1941.
Then he went to Yale University as a resident fellow. In 1943 he moved to
Kenyon College in Ohio and returned to Yale in 1944 as a visiting pro-
fessor. In 1945 he came to the Johns Hopkins University as a visiting
lecturer, and in the following year was appointed Professor of Germanic
Philology as successor of Professor William Kurrelmeyer. His wandering
was at an end, that is except for the summers when he trekked to Middle-
bury College or to the University of Colorado and for the very important
summer of 1953, when he accepted an invitation to the Johann Wolfgang
Goethe University at Frankfurt. This came as a late but proper tribute
to the position he had achieved in Germanic studies. It was a stimulating
and professionally refreshing summer, in which he lectured not only at
Frankfurt but also in Tübingen and Cologne.
* Dr. Carl Bode is Professor of American Literature at the University of Maryland.
[73]
In fall 1953 he returned with new energies and new assignments arranged
during his stay there. With Wolfgang Stammler he had become coeditor of
a new series of medieval prose text editions. In May 1954 he was hindered
in his plans by what he thought was an annoying virus infection with
accompanying fever. On May 24, he was stricken while at his research in
the university library and died almost within the hour.
For those of us who had the privilege of being his students there are
special, keenly imprinted memories of him. He speaks to us from the pages
of our notebooks, from the margins of our textbooks, from the lines of the
poets of the German Middle Ages, whose interpreter he was. Yes, that was
his prime function for us. He was the interpreter, both of the delicately
measured and cleanly rhymed verses of the classical period, his period, and
of the exuberant, artistically less rigorous work of the forerunners and the
epigons. His own doctoral dissertation, a work crowned with the prize of the
Munich Faculty of Philosophy, was a tediously painstaking investigation
of the rhyme usage of the Middle High German poets.¹ Out of it grew not
only the Reimgrammatik, but his lifelong devotion to the purity of classical
chivalric ideals: mâze, triuwe, milte. The first of these three he found hard
to practice, especially with regard to the latter two; for he was a true friend
beyond measure and generous of himself—that is what milte signifies—
unmâzlich.
His role as interpreter colors all his work. His articles breathe life and
expound the sociological and historical backgrounds not only of literary
history but also of linguistic development so that they appeal far beyond
the limited circle of his professional peers. This bent for interpretation
probably drew him close to the great mediators of the Gospels to Germany:
Otfried von Weissenburg, about whom he wrote an article in 1926, and
Luther, whose genius of translation was a constant amazement and joy to
him.² Several articles bear witness of this, but especially the one on Luther's
work on the fables of Aesop clearly reveals Arno Schirokauer's fascination
with the cultural whys and wherefores of literary and linguistic fact. From
Luther's interest in the fables grew his own, which then led to his conduct-
ing a seminar on the Aesopic fables and thence to a text edition of German
fable translations as well as to an article on the place of Aesop in medieval
literature.³
It is characteristic that of the big three of classical medieval epic poetry
in Germany it was Hartmann von Aue who came to be treated by Arno
Schirokauer in essay and of whose Büchlein he was preparing an edition
when death called.
4
Not that he did not appreciate Gottfried's Tristan; he
did. He admired its artistry and depth of feeling. He made us all feel the
rapture of Gottfried's elevating mortal love to divine heights even with the
use of mystical allegory. But the simplicity, sincerity—in a word, the
classicism—of Hartmann made him peculiarly attractive. For Wolfram on
the other hand he shared Gottfried's own antipathy and often expressed his
regret at not being able to appreciate the Parzival because of its unbridled
qualities.
Even lexicography, a potentially bloodless study, he managed to imbue
1
Studien zur mittelhochdeutschen Reimgrammatik, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache
und Literatur, 47 (1923), 1-126.
2
"Otfried von Weissenburg," Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistes-
geschichte 4 (1926), 74-96; "Luthers Arbeit am Aesop," Modern Languages Notes 62 (1947), 73-84.
3
Texte zur Geschichte der altdeutschen Tierfabel, (Altdeutsche Übungstexte, No. 13) Bern, 1952.
"Die Stellung Aesops in der Literatur des Mittelalters," Festschrift für Wolfgang Stammler zu seinem
65. Geburtstag, Berlin 1953, 179-191.
4
"Zur Interpretation des Armen Heinrich," Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 83 (1951), 59-78.
"Die Legende vom Armen Heinrich," Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 33 (1952), 262-268.
[74]
with romance as he traced the meanings of words from one early dictionary
to the other and sought the beginnings of German lexicography in the
glosses of the pupils of the Latin schools;
5
he planned an edition of these
socalled Curia Palatium.
Hand in hand with his interest in Luther goes his study of Early New
High German and his occupation with the role of the printing press in the
standardization of the German language. His articles on these subjects have
served to clarify immeasurably a complex and much debated problem.
6
A guide for the future of Germanistic studies was contained in the thought-
ful article written in 1947 but which will bear careful rereading for years
to come.
7
This brief sketch does not begin to exhaust his endeavors in his special
field; but it does not even touch upon his valuable, stimulating writings on
aspects of German literature and culture beyond the year 1600, which he
jestingly referred to as the limit of his specific knowledge. That this man,
whose job it was to teach all of German language and literature through
the Renaissance, could slip off summers and teach modern German litera-
ture is not so surprising if one remembers his articles on expressionism in
lyric poetry, on the novel, on a Goethe poem, on Wiechert's Totenwald,
on Ernst Stadler.
8
His broad interest in cultural backgrounds is attested by
his biography of Ferdinand Lassalle and by his college reader Deutsche
Kulturepochen.
9
To many the man will be known only through his works, by some he
will be recalled fondly as a courageous citizen and loyal friend, by all too
few he will be remembered always as that rare but ever-recurring miracle,
the active scholar and deeply inspiring teacher.
STANLEY N. WERBOW *
GUSTAV STRUBE was born in Ballenstedt am Harz, Germany, on
March 3, 1867. His father Friedrich Strube was the town musician in this
picturesque little town in the Duchy of Anhalt. Gustav Strube played in
his father's small orchestra successively the drums, flute, oboe and some
of the brass instruments. When ten years old, he was a full-fledged violinist.
His formal musical education started at the age of sixteen when he entered
the Leipzig Conservatory headed by Carl Reinecke. Having acquired a
knowledge of composing he earned his pocket money as a student by writing
dances and other lighter compositions. The remuneration for such musical
efforts was the equivalent of one or two dollars a piece.
After three years of study at the Conservatory he became a member
5
" Die Anfänge der neuhochdeutschen Lexikographie," Modern Language Quarterly 6 (1945), 71-75.
"Luthers 'tut busse,' die Rehabilitierung eines Wortes," Neophilologus 34 (1950), 49-54.
6
"Frühneuhochdeutsch," in: Deutsche Philologie in Aufriss, Vol. I, cols. 1013-1075, Berlin, 1952.
"Der Anteil des Buchdrucks an der Bildung des Gemeindeutschen," Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 25
(1951), 317-350.
7
"Neue Probleme der deutschen Philologie," Journal of English and Germanic Philology 46 (1947),
117-131.
8
"Gedanken zum Roman," Monatshefte, 30 (1938), 355-360. "Zu Wiecherts Totenwald," Die
Neue Rundschau (1947), 348-352. "Luna bricht die Nacht der Eichen," Monatshefte 36 (1944), 140-
144. "Ueber Ernst Stadler," Akzente, I (1954), 320-384. "Goethes menschliche Werte," Baltimore
Correspondent, January 15, 1950.
9
Lassalle: The Power of Illusion and the Illusion of Power, London, 1931. The original German
edition was published in 1928. Deutsche Kulturepochen, Prentice Hall, Publ. New York, 1949.—A bibli-
ography of Arno Schirokauer's publications, compiled by the present writer, will appear in a volume of
Dr. Schirokauer's most important essays which the publisher Ernst Hauswedell, Hamburg, Germany will
publish in the near future.
* Dr. Stanley N. Werbow is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Texas.
[75]
of the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig under the baton of Carl
Reinecke and of the Municipal Opera House Orchestra then conducted by
Arthur Nikisch. Nikisch must have recognized in the young gifted violinist
his fine musical qualities. When Nikisch went to Boston in 1889 to conduct
the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he asked young Strube to follow him. In
1890 the 23 year old Strube joined the violin section of the Boston Orchestra
and from then on made his home in this country with his young wife whom
he had brought with him from Germany. His talent as an orchestra con-
ductor was soon recognized when he conducted the Boston "Pop Concerts"
with great success. The late Harold Randolph, then Director of the Pea-
body Institute, invited Gustav Strube to join the faculty of this famous
school as professor of harmony and composition. Thereupon in 1913 the
Strube family moved to Baltimore.
Soon afterwards Mayor James H. Preston provided the funds to start
the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In 1916 Strube became its first con-
ductor. Several years later he received his honorary degree of doctor of
music from the Philadelphia Music Academy. Strube's name is intimately
connected with the musical life of Baltimore. Great as his influence was on
the younger generation through his teaching and on the musical public
through his conducting, his most important contributions are represented
by the many compositions which flowed unceasingly from his prolific pen
almost until his death on February 2, 1953.
Many a musician and student has been subjected to his choice satire,
irony or invective. But as one who knew him well said: "His bark is
worse than his bite. Under that bearlike exterior is a heart of gold." This
feeling was shared by many who worked with him and knew him intimately.
He was the Schulmeister, the stern, unyielding taskmaster as a conductor
and as a teacher. He brooked no opposition in musical matters, but if one
persisted long enough and did not wince under such ejaculations as "my
boy, you are crazy" he frequently yielded in the end. When the Saturday
Night Club would meet in his home he would not participate in the playing
of a Haydn quartet, instead he would find great delight in preparing his
own brand of Hungarian goulash for his guests. Once when asked to illus-
trate the violin, flute, oboe, French horn and trombone during a scientific
demonstration of the study of sound and tone, he gave a fine performance
on all these instruments. At his 70th birthday, he was lauded as "musician,
composer, linguist, philosopher, winemaker, and cook." At the Peabody
he was "Papa Strube" and in the orchestra "the Old Man."
His intimate knowledge of the various instruments and his high musical
standards were the foundation for his highly successful career as a conductor
and a composer. He was the true artist, setting his goal at the highest
standards of his art. This is born out by his many compositions. All his
life he had the inner urge to compose. Strube's numerous compositions may
be grouped into those for orchestra, solo instruments and orchestra, cham-
bermusic, chorus, opera. A list of his compositions was published in the
Musical Quarterly, XXVII (1942), 299-301. In the opinion of this writer
he did his best in his chambermusic. His sonatas, trios and string quartets
are true representatives of his fine musical feelings and show his develop-
ment as a composer over the years. His trio for clarinet, horn and piano
and his quintet for woodwind and horn are gems of chamber music. His
orchestra compositions show him as the superb craftsman who knows all the
instruments intimately with regard to technic and sound. This knowledge
is perpetuated in his textbook on orchestration, which is considered an
[76]
excellent guide for aspiring composers. He composed only one opera, The
Captive, for which Frederick Arnold Kummer wrote the libretto.
A Memorial Concert for Gustav Strube took place in the Peabody Con-
servatory on September 30, 1953. The spontaneous response of the per-
formers as well as the audience originated out of personal fondness for a
man and his work. The program offered a good cross-section of the great
variety of Strube's compositions:
Elegie for String Orchestra;
Serenade for String Orchestra;
Concertino for Violin and Orchestra;
Prayer from Goethe's "Iphigenie" for Mezzo
Soprano and Orchestra;
Trio for Horn, Clarinet and Piano;
Praeludium from a String Quartet;
"Widmung" for a Capella Male Chorus;
Poem for Violin and Orchestra;
Nocturne for Orchestra;
Black Bess March, for Orchestra.
Mr. Weldon Wallace, well known music critic of the Baltimore Sun wrote
the following day: "Mr. Strube was nurtured in the German musical cli-
mate of the nineteenth century. His works are rooted in the strict academic
craft of the Leipzig conservatory and colored by the autumnal golds and
wines that shaded the music of Brahms. His Elegie which opened last
nights program is imbued with Brahmisian hues. His Nocturne, another of
last night's presentations, suggests the early Schoenberg of Transfigured
Night—the chromatic feeling, the surge of Wagner without the flamboy-
ance. Strube the composer was in the ascendancy in the Prayer from
Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris. In its combination of declamation and
melodic impulse this composition has a supleness and expressiveness that
give it an honorable place among German Lieder.
Strube the teacher dominated the Trio for horn, clarinet and piano, in
which his interest in the problems of composition lasted longer than his
inspiration. Strube the man of caustic wit was represented in the Prae-
ludium from a String Quartet of 1939. This delightful work is one that
proves the composer's adaptability to the musical styles that grew up
around him. It is modern in clipped themes, broken rhythms and dry
texture—yet the craftsman is present too, for one can clearly follow the
manner in which the four instruments play about with the motifs. Strube
relaxing with cigar and stein among his friends is pictured in the little march
Black Bess, a real beer-hall selection—the lighter side of the German
melodic tradition followed by the composer."
For a third of a century Gustav Strube helped to shape the musical life
of Baltimore. Through his compositions he will be remembered in the future
beyond the bounds of Baltimore, wherever the language of music is
understood.
OTTO H. FRANKE
[77]
OTTO M. DUBRAU deserves a place of prominence among the Balti-
moreans of German extraction who have left a deep impression upon the
community. Born in Cottbus in the Niederlausitz on May 18, 1874, he
emigrated to America before the end of the nineteenth century. Before
deciding on this venture, he lived through the smallpox epidemic in Ham-
burg where he fearlessly contributed toward alleviating the suffering of
many stricken persons and helped to bury the many thousand victims of
the scourge. Arriving in the United States in 1895, he soon established him-
self in his chosen field of interior decorating and pursued it successfully
until his death on October 30, 1955. As a man of vision, and possessing an
innate business acumen, he showed no prejudice toward race or creed.
Protestant churches of various denominations as well as Catholic churches
and Jewish synagogues were given the same meticulous attention of his
artistry. Not only throughout Baltimore and the surrounding Maryland
countryside, but also in adjoining states his church decorations stand as his
monument to posterity.
"As a man thinketh, so is he." Otto M. DuBrau thought in terms of
agreeable social contacts; he enjoyed the company of all people, even at the
expense of an occasional flare-up of temper. If we want to characterize him
we could perhaps say: he was a non-conforming conformist, an individual
of distinction in thought and action. He denounced convention when, in his
opinion convention was dictated by bias and prejudice, or when tradition
compelled a warped trend of thought, or forced an inequitable decision.
Throughout his life his spirit was indomitable, his courage unflinching in
carrying out ideas which he considered right. In his vocation as well as in
his avocations he consistently aimed at perfection and kept the thought of
monetary rewards in the background.
He loved life in all its varied forms and associations. For many years
he and his wife, Louise C. DuBrau, nee Müller, were active in the life of the
Zion Church, its Sunday School and its German Saturday classes, all with
the specific intent of preserving the language and tradition of their German
antecedents. It was this interest in his German heritage which induced him
in taking an active part in the construction of the present Parish House
of Zion Church.
His liking for people and his far-reaching diversified interests made him
join a great number of organizations, among them the Germania Club, the
Harmonic Singing Society, the Society of Technologists, the Association of
Interior Decorators, the German Orphan Home, the German Aged Peoples
Home, the German Society of Maryland and our own Society for the
History of the Germans in Maryland. He gave evidence of his particular
interest in the objectives of our Society when in 1945 he financed the print-
ing of our Twenty-sixth Report. His love for the finer things in life induced
him to join the Schlaraffia Society, when a group of that world-wide organi-
zation established a branch in Baltimore seventeen years ago. To the
Schlaraffia he gave his heart and soul, especially after the death of his wife
in 1944, and, in return, he enjoyed the opportunity for self-expression within
this congenial group. He was a lover of symphony concerts, recitals and
choral singing. Above all he valued a stimulating conversation among
friends, especially when the spirit was lifted by a glass of sparkling wine or
foaming beer. He was a connoisseur of all the delicacies of kitchen and
cellar, a traveller of note (not just a tourist), and no trip was too long, no
way too arduous, for he knew where to stop and relax, wherever an excel-
lent cuisine and the choiciest wines were to be found. In many ways he
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reminded his friends of another outstanding individual of German extrac-
tion in Baltimore, H. L. Mencken, with whom he shared his interest in the
graphic arts, in painting, in music, in politics and the whole parade of
human endeavors. Withal, time was only relative to him: "Dem Glück-
lichen schlug keine Stunde"—until the last.
ADOLF C. DREYER
IGNAZ WILHELM DIEPGEN, who died in Baltimore on June 12,
1952, was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, May 7, 1884, descendant of a
prominent family, with a long line of doctors, scholars, city-councillors,
statesmen, lawyers. His father headed a wholesale cement business, with
offices in the harbor of Düsseldorf. The boy received a good education in
the local Gymnasium, entered his father's business, and after his father's
death took it over. He served in the army as Einjähriger, came to the
United States before the First World War, returned to Germany about
1914, was an infantry-soldier before Verdun, till 1918, and at the end of the
war became a lieutenant. He married in 1915, came to Havana, Cuba,
about 1923, entering an export-import-business in coffee and coffee-ma-
chines. He learned to speak Spanish fluently. About 1926 he came to
Washington, D. C., serving as "maitre-d'hotel" in the Hamilton Hotel, up
to about 1937, when he went to Baltimore. There he worked in various
positions, among them as manager of the Deutsche Haus. In the last years
before his death he was a real estate salesman. He was survived by his
wife and two daughters.
In 1933 he joined the German Club Schlaraffia since he loved art,
literature, humor, music, and was well-read in modern German literature,
Goethe, Schiller, Droste, Heine (who hailed from his home town Düssel-
dorf). He cherished the hunting-stories of Hermann Löns and the humor
of his native Rhineland. His recitations kept his audience in the best of
spirits. The Schlaraffia chapter of Baltimore was founded by I. W. Diepgen.
In spite of many reverses and private tribulations he never complained;
he never grumbled. His pipe was a symbol of contentment and understand-
ing of life, its burdens and joys. With his idealism and integrity he was
an irreparable optimist. His experience in war and peace provided him with
a rare emotional stability. He excelled by exceptional loyalty to his friends
and duties and devotion to his family. His lofty concept of life, with its
flashes of the noble and trivial, his intellect and heart endeared him to all
who had the privilege of knowing him.
PAUL G. GLEIS †
HENRY L. WIENEFELD died in Baltimore on August 30, 1955, in
his 85th year. With him there passed a personality of rare traits and
eminent capabilities of leadership. A natural friendliness, a sincere love
of people, won him a host of friends in all classes and among men of every
lineage, faith and color. He owned a cigar factory from which he retired
after some thirty years in 1925. He was born in Rothenburg an der Fulda
in Hesse-Kassel on January 27, 1871. For many years he held important
positions of trust in German-American circles. He was the president of the
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church council of Zion Church for many years. As president of the Can-
statter Volksfest Verein he organized the annual festivals around the tradi-
tional fruit column. He was at the head of the Sängerfest Association for
the tri-ennial Sängerfest of the North-Eastern National Sängerbund and
was mainly responsible for the splendid success of this event in May of
1938 which was held in the Fifth Regiment Armory. He served as a director
of the Greisenheim, was president of the Arion Singing Society for nearly
twenty-five years; he was an active member and past-member of Sincerity
Lodge No. 181. He founded the Männerverein of Zion Church and for
years was its president. In 1907 he was elected to the City Council, serving
several terms. Here he won the friendship of Howard W. Jackson who
often consulted him during his political career. Mr. Wienefeld frequently
was offered political appointments, but declined every time. Yet he held
the high esteem of political leaders of all parties. In the City Hall, in An-
napolis, on Capitol Hill in Washington he always found open doors. His
business invariably was in the interest of people in distress. Among the
judges of the Baltimore courts and of the Federal Courts he was praised for
his sound judgment and his humane attitude in services on juries and grand
juries. He found his way to the White House for a personal plea to Presi-
dent Truman in the interest of German-American societies engaged in
cultural and humanitarian endeavors. Their exemption from federal taxa-
tion was upheld. Mr. Wienefeld was deeply interested in the history of the
American of German birth or descent. Besides our own society he was a
regular attendant at meetings of the Maryland Historical Society. He was
charitable, kind, ever ready to help with any sacrifice of time and strength.
In 1900 he was married to Marie Overmann who survives him together with
his son, Robert, professor of history at the University of South Carolina in
Columbia, and his daughter, Marie Wienefeld, a teacher in our public
schools.
FRITZ O. EVERS
JACOB GROSS, JR. was born in Baltimore on January 14, 1885. He
attended the public schools, but started to work when he was fourteen
years old as office boy with the Fidelity Fire Insurance Company of Balti-
more. The hours were long, the salary meager but to him the work was so
fascinating that it led to a life of full activity in the insurance field until he
retired in October 1948.
After the Baltimore fire in February 1904, he became associated with
the Boston Insurance Company and two years later with Post & Feele-
meyer. When Mr. Post died, Mr. Gross organized the firm of Post, Gross,
Cunningham and Coale which later was changed to Jacob Gross, Jr., Inc.
He also was one of a group which organized the Homestead Fire Insurance
Company of Baltimore and served as its Vice-President for many years.
Other activities were associated with the Salvage Corps, the Association of
Fire Underwriters of Baltimore City and the Binder Club. Although the
insurance business occupied much of his time, he completed certain studies
at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and later at the University of Mary-
land. After graduation, he passed his bar examination but did not forsake
the insurance field for a legal career.
In spite of these various demands upon his time, he had wide outside
interests. Among these was his service in several important capacities in
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the Grand Lodge of Maryland, the Kiwanis Club, the Boys Home Society
and the McDonogh School. However, the mainspring of his life and his
inspiration was the word of God. As a boy he attended Port Mission; as a
young man he entered whole-heartedly its many activities; as an older man
he served as its Vice-President, a strong and wise counsellor. He was on the
board of the Maryland Bible Society and was a member of the First English
Lutheran Church. He was one of those rare individuals who prospered in
the material things of life without sacrificing the spiritual.
Jacob Gross died on May 26, 1954, survived by his wife Alice Gross, nee
Leonard and a daughter.
EDWARD T. MILLER
WILLIAM SCHMIDT, JR. was born in Baltimore on September 4,
1882 and died here on February 18, 1955, survived by his wife Ada B.
Schmidt. Both his parents were German immigrants. At an early age he
was employed by a local public utility company which long, ago became
part of the present Baltimore Gas & Electric Company. Beginning his
training before the turn of the century, he rose during fifty-six years of
service from the bottom through rank after rank until he became Chairman
of the Board and the guiding hand of the Company. In order to equip him-
self for his responsibilities he studied, at night, accounting and law and in
1910 became a member of the Bar.
His career was marked at once by singleness of purpose and by wide-
spread activities, in all of which he served with distinction. Thus, he was
active in his church, St. Matthew's Evangelical and Reformed Church.
He showed his tireless energy in national bodies representing the gas and
electric industry. As a good citizen he devised methods to carry on the
government of his city. He was a member of the board and committees of
the Fidelity Trust Company, the Maryland Casualty Company, the Ma-
sonic Order (in which he reached the highest, or thirty-third degree) and
many other civic bodies and financial institutions. His membership in the
Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland is evidence of his
continued interest in the ties that carried him back to his German heritage,
whose virtues he typified in such high degrees.
GEORG PAUSCH
CHARLES ALVIN RIEBLING was the son of George H. Riebling
and his wife Elizabeth who came to America from Neukirchen in Northern
Germany. The year of their arrival is not known. They lived for awhile
in New York and then moved to Baltimore where George Riebling worked
as a wood carver. His son Charles A. Riebling was born in Baltimore on
June 4, 1887. At school age he entered the English-German School No. 2.
Early in his career he was a salesman for a number of candy manufacturers.
On October 1, 1929 he joined the staff of the Equitable Trust Company as
a Vice-President in the Trust Department, specializing in the development
of new business. He also developed the Life Insurance Loan Department
of his company. His forceful, yet gracious personality stood him in good
stead; he was well liked by all his associates. He remained with the
Equitable Trust Company until his sudden death on January 28, 1955.
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Mr. Riebling was a member of the First Unitarian Church and was for
many years its treasurer and investment advisor. During the last decade
of his life he organized "The South Baltimore Boys," an organization of
business and professional men who were born in South Baltimore. Its
membership embraces many successful and prominent citizens, including
the present Governor of Maryland, the Hon. Theodore R. McKeldin. The
members gather once a year for a dinner and have a most enjoyable time
reminiscing about the old days in South Baltimore.
Mr. Riebling was survived by his wife, Marian K. Riebling; however,
she died very soon after her husbands death. They are survived by a son
and two daughters.
FREDERICK RIEBLING
PAUL G. GLEIS. The many lengthy, warm, and sincere tributes that
appeared in American and German newspapers and periodicals gave clear
evidence that with the passing away of Professor Paul G. Gleis an outstand-
ing scholar, teacher, lover of German culture, friend and human being
departed. A life of great activity ended on July 11, 1955.
Professor Gleis was born on January 5, 1887 at Rheine, Westphalia—a
region of Germany to which he remained deeply attached throughout his
life. After the completion of the public and secondary schools of his native
city, he studied at the Universities of Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, and Münster.
In 1911 the University of Münster conferred upon him the doctor's degree
"summa cum laude." Immediately upon graduation Dr. Gleis received a
call from the Catholic University of America at Washington, D. C. as pro-
fessor and head of the Department of German Philology and Literature and
Comparative Philology. The association with this institution lasted for
forty-four years until his death.
Professor Gleis has left many a monument that will stand as a lasting
tribute to his rich life. There are his activities as a profound, spirited, and
animated teacher and scholar. He was, without doubt, one of the out-
standing educators in his field. His training in the field of philology was
profound and comprehensive. At the same time it was to him not a
means to an end but the key which leads to an understanding of the litera-
tures and other cultural achievements.
Great demands he made of his candidates for an advanced degree, but
unsparingly he gave of his time, knowledge, his pedagogical talents, and
his enthusiasm in order to lead his students to an appreciation of sound
scholarship and research. This phase of his endeavor has found its deposi-
tory in the twenty-six volumes of the Catholic University Studies in Ger-
man of which he was the editor. Numerous articles from his pen appeared
in professional and learned journals, such as the Germanic Review, Catholic
Historical Review, Journal of American Folklore, Commenweal, American-
German Review, and in the Reports of the Society for the History of the
Germans in Maryland.
With the dynamic energy that was a constant wonder to his friends,
Professor Gleis during his entire life stood in the midst of all endeavors
having to do with German culture and was one of the leading men of the
German colony in the Nation's Capital. In the dark days of World War I
and in the course of the unfortunate happenings in Germany leading up to
World War II, he represented with dignity and courage such phases of
German achievements which in his opinion deserve upholding. During the
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thirty years as writer of the editorials of the Washington Journal he advo-
cated the best of Christian-German tradition. Rightly the Baltimore Cor-
respondent in its obituary called Dr. Gleis "The Nestor of the German
Language in Washington." Many German societies of Washington claimed
his membership and received his active support.
It is very much in place to briefly touch upon another aspect of his
personality, his warm humaneness which endeared Professor Gleis to his
family and friends. He always stood ready to help anyone who needed his
assistance, thereby winning the abiding affection and respect of those who
came in contact with him.
AUGUSTUS J. P®AHL
HERMANN G. WINKLER who died in Washington on October 5,
1954 was born in Bunzlau, Silesia on January 12, 1888. He was still a young
boy when his family moved to Western Germany. In the little Westphalian
town of Halver he served as a printer's apprentice and at the age of
twenty-three he emigrated to the United States. He settled in Washington,
D. C. and lived here all his life. In 1913 he became editor and manager of
the Washington Journal, the only German language paper of the capital.
The Journal had been founded in 1859. In its history there had been more
"downs" than "ups," and just at the time when he assumed the editorship
it was in another financial crisis. Hermann Winkler, in 1915, used all his
savings to buy the Washington Journal and thus save it from premature
demise. From then on until his death he (together with his friend, Dr.
Paul Gleis) carefully guided the paper through the difficult years of two
world wars and their aftermaths. From a strict business point of view the
Journal never was a lucrative venture. Only an editor-owner who con-
sidered the sentimental and idealistic elements of such an undertaking could
carry on with so much perseverance, patience and enthusiasm.
Editors of German-American newspapers often become the point of
crystallization for German-American activities in their communities. Her-
mann Winkler became known among the Germans in Washington particu-
larly in the years after the first World War when he founded an organization
to alleviate the misery of war widows and orphans in Germany and Austria.
Due to his efforts the sum of almost $50,000 was raised for this charitable
purpose. He was one of the founders of the Concord Club, was instru-
mental in the founding of a Saturday school for the children of German
parents and participated in the affairs of the Concordia Church, of the
German Orphan Home and of the Prospect Hill Cemetery Association.
As a member of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland
he showed his appreciation for the value of historical records when he
deposited all old volumes of the Washington Journal in the Library of
Congress where they now are available for historical research.
In 1938 Mr. Winkler added to his business a travel agency which ex-
panded rapidly in the years after the war. He is survived by his wife, Mrs.
Gertrud Winkler (nee Schilling) and two sons Carl and Hermann. Mr.
Carl H. Winkler took over the duties of his father as publisher of the Wash-
ington Journal and as director of the travel agency.
After all this has been told, a word remains to be said about what
counts more than all facts and figures: that he was one of the kindest,
friendliest and most warm hearted men we have known. His balance and
poise, his soft spoken voice and his disarming smile will long be remembered.
DIETER CUNZ
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