A. E. ZUCKER
(1890-1971)
For the third time in the short span of two years, our Society and
the German Department of the University of Maryland had to take
leave of a man whose work and life indelibly mark past and present
achievements of these two institutions. Individually and collectively—
Dieter Cunz, Augustus J. Prahl and A. E. Zucker—eminent scholars
and administrators gave shape and direction to the Society and to the
Department in the difficult years before, during and after the Second
World War. Professor Zucker was in a sense teacher, guide and mentor
of his two younger colleagues. Both were led by him into the fruitful
field of German-American studies and it was no doubt his own enthusi-
asm for the great heritage of the German Forty-Eighters that inspired
Cunz and Prahl in their research into the brightest chapter of the
German contribution to American life. No time in recent history
could have been more propitious for the study of the democratic
movements of the Forty-Eighters than the post-1945 era when the
Germans in Europe were groping for a light that would lead them
out of the darkness. Zucker and his friends shared the faith and hope
that a nation which produced the leaders of 1848 would also be capable
of building a strong democracy out of the shambles left by tyranny.
Unlike his two friends, Ad Zucker was American-born but reared in
the German-American climate of the pre-World War I Midwest.
Throughout his lifetime, he combined the best of the two cultures.
In his research and scholarship there was enough of German perfection
to let him excel while his relations with peers and with students were
marked by the warm, easy-going friendliness so common in midwestern
America.
Adolf Zucker was born October 26, 1890 in Fort Wayne, Indiana,
where he received his early schooling at Concordia College. He earned
his A. B. from the University of Illinois in 1912 and his M. A. a year
later from the same institution. He had chosen as his specialty Ger-
manic Languages and Literatures, but his historical and literary inter-
ests ranged over a much wider field, as his later publications were to
show. In 1917, under the aegis of Professor Marion Dexter Learned,
he completed his doctoral dissertation dealing with Robert Reitzel, the
editor of the Detroit German language weekly Der arme Teufel.
After completing his formal schooling he accepted a position for
the academic year 1917-1918 as instructor at Tsing Hua College in
China and for five years thereafter was assistant professor of Com-
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(Courtesy: University of Maryland)
A. E. ZUCKER
Painting by Colonel James P. Wharton
position and Literature at Peking Union Medical College. Here Dr.
Zucker's interest in comparative studies first became manifest, for
he introduced his students not only to English authors and works, but
to the western literary tradition from the Greek Epic and Drama to
George B. Shaw. No textbook existed for this purpose, however; it
was left for Dr. Zucker to produce one. The four volume anthology
entitled Western Literature was published in China (Shanghai, 1922).
Zucker at that early date stressed his purpose "to free the readers
from the bigotry of isolation and the prejudice of ignorance." The
plan of the book consisted of one work for each of the thirty-two weeks
of the school year. Each of the four volumes had eight works and each
selection was presented with an eight to ten page introduction which
was to lead the student to an appreciation of the work. The anthology
passed through a number of editions and was even used at the Uni-
versity of Maryland after 1924.
Another outgrowth of Professor Zucker's stay in China was his
book, The Chinese Theater, published by Little, Brown & Co. in Boston
in 1925. It is one of the first studies which provides an insight into
the Chinese stage and its differences as well as similarities to the
European theater tradition. With his thorough knowledge of Greek
and Elizabethan theater and his firsthand observations of the Chinese
theater, Professor Zucker's book is still quite readable today and
provides interesting parallels to the dramatic arts as practiced in China
since the Cultural Revolution.
Three years after the Maryland State College of Agriculture became
the University of Maryland in 1923, Professor Zucker became Professor
and Head of the Foreign Language Department. In 1929 he published
a book which was to become his best known work: Ibsen, The Master
Builder. (Henry Holt, New York) It was translated into several
languages and highly acclaimed by critics. When one views the breadth
of knowledge which Professor Zucker manifests in his first two books,
it is not surprising that his courses in Comparative Literature were
considered a "must" for many a student of the humanities at the
University of Maryland.
In 1935, Dr. Zucker left College Park to serve for two years as
Head of the German Department at the University of North Carolina
and subsequently for one year at Indiana University in the same
capacity. But the familiar surroundings in Maryland beckoned again
and in 1938 he accepted the position as Head of the Department of
Foreign Languages, a post he was to hold until his retirement in 1961.
It is almost impossible to do justice to the diversity of Dr. Zucker's
interests and scholarly pursuits. They virtually spanned three con-
tinents. In his youth he had completed his formal schooling with
studies at the Sorbonne and at the universities of Berlin and Munich.
In later years he was to renew these European contacts. At the end
of World War II he served for two years as Textbook Censor with the
Allied Control Council in Germany, lectured in 1947 at several German
universities and was chosen in 1949 as America's representative to
the bi-centennial of Goethe's birth in Frankfurt. Soon, in 1950 he
returned to Germany and served for a year as Director of the European
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Theater of University College in Heidelberg. It is indicative of Dr.
Zucker's life-long interest in comparative studies that in 1958 he
should represent the University of Maryland at the Conference of
Oriental Classics held at Columbia.
The Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, naturally,
is most grateful for the scholar's life on account of his far-reaching
influence on the study of German-American history. He was instru-
mental in paving the way for the major project of the Society, The
Maryland Germans by Dieter Cunz. From 1940 until 1956 he was
the First Vice President, from 1956 until 1962 the President of our
Society. Earlier he had served as Director of Research of the Carl
Schurz Memorial Foundation in Philadelphia during a time when it
was at its height of scholarship and research. Zucker's activities at
the Foundation are gratefully remembered by countless intellectual
refugees from Central Europe for whom he found worthy projects that
launched them into new careers in the United States.
Among his own writings on Americana Germanica—and they are
numerous—two volumes have become classics in the field. In 1950
he edited and partly authored the remarkable collection of essays and
biographies The Forty-Eighters for Columbia University Press. The
impending bi-centennial of the American Revolution was anticipated
by A. E. Zucker when he devoted his spare time of several years to
the first comprehensive study of the German peasant boy who became
Major General of the American army, Johannes Kalb. The results
were published in book form by the University of North Carolina
Press in 1966 under the title General De Kalb, Lafayette's Mentor.
Separating facts from fiction, Zucker made a significant contribution
to the history of the American army of revolutionary days.
In a recent tribute to A. E. Zucker, Otto H. Franke, who suc-
ceeded him as President of the Society, stressed the personal qualities
of his predecessor. Striking for all who knew him in the intimate circle
of friends was his keen and international sense of humor. It became
evident in public when he introduced the guest speakers at our
meetings. He demanded meticulous scholarship from the lecturers but
abhorred the tierische Ernst that prevails in so many historical
gatherings.
Few of his friends really noticed when he retired officially from
the University of Maryland in 1961 and became Emeritus Professor.
Several years of a very active life followed. In 1966/7 he was visiting
professor of German at Southern Illinois University. Only a prolonged
illness could force him to curtail and finally give up his many duties
and pursuits. He died on May 13, 1971. Today Dr. Zucker's portrait
hangs at the entrance of the German Department of the University of
Maryland. He is wearing his doctoral robes and the Bundesverdienst-
kreuz, a decoration he received in recognition of his contributions to
German culture and scholarship in the United States.
WALTER KNOCHE
and KLAUS WUST
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