Georg Schanzer

Born:	10-26-1914
Faculty:	Law School
Category:	Expelled student

Georg Oswald SCHANZER, born on October 26^th, 1914 in Vienna as the son of Ing. Rudolf Schanzer (senior civil engineer of the OeBB|Austrian Railway Company) and Jenny, née Thewett, lived in Vienna's 13^th district, Lautensackgasse 5 and had converted from Jewish to Roman-Catholic religion on March 22^nd, 1937, but was nevertheless persecuted as a Jew under National Socialism for racist reasons. He had studied law at the School of Law and Political Science and had also worked as a journalist on the side since 1936, and was no longer taking courses at the University of Vienna in 1938, but was already at the stage of final examinations ("Rigorosen"). After a long period of uncertainty, he was able to complete his law studies and to graduate on July 21^st, 1938, but only with the discriminating ceremony of a "Nichtarierpromotion", which included at the same time that he was banned from his profession in the entire German Reich. Georg Oswald Schanzer and his brother Walter Ludwig (1908-1995) had to flee from Vienna and managed to get from a visit to Yugoslavia to England on September 2^nd, 1938, where Georg Oswald was able to study Modern Languages and lived at 96 Southmoor Rd, Oxford. On October 17^th, 1939 he obtained a U.S. visa at the U.S. Embassy in London and was able to emigrate on November 15^th, 1939 from Southampton, England, on the ship SS President Harding together with his brother (who had worked on a chicken farm in England and lived at Hook Norton NrBanbury, Oxon.) to the U.S. where they arrived in New York City, NY on November 24^th, 1939, originally intending to go to their aunt S. Baum at 1038, 2nd Street, Santa Monica, California. Their parents were unable to escape from Vienna in time: Their mother Jenny Schanzer (née Thewett, 1886-1943) and their father Rudolf Schanzer (1879-1943) were deported from Vienna to the Łódź Ghetto in Poland on October 28^th, 1941, where the father was murdered in early 1942 and the mother in 1943. Georg Oswald Schanzer, who officially anglicized his name in the U.S. to George O. Schanzer, studied Romance Languages at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and taught Latin and Greek at Conception Abbey in Missouri until 1942, then did wartime service in the U.S. Army (in North Africa and Italy). In 1946, he earned a master's degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, in Romance languages with a thesis entitled "The Raquel de Toledo matter as a controversial subject in European literature". Schanzer received his "PhD" grade from Iowa State University in 1950 with the thesis "Vida y obras de Ernesto Herrera (1889-1917). Primer bohemio y segundo dramaturgo del Uruguay" ("Life and Works of Ernesto Herrera [1889-1917]. First bohemian and second dramaturg of Uruguay") and taught at various universities in the United States, including as teaching assistant at the State University of Iowa in 1945-46, assistant professor at the Universiy of Kansas, Lawrence in 1948-52, at St. Johns University Jamaica, New York in 1952-64 (associate professor in 1952, full professor in 1957-64). In 1964 he was appointed Professor of Spanish-American Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo (until retirement in 1985). His research interests were in the areas of Ibero-American literature, Spanish-Russian relations, and comparative literature - his works include "Russian literature in the Hispanic world. A bibliography. La literatura rusa en el mundo hispánico. Bibliografía (Toronto 1972) and "The persistence of human passions. Manuel Mujica Láinez's satirical neo-modernism" (London 1986).
He was a member of the MLA, Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, the International lbero-American Literature, the International Association of Hispanists and the Latin American Studies Association. He was married to translator and interviewer Maria Montanari Schanzer (1923-1991) since 1944 and they had four children: Emily Jane "Jenny" Kracklauer, née Schanzer (1946), Louis Lakshyan Schanzer (1949), Monica Schanzer (1955) and Robert W. Schanzer (1958).

Prof. George O. Schanzer, MA, PhD. deceades on May 23rd, 2011 in Buffalo, New York/USA and is buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Cheektowaga, Erie County, New York, USA.

Lit.: CHRISTMANN/HAUSMANN/BRIEGEL 1989, 319f.; POSCH 2009, 373; information from Frank-Rutger Hausmann 2017; www.genteam.at; obituary; Wikipedia; memorial stones; www.ancestry.de.

Herbert Posch