Alumni News
Tom Callahan (SFS, 1965) shared the following remembrance of Georg von Ihering, instructor of German at Georgetown University.
My German teacher at Georgetown was Georg von Ihering. It was a joy to meet him three times a week for two academic years.
Assistant Professor of German Georg von Ihering
He was a graduate of the University of Berlin, around 1924, so he was about sixty when I knew him. He had taught foreign languages in Germany in the 1920s and 30s, and then he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. They made him a lieutenant, and he served the entire war in Berlin. He led a team of intelligence soldiers who translated captured documents written in Greek.
The British conducted a massive bombardment of Berlin one day, and Georg’s boss gave him permission to leave work to check on his wife. It was a long walk, and there were fires along the way. The Berliners had learned to take cover. That day, though, the bombs had struck the Berlin Zoo, which he had to pass on the way home. It was then and is now the biggest zoo in Europe. His memory, 18 years later, of his horror at hearing the animals scream furled his brow and broke the rhythm of his speaking.
Georg was a small man, probably 5′ 3″ and weighed about 120 pounds. He had a huge mop of grey hair, and his voice was very deep, like that of Sam Elliott. He was a cellist who played with friends in a string quartet. He was also a great fan of American music, and he had learned to play guitar well enough to accompany himself or a group of people in singing various traditional American songs, like She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes.
He was also a fun-loving person and had founded what he called the Georgetown German Club. The club was open to everyone, regardless of their interest or lack of interest in German. The allure of the club were the parties he and wife threw on Friday nights, about once every two months, at their apartment in Arlington. His wife made a huge cauldron of Mitternachtsuppe, a split pea and ham soup served at midnight because Catholics did not eat meat on Fridays. It was unbelievably delicious.
He was a memorably kind man, and to the students in the class who had an “A” average, he would give books for Christmas. The other thing I remember about that class was trips to the language lab to listen to recordings. We were there to hone our ability to pronounce German and learn the typical tempo of German speakers. I have heard people claim that German sounds unpleasant. I think they have seen too many propaganda movies.