Land, Hans Alan (31316107): Difference between revisions

Hans Alan Land was born in Berlin on June 9, 1922, to Gustav and Martha Bud Land. On 1939-1942, College in U. On 20 July 1943, Became naturalized citizen. Was member of MII 430-G attached to 5th Infantry Division. Gustav, a Danzig-born astronomer who had served in the First World War, worked in Germany during the unstable interwar years. As Nazi antisemitism narrowed the family's future, Hans's parents sought a safe education for their son outside the country. From 1937 to 1939 Land attended Ackworth School, a Quaker school in England. The school gave him safety and an English-language education while his family worked to escape Germany. The Lands eventually made their way through London to the United States, where connections with Swarthmore College and Yale University helped the family begin again. Although a refugee from Nazi persecution, Land was initially classified as an enemy alien and questioned by the FBI. Once inducted into the Army, he first trained as a medic at Camp Pickett. His German language, education, and intimate knowledge of Germany led to reassignment to Camp Ritchie for military intelligence training. Land was sent to Britain, where he worked with British military intelligence, and then assigned to the 5th Infantry Division after the Battle of the Bulge. He crossed the Rhine and advanced into Germany, including Frankfurt. His duties included examining German school textbooks for evidence of Nazi indoctrination and helping evaluate records useful to the occupation and denazification effort. Among the records Land encountered were files associated with the ADAC motor organization that could help identify SS affiliations. His command of German institutions and language allowed him to interpret material that was obscure to soldiers without his background. In this work, the country from which his family had escaped became the object of his intelligence analysis. After the war Land studied at Yale and earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1949. He served in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State and later entered private legal practice. He married Erika Feldmann in 1958 and died on May 29, 2021. See the [[The Stories/Hans A. Land|full story]].