Gans, Werner Joachim (31457356)

Werner Joachim Gans
Personal details
Birth name	Werner Joachim Gans
Born	1923 Mannheim, Germany
Died	18 December 2012 Needham, Massachusetts
Nativity	Germany
Religion	Jewish
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	31457356
Enlisted	Ft Devens, Massachusetts

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Werner Joachim Gans (1923–18 December 2012) was a Mannheim-born U.S. Army Ritchie Boy who trained at Camp Ritchie as a German-language interrogator and document translator, then stayed on to instruct recruits. He later translated captured papers in Washington and spent most of the war interrogating German prisoners on an island facility in Boston Harbor. After the war he worked in business in Greater Boston and played cello with the Newton Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Civic Symphony.

Biography

Werner Joachim Gans was born in 1923 in Mannheim, Germany, into a comfortable household; his father, Moritz, ran S. Ganss Oil and Fat Manufacture. Werner started violin at six and cello at ten. Antisemitism made schooling harder at home, and at thirteen he was sent alone to Milan to study music. He returned when the family secured a transit visa to Cuba—his father, after paying a fine to recover a confiscated passport, sold insecticide there with one Spanish sales pitch—and they left Germany in October 1938, just before Kristallnacht. An aunt was later lost. Werner reached Boston in February 1939 at fifteen on a music-conservatory scholarship; his parents joined him more than two years later.

When the war began he was classed as an enemy alien by the Massachusetts draft board—“as if I wanted Hitler to win,” he later joked—and it took about eighteen months before he was cleared to serve. A hoped-for debut as a cellist with the Boston Pops was cut short when he was drafted. Inducted at Fort Devens, he went briefly to Camp Grant, Illinois, for medical-corps training before the Army sent him to Camp Ritchie as a native German speaker. There he trained in interrogation, document translation, and intelligence analysis, then stayed several months instructing new arrivals.

From Ritchie he spent three or four months in Washington, D.C., living in a hotel and working largely alone translating captured German naval and army documents. He remembered “APO 1142” and appears on P.O. Box 1142 rosters, but he was unsure whether he ever worked physically at Fort Hunt. Most of the rest of the war he spent on Long Island in Boston Harbor, living on the island and interrogating German prisoners brought by boat—enlisted men and officers, with some scientists mixed in—using psychological pressure rather than force: the threat of Soviet captivity, fear for families in bombed cities, and at times his own identity as a German Jew. “Our job was to find out everything we could about the Nazi installations,” he told the Boston Globe, “where they had been and where the troops were headed.”

After Germany’s surrender he lacked the points for discharge and toured with a Victory Bond musical unit around Boston. He was discharged on 14 May 1946 at Fort Devens. In 1947 he met Florence Kalis at the International Institute in Boston; she guessed that his middle initial “J” stood for Joachim, and they married in 1948. He set music aside as a full-time career, worked in business (including at the New England Mobile Book Fair), and kept playing—Newton Symphony Orchestra and twenty-two years as a cellist with the Boston Civic Symphony, where he also served on the board. He lived in Newton for more than sixty years and died of kidney disease on 18 December 2012 at Wingate at Needham, at 89.

Research notes

• Also appears in joint NPS Fort Hunt oral history with Werner Herbert Gumpertz and Henry Schwab.
• Camp Ritchie MIS training and instructor; Washington document translation; Boston Harbor POW interrogation (NPS oral history).
• Named on P.O. Box 1142 rosters / remembered APO 1142; interviewee unsure he was physically stationed at Fort Hunt.
• Postwar musical work (New England Philharmonic / CSU notes).

Gallery

No portrait on file yet.

Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	89
Nara ASN	31457356
Nara Name	GANS WERNER J
Nara State	13
Nara County	25
Nara POE	1328
Nara DOE	230344
Nara Grade Alpha	PVT
Nara Grade Code	8
Nara Branch Alpha	NO
Nara Branch Code	2
Branch	No branch assignment
Nara Term or Enlistment	5
Term of enlistment	Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Defer. Date	0
Nara Source	0
Nara Nativity	N1
Nara Year of Birth	23
Nara Race	J
Nara Race Description	White not yet a citizen
Nara Education	7
Nara Civilian Occupation	24
Nara Marital Status	6
Nara Height (inches)	0
Nara Weight (lbs)	0
row_source	demographics

Timeline

• 1923 — Born in Mannheim, Germany (middle name Joachim).
• Age 13 — Sent alone to Milan to study cello; family fled via Cuba (October 1938); arrived Boston February 1939 on a conservatory scholarship.
• 1939–c. 1941 — Classed as enemy alien; parents joined later.
• Induction — Fort Devens; brief Camp Grant medical training; Camp Ritchie MIS training and instructor duty.
• Late 1943 – early 1944 — Washington document translation; APO 1142 / possible administrative link to P.O. Box 1142.
• Remainder of war — Long Island, Boston Harbor: interrogating German POWs.
• After VE Day — Victory Bond musical unit; discharged 14 May 1946 at Fort Devens.
• 1948 — Married Florence Kalis; later business career; Newton / Boston Civic Symphony cello.
• 18 December 2012 — Died at Wingate at Needham (kidney disease), age 89; longtime Newton resident.

Sources

• Boston Globe — Michele Richinick, “Werner Gans, businessman; cellist fled from Holocaust,” 3 January 2013 (ProQuest clipping)
• Jewish Advocate — Hinda Mandell, “Local ‘Ritchie Boy’ reaches into the past,” 8 September 2006 (ProQuest clipping)
• Boston Globe — Susan Chaityn Lebovits, “Jewish refugee’s weapon: words,” 3 September 2006 (ProQuest clipping)
• NPS Fort Hunt Oral History — joint interview with Werner Gans, Werner Gumpertz, and Henry Schwab (formerly published on the NPS Fort Hunt oral-history exhibit)
• NPS Fort Hunt Oral History — Werner Gans interview transcript (Camp Ritchie training and instructor; Washington document translation; Boston Harbor interrogation; APO 1142 memory; formerly published on the NPS Fort Hunt oral-history exhibit)
• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)