Hans L. Trefousse

Hans L. Trefousse
Personal details
Born	18 December 1921 Frankfurt, Germany
Died	8 January 2010 Staten Island, New York
Nativity	Germany
Religion	Jewish
Known for	Author, Historian, Professor
Awards	Bronze Star
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
Arm / service	Quartermaster Corps
ASN	01590860
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Rank at Ritchie	Second Lieutenant
Camp Ritchie	Class 8 (17 May – 16 July 1943)
Section	5A
Unit / division	29th Infantry Division
Teams	IPW 33, IPW 24

Awards and honors

Bronze Star

Teammates

Team — IPW 33

Team — IPW 24

These are other soldiers listed on the same team roster. People moved between teams; overlapping service dates are not always documented.

Research notes on this page are compiled from the source file and later edits. They may be unverified, incomplete, or incorrect, and should not be treated as established fact. Please correct the article or add sources on the talk page. For class-roster terms, see About the data.

Sources & confidence: Treat Research notes as leads, not settled fact. Prefer NARA, the class roster, newspapers, Find a Grave, or published histories for contested claims. Mark unsourced claims with {{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.

Hans L. Trefousse (18 December 1921 – 8 January 2010) was a Frankfurt-born Ritchie Boy (Class 8) who landed with the 116th Infantry on D-Day and later became a Civil War historian at Brooklyn College.

Biography

Hans L. Trefousse was born on 18 December 1921 in Frankfurt, Germany, the son of a German Jewish physician and World War I veteran. The family left Germany in 1936. He graduated from City College of New York with a B.A. in history on 16 May 1942 and enlisted in the Army on 17 May 1943.

Fluent in German, French, and English, he trained at Camp Ritchie (Class 8), was commissioned in the Quartermaster Corps, and was attached to the 116th Infantry Regiment for the Normandy landings. As an IPW interrogator he served through the liberation of Paris and later campaigns; he received the Bronze Star.

After the war Trefousse became a leading Civil War scholar, teaching at Brooklyn College from 1950 to 1998 (later professor emeritus) and at the CUNY Graduate Center, and appearing as a CNN analyst. He died on 8 January 2010 on Staten Island.

Research notes

• First Army
• see time line

Gallery

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	89
Class_ASN	590860
Class_Name	TREFOUSSE, Hans L.
match_method	asn_partial_name_exact
row_source	both

Timeline

• 18 December 1921 — Born in Frankfurt.
• 1936 — Family emigrated from Germany.
• 16 May 1942 — B.A., City College of New York.
• 17 May 1943 — Enlisted; Camp Ritchie Class 8; commissioned.
• 6 June 1944 onward — 116th Infantry / IPW; Normandy and later ETO; Bronze Star.
• 1950–1998 — Brooklyn College history faculty; CUNY Graduate Center; Civil War scholarship.
• 8 January 2010 — Died, Staten Island, New York.

Sources

• Military History magazine, April 2002 — “Through an Interrogator’s Eyes” interview with Hans L. Trefousse (RB Archive)
• Wikipedia — Hans L. Trefousse
• 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)
• Ritchie Boys of WWII Facebook page, post dated 2022-12-25 (1 post)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Hans L. Trefousse for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 1 source documents reviewed)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Trefousse, Hans L. for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 1 source files: HANS L. TREFOUSSE.doc)