| Ralph F. Manheim | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1907 |
| Died | 1992 |
| Nativity | United States |
| Religion | Jewish |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Army |
| ASN | 32977412 |
| Rank | Private |
| Camp Ritchie | Class 23 (25 September – 23 November 1944) |
| Section | 5E |
| Enlisted | New York City, New York |
{{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.
Ralph F. Manheim (1907–1992) was a Ritchie Boy (from United States; Jewish) who trained at Camp Ritchie in class 23.
Biography
Ralph Frederick Manheim, was a Ritchie Boy. Born April 4, 1907; died September 26, 1992 at the age of 85. He was the outstanding literary translator from German into English since the second world war. Best known perhaps for his widely-read translations of Gunter Grass, starting with The Tin Drum for Kurt Wolff's New York firm Pantheon Books, he worked for several leading belles-lettres, academic and art book publishers on both sides of the Atlantic and also did some translating from the French (including Celine's novels and Proust's early letters). He won a number of literary awards, culminating in the MacArthur fellowship and the PEN medal for translation, and was an internationally loved and respected figure. Manheim was born in New York to American parents of Lithuanian and German descent, and graduated from Harvard in 1926. He thereafter studied at Yale and Columbia before going overseas to Vienna and Munich. For a time he was a schoolmaster in Connecticut, and during the Roosevelt era began producing stories and articles of his own, helped by the Federal WPA writing project. His long bibliography of some 150 book translations begins ominously with Mein Kampf in 1943 and Konrad Heiden's biography of Hitler a year later, and when he was drafted into the army he was first sent to the intelligence training centre at Camp Ritchie to be made into a prisoner of war interrogator. By his own account he was spared this unwelcome role in favour of translating German documents, and the command of military terms and expressions which this gave him would become useful after 1945.
Research notes
- 5th Army ?
Technical record
| Field | Imported value |
|---|---|
| Approx Age at Death | 85 |
| Nara ASN | 32977412 |
| Nara Name | MANHEIM RALPH F |
| Nara State | 23 |
| Nara County | 61 |
| Nara POE | 2364 |
| Nara DOE | 10743 |
| 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 | 23 |
| Nativity.1 | NEW YORK |
| Nara Year of Birth | 7 |
| Nara Race | 1 |
| Nara Race Description | White citizen |
| Nara Education | 4 |
| Nara Civilian Occupation | 68 |
| Nara Marital Status | 7 |
| Nara Height (inches) | 94 |
| Nara Weight (lbs) | 949 |
| Class_ASN | 32977412 |
| Class_Name | MANHEIM, Ralph F. |
| match_method | asn_exact_name_exact |
| row_source | both |
Sources
- Camp Ritchie class roster (classes 1–31), merged research file
- 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 2022-11-28 (1 post)
- Wikipedia