Hans Alan Land

Hans Alan Land
Personal details
Birth name	Deutschland Hans Alexander Land
Born	9 June 1922 Berlin, Germany
Died	29 May 2021
Nativity	Germany
Religion	Jewish
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	31316107
Rank	First Lieutenant
Rank at Ritchie	Private
Camp Ritchie	Class 8 (17 May – 16 July 1943)
Section	5A
Enlisted	Hartford, Connecticut
Specialty	IPW (interrogation of prisoners of war)
Unit / division	5th Infantry Division
Teams	IPW 2, MII 430-G

Full story Read more about Hans Alan Land in Hans A. Land on The Stories.

Teammates

Team — IPW 2

Team — MII 430-G

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 A. Land (9 June 1922–29 May 2021), born Hans Alexander Deutschland in Berlin, was a Camp Ritchie graduate (Class 8) who served with MII Team 430-G and the 5th Infantry Division. After the war he became an attorney in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Hans Alan Land was born Hans Alexander Deutschland in Berlin on 9 June 1922, to Gustav and Martha (née Bud) Deutschland. Gustav, a Danzig-born astronomer and decorated First World War officer, worked in Germany through the interwar years. As Nazi persecution closed in, his parents sent him to England; from 1937 to 1939 he attended Ackworth School, a Quaker boarding school in Yorkshire, where he learned English and finished secondary school.

After Kristallnacht, Gustav—already looking for work in England—was warned not to return to Berlin. Martha joined him in London in early 1939, and the family reached the United States that September, aided by Danzig’s separate immigration quota. They adopted the surname Land. Hans studied at Swarthmore College, then transferred to Yale when his father took a post at the Yale Observatory.

Though a refugee from Nazi Germany, he was still a technical “enemy alien” when the FBI questioned him at Yale in early 1942. He enlisted at Hartford, Connecticut, on 13 February 1943 (ASN 31316107), trained as a medic at Camp Pickett, Virginia, and arrived at Camp Ritchie on 5 May 1943. He graduated with Class 8 on 16 July 1943 as an assistant interrogator (IPW Ge), became a naturalized U.S. citizen on 20 July 1943 under the name Land, and was promoted to master sergeant in August before shipping to Britain for work with British military intelligence.

After the Normandy invasion he served with MII Team 430-G attached to the 5th Infantry Division through the drive from Luxembourg into Germany, including the Rhine crossing and Frankfurt. He later recalled using German school textbooks for terrain intelligence when aerial reconnaissance was thin, and—after hostilities ended—finding ADAC application files in Bavaria that identified SS and Nazi officials, which he turned over to U.S. counterintelligence.

Back at Yale in September 1945, he finished a B.A. in international relations, then graduated from Harvard Law School in 1949 and was admitted to the District of Columbia bar in 1950. He worked in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, entered private practice in Washington in the mid-1950s (later Land & Lemle), and married Erika Feldmann in 1958. He died on 29 May 2021, nine days before his ninety-ninth birthday.

See the full story drawn from his 2012 interview with Lorrie Fereday and Vivian Baylor.

Research notes

• Birth surname Deutschland; family used Land after immigrating (1939).
• Middle name: draft registration shows Alan; naturalization and Yale yearbook use Alexander — page title follows roster/draft Alan.
• Roster also lists IPW Ge 2; wartime narrative centers on MII 430-G / 5th Infantry Division.

Gallery

• 
  Photograph of Martha and Gustav Land (formerly Deutschland), undated
• 
  Photograph of Erika Land, undated
• 
  Photograph of Vivian Baylor, Hans Land, and Lorrie Fereday, 2 Dec 2012, Maryland

Technical record

Field	Imported value
Nara ASN	31316107
Nara Name	LAND HANS A
Nara State	11
Nara County	9
Nara POE	1143
Nara DOE	130243
Nara Grade Alpha	PVT
Nara Grade Code	8
Nara Branch Alpha	BI
Nara Branch Code	0
Branch	Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
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	22
Nara Race	J
Nara Race Description	White not yet a citizen
Nara Education	8
Nara Civilian Occupation	68
Nara Marital Status	6
Nara Height (inches)	69
Nara Weight (lbs)	127
Class_ASN	31316107
Class_Name	LAND, Hans A.
match_method	asn_exact_name_exact
row_source	both

Timeline

• 9 June 1922 — Born in Berlin as Hans Alexander Deutschland (Jewish).
• 1937–1939 — Attended and graduated from Ackworth School, Yorkshire, England.
• September 1939 — Arrived in the United States; family surname changed from Deutschland to Land.
• 1939–1941 — Swarthmore College; transferred to Yale (international relations).
• 13 February 1943 — Enlisted at Hartford, Connecticut, as private (ASN 31316107).
• 27 February 1943 — Basic training at Camp Pickett, Virginia (medic).
• 5 May 1943 — Arrived Camp Ritchie (German language); Class 8.
• 16 July 1943 — Graduated Class 8 (IPW Ge – assistant interrogator).
• 20 July 1943 — Naturalized as a U.S. citizen; used the name Hans Alan / Alexander Land.
• 6 August 1943 — Promoted to master sergeant.
• 1944–1945 — Served with MII Team 430-G attached to the 5th Infantry Division in Northwest Europe.
• September 1945 — Returned to Yale; B.A. in international relations (1946).
• May 1949 — Graduated Harvard Law School.
• 1950 — Admitted to the D.C. bar; later State Department Legal Adviser’s Office, then private practice.
• 1958 — Married Erika Feldmann.
• 29 May 2021 — Died.

Sources

• 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)
• The Stories essay
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Hans Alan Land for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 1 source documents reviewed)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Land, Hans Alan for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 1 source files: HANS A. LAND.doc)
• U.S. school yearbooks — Hans Alexander Land, Yale University, 1945 (Ancestry.com citation in family research file; descriptive cite only)