Ralph Frederick Manheim

Ralph Frederick Manheim
Personal details
Born	4 April 1907 New York City, New York
Died	26 September 1992 Cambridge, England
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

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.

Ralph Frederick Manheim (4 April 1907 – 26 September 1992) was a Ritchie Boy (from United States; Jewish) who trained at Camp Ritchie in class 23.

Biography

Ralph Frederick Manheim was born on 4 April 1907 in New York City, New York to American parents of Lithuanian and German descent. He graduated from Harvard in 1926, studied further at Yale and Columbia, and spent time in Vienna and Munich. He taught school in Connecticut and wrote under the WPA Federal Writers’ Project before turning to literary translation; his early wartime bibliography included an English Mein Kampf (1943) and Konrad Heiden’s Hitler biography.

Drafted into the Army, Manheim trained at Camp Ritchie (Class 23) for prisoner-of-war interrogation but, by his own later account, was assigned instead to translating German documents—work that sharpened the military vocabulary he used after 1945.

After the war Manheim became one of the leading translators from German (and French) into English, rendering Günter Grass, Brecht, Handke, Cassirer, and many others. He settled in Paris in 1951 and later in Cambridge, England, receiving a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN translation medal. He died of cancer on 26 September 1992.

Research notes

• 5th Army ?
• Normalized birth_place from “New York” to New York City. No military decoration is asserted.

Gallery

• 
  Ralph F. Manheim portrait (RB Archive)

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

Timeline

• 4 April 1907 — Born in New York City, New York.
• 1926 — Graduated from Harvard.
• 1943 — Published English translation of Mein Kampf; drafted and trained at Camp Ritchie (Class 23).
• World War II — Assigned to German document translation rather than front-line interrogation.
• 1951 — Settled in Paris to translate full time.
• 1985 — After his third wife’s death, later settled in Cambridge, England.
• 26 September 1992 — Died in Cambridge, England.

Sources

• Ralph F. Manheim portrait (RB Archive)
• The Guardian, 29 September 1992 — John Willett, “Englishing the Germans from Hitler to Grass” (RB Archive ProQuest copy)
• 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 2022-11-28 (1 post)
• Wikipedia