Victor Brombert

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Victor Henri Brombert (born November 11, 1923 in Berlin ) is an American Romanist and former member of the Ritchie Boys .

Life

Victor Brombert was born in 1923 into a wealthy, originally Russian - Jewish family who had fled Russia during the First World War . Shortly after Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor , the so-called “ seizure of power ”, the family saw themselves in danger, so they moved to Paris . Living there in the 16th arrondissement , however, she was surprised by the western campaign of the German Empire , so that she had to hide from the National Socialists. In great distress, Brombert and his family managed to escape to the United States on a banana truck in 1941.

After two years in the United States, Brombert was drafted into the armed forces. The army recognized the military value of the multilingualism of Brombert, who was able to speak German and French . So he was sent to the Ritchie Boys , a force consisting almost exclusively of immigrants, which was intended for commando operations behind the lines of the Wehrmacht . There, Brombert's linguistic skills were combined with instruction in interrogating prisoners of war . It was used from the Anglo-American landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

After the war, Victor Brombert studied Romance studies and literature . In these subjects he taught at Yale and Princeton Universities and became a well-known literary critic. In addition to his own biography, he processed v. a. Victor Hugo and Gustave Flaubert and has written numerous forewords to the work of colleagues. In 1974 Brombert was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Since 1987 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

Works

  • The intellectual hero: studies in the French novel, 1880-1955 . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1964 ( Table of Contents ).
  • La prison romantique , Paris 1975
  • The Hidden Reader: Stendhal, Balzac, Hugo, Baudelaire, Flaubert . Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1988. ISBN 0-6743-9012-1
  • In Praise of Antiheroes: Figures and Themes in Modern European Literature, 1830-1980 . University Of Chicago Press, Chicago 2001 ISBN 0-2260-7543-5
  • Trains of Thought: Paris to Omaha Beach, Memories of a Wartime Youth . Anchor 2004 ISBN 1-4000-3403-5

literature

  • Richard Schroetter: Conversation with Victor Brombert. "We had no idea what was coming". In: Sinn und Form 6/2009, pp. 757–767 [the conversation was held in Paris on September 19, 2002]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Victor H. Brombert. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 21, 2018 (with a short biography).
personal data
SURNAME Brombert, Victor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brombert, Victor Henri (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Romance Studies
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin