Gunther Wagner..

[Rankin, Robert L]

That's really interesting.  There were definite attempts during WW I to get, for example, Mexico to make war against the US (the episode of the famous Zimmerman telegram).  I don't know how much of this sort of thing went on during WW II.  And the matter of language study and field work is still murky after all this time.

Bob

________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of Jill Greer [Greer-J at MSSU.EDU]
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 10:46 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: Gunther Wagner..

Well,  skepticism is always good.  I did hear from Grandpa Truman Dailey a story from his father George W. Dailey (who had been the Otoe-Missouria tribal interpreter) that a German man approached him in his hotel room in D.C. trying to learn about Indians and whether or not they might be sympathetic to rebellion or some such thing!  I have to think there is some grain of truth in the meeting at least. Perhaps the communication difficulties may have been an obstacle to clearly understanding what the gentleman wanted,  but it certainly piques one's interest.  One of the trips,  when he was still in grade school,  Truman went along to DC on the train with his father.  That trip would have been prior to WWI,  and I believe he said Taft was then the President!!  So,  I'm sure that story circulated around Red Rock and who knows where else eventually.

Jill Greer


>>> "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu> 1/27/2011 4:55 PM >>>
I don't know the answer to that but would like to.  Jürgen Langenkämper is interested in him also and may find something out.

There were all those stories about German linguists coming here in the '30s to learn languages so that they could not be used as "code" by the military.  I think they were believed in Washington, if not by others, since the famous code talkers were used in the Pacific Theater of Operations -- I think exclusively.  Now that the German archives from that period are generally available, someone should check on that story and, if true, write a book about it.  It would make fascinating reading.  I'm a skeptic and tend to doubt it ever happened, but you never know. . . .

Bob

________________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of David Costa [pankihtamwa at earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:17 PM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: More on Frida Hahn.

I believe Günter Wagner disappeared by the early 1940s, as well; does
anyone know what eventually became of him?

I've spoken with some Yuchis working with his materials, and they seem
to have no idea what happened to him either.

Dave Costa

> Sometime back there was discussion of the German scholar, Frida
> Hahn, who had been a student of Franz Boas and who had produced a
> draft dissertation on Ponca grammar, a copy of which was found by
> John Koontz in the APS library filed under Gordon Marsh (the Ioway-
> Otoe scholar).  I had concluded that, since she returned to Germany
> during the 1930s and was Jewish, it was possible that she had not
> survived the war.  This discussion was picked up by a German
> scholar, Juergen Langenkaemper, who is researching Franz Boas and
> his students.  He writes me that Frida Hahn did indeed survive the
> war and ultimately married a man she had met in New York.  She
> apparently died in 1984 but her daughter is still alive.  I hope
> that Mr. Langenkaemper will provide us with additional information
> on Frida Hahn as it becomes available.  It is good to know that the
> story of Ms. Hahn had a happy ending.
>
> Bob
>
> ---------
>
> Here is Langenkaemper's message to me:
>
> "When I was working about Franz Boaś in the
> early 1930s I had to stop at a certain point because nothing could
> be said
> about Frida Hahn. Except your little discussion in April/May 2008
> there
> was really nothing. I followed some very speculative positions some of
> yours had had and finally arrived at the point that it was clear
> that she
> had survived the war. Finally I found her daughter, and it is
> absolutely
> sure that Katrin Husemann as she called herself later according to her
> second name and to the man she had married - she had met him in New
> York -
> was exactly Frida Hahn. She had told her daughter that she had studied
> with Boas and that she had been with the Ponca Indians. Photos the
> daughter had sent to me last week, proof this. Íll try to convince
> her
> that we must look if her mother who died in 1985, had left her old
> Ponca
> material at her house near Hamburg. I hope so. I dońt know whether
> the
> Ponca nation might be interested. But if there is anybody left who
> might
> remember the days when Frida Hahn was in Oklahoma, we must act quite
> quickly. These persons might be 90 years old.
>
> It́s very sad to hear that Tom Leonard died last year. I think it
> was him
> who told me that his mother (who had adopted him, if I remember
> well) had
> worked for Frida as a school girl. Frida had told about this in a
> letter
> to Boas in summer 1933.
>
> I would be very anxious to get in contact with the Ponca nation, if
> they
> are interested. If you and Kathleen Shea could help that would be
> great.
>
> Next week, Íll be in Canada to talk about Boas and his German
> contacts in
> the 1930s, including Frida Hahn and Günter Wagner (Yuchi and
> Comanche) at
> a conference, organized by Regna Darnell. The problem of the code
> talkers
> and Germans who came to the US to study American Indian languages
> might be
> very interesting. Have you heard of others except Hahn and Wagner
> who had
> done this with the help of Boas. Could there have been anyone else
> than
> Boas, Kroeber and Lowie to guide students?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Jürgen Langenkämper"