He immigrated to the United States with his family as a young boy, settling in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He received his BA in German from the University of Missouri in 1942, and he served as an interpreter in the US Army during the war. He eventually received his MA and PhD in German from the University of Illinois, in 1947 and 1951 respectively. He taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Kentucky before ending up at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where he taught for several years. He moved his young family to Tucson in 1969 where he was appointed chair of the German Department at the University of Arizona, a position he held until 1978. He retired from teaching in 1987.
I knew absolutely no one when I first arrived in Tucson in January 1974 to begin my graduate studies. I had never been to the city or the campus before, having arranged my acceptance entirely by letter and telephone. I also had my first face-to-face meeting with the chairperson of the Department of German, the individual who had accepted me into the graduate program and who would ultimately hold my destiny in his hands. I knew him only by name and bona fides when I first walked into his small, book-lined office on the third floor of the Modern Language Building . . . my home for the next two and a half years.
He arose from behind his desk, everything on it neatly stacked and in its proper place, to shake my hand and invite me to be seated. A rather short man with neatly cropped and graying hair, horned-rimmed glasses, and sporting a shirt and tie. He was quite proper and formal as he spoke with gravity about my course work over the coming semesters. Even so, his small, thin-lipped mouth evidenced an almost perpetual hint of a smile. I would come to know him as a man of towering intellect who over those early months left me intimidated more often than I might have admitted at the time. That said, I liked him from the very first moment I met him. I knew he would “ride me hard and put me up wet,” but I welcomed the challenge and the opportunities he offered me.
I took a number of courses under Professor Dufner - a rather grueling seminar in classical German literature during that first semester. This was followed by a two semester seminar during which my fellow graduate students and I attempted to dissect the intricacies of Goethe’s Faust (Parts I and II) line by line, word by word. This remains one of my most rewarding academic experiences. Professor Dufner made literature come alive for me for the very first time. When I made my oral defense at the completion of my master’s program, Professor Dufner asked me a number of probing questions about Goethe’s masterpiece, and upon the completion of my response he turned to the others on my examination committee, a wide smile this time, and said “Herr Rogers kann Goethe.” [Mr. Rogers knows Goethe.] No higher praise in my book!
My Faust studies were perhaps eclipsed only by an independent study seminar on the writings of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) I shared with a fellow comrade-in-arms. We would attend weekly meetings in Professor Dufner’s office where he would grill us on minutiae pertaining to this most enigmatic and challenging German poet. At the end of this colloquium, we were invited to present the results of our independent research before the Palmenorden: Die Forschungsgemeinschaft des Germanistischen Instituts [The Order of the Palm: The Research Society of the Germanic Institute]. All the while Professor Dufner sat in the front row and gently nodded his head up and down, his tight-lipped smile telling us we had done our job well. He was always confident that we would both make something of ourselves in the community of German scholarship. And we did.
As my time in Tucson came to an end I prepared to resume my graduate studies at the University of Maryland at College Park. Professor Dufner and I had come a long way together since that first meeting in his office two and half years earlier. I no longer thought of him only as a professor and mentor; we had become “Kollegen” [colleagues]. But more importantly, we had become friends. During our time together he always referred to me as Herr Rogers. That final evening in Tucson, he shook my hand and patted me on the shoulder and said “Good luck to you, Steve. You will do well.”
Max and I exchanged letters during the years after I left Tucson, and I saw him on occasion. My work took me to Tucson a couple times and I was a dinner guest in his home. His eldest daughter, who was an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona when I was there, became a good friend and we frequently saw her and her husband after they moved east to Richmond, Virginia. Max and his wife would visit them there and I had opportunities to resume our friendship in person.
The last time I would see Max was in Richmond around Christmas, in 1993. It was a wonderful visit full of laughter and the recollection of fond memories. Max passed away in Tucson on May 22, 1999, and after his death, his daughter shared with me several things her father had said and written about me over the years; one being the letter of recommendation he wrote on my behalf when I applied to the University of Maryland. She also gave me a number of prized books from her father’s library which now have an honored place in my own library.
I think of my old mentor and friend often, and always fondly. I would have never accomplished what I did had it not been for him. I miss him and I will never forget him.
No comments:
Post a Comment