Arthur Thomas Hatto

Arthur Thomas Hatto (11 February 1910 – 6 January 2010) was an English scholar of German studies at the University of London, notable for translations of the Medieval German narrative poems Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the Nibelungenlied. He was also known for his theory of epic heroic poetry, and related publications. He retired in 1977, and in 1991 the British Academy elected him as a Senior Fellow.

Early life and education

Hatto was born in London on 11 February 1910 to Thomas Hatto, a solicitor's clerk who later became the Assistant Chief Solicitor in the British Transport Commission legal service, and Alice Hatto (née Waters), a nurse.^[1] In 1923 he was awarded a scholarship to Dulwich College, where among other subjects he studied German, Latin, and French, with middling results.^[2] He met more success at King's College London, where his father, refusing to see his son "loll on a Sixth Form bench", sent him in 1927.^[3] He studied there with Robert Priebsch and Frederick Norman, who, recognising Hatto's potential in academia, refused to take back his books at the end of term, stating "No, not yours, Mr Hatto, you will be needing them in years to come!"^[3]

In an effort to improve his German, Hatto left in 1932 for the University of Bern, where through John Rupert Firth's earlier instruction he became a Lektor for English.^[4] Two years later King's College awarded him a London MA with distinction, for which his thesis was entitled "A Middle German Apocalypse edited from the manuscript British Museum, Add. 15243".^[5] Hatto argued that the manuscript was written between 1350 and 1370 in south-west Thuringia, and that it was related to the early fifteenth-century MS Meiningen 57.^[5] That same year he returned to King's College, having picked up the local dialect Bärndütsch, and bringing back with him Rose Margot Feibelmann, whom he would marry the next year.^[4] As she was Jewish the move likely saved her life and those of her parents, who followed in March 1939.^[4]

Hatto returned to London to take up an Assistant Lectureship in German at King’s College.^[5] After four years the position was no longer needed, and Norman, a mentor to Hatto, recommended him for a new lectureship at Queen Mary College, London.^[6] Hatto was chosen over many applicants—in part, he thought, because the Principal, Sir Frederick Barton Maurice, admired his skill at rugby.^[7] In 1938 he therefore became the Head of the Department of German, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1977.^[8]

World War II

Hatto's appointment at Queen Mary College had barely begun when he was recruited in February 1939, on the recommendations of Maurice and Norman, to work in the cryptographic bureau at the Foreign Office, in Room 40.^[8] Norman was working there also, and in September the two were sent to Bletchley Park. At least two other professors of German, Walter Bruford and Leonard Ashley Willoughby, had served there during World War I, and many more would serve during World War II.^[8] Hatto was well suited to the task with his philological background and fluent German, and was tasked with scrutinising existing ciphers to look for hints of future ciphers.^[9] One of his successes was discovering three-letter call signs in the preamble to messages that served as the key to communications between the German land, sea and air arms of the Third Reich's combined Wehrmacht forces, thereby aiding the Allied forces before the Allied invasion of Sicily.^[10]

Hatto kept silent about his wartime work, even after the work done at Bletchley Park was revealed in F. W. Winterbotham's 1974 book The Ultra Secret.^[10] Though not named in the book he was nevertheless alarmed; according to a colleague, the book's release left him afraid of being kidnapped by the Soviets to the Lubyanka, "so far removed from the Reading Room of the British Museum".^[10]

Career

Wartime duties kept Hatto busy until 1945, although from 1944 on he was allowed to lecture in Medieval German at University College London one day a week.^[11] He returned to Queen Mary College in 1945 to find the school struggling with its finances and enrollment. However, as the war became more distant, he grew a strong German Department; composed of himself and a part-time colleague when he started, at Hatto's retirement the department had five full-time staff and one and a half language assistants.^[12] In 1946 the University of London made him a Reader in German, and in 1953 he was promoted to Professor.^[12]

Though much of his scholarly output was addressed to an academic audience, Hatto's best-known works are translations of three Medieval German poems: Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the Nibelungenlied.^[13][14] These were three of what Hatto saw as the four great German narrative poems of the age; the fourth, Willehalm, was translated by one of Hatto's pupils.^[15] Following the translation of Tristan, Hatto received an invitation from a professor of German at the University of Auckland to visit for several months in 1965.^[16] The ensuing trip around the world took Hatto to Istanbul, Delhi, Kathmandu, Bangkok, Auckland, Wellington, Fiji, Hawaii, California, the Grand Canyon, and New York, where he acquired a Kirghiz‐Russian dictionary.^[16]

Hatto retired in 1977,^[17] by which time he had had at least 72 works published.^[18]

Personal life

Hatto and his wife Margot had a daughter, Jane, and a son-in-law, Peter.^[19] They remained married until her death in 2000.^[14] Hatto himself died of bronchopneumonia shortly before turning 100, on 6 January 2010, at Field House in Harpenden.^[19][20]

Publications

• Hatto, Arthur Thomas (August 1957a). "Snake-swords and Boar-helmets in Beowulf". English Studies. XXXVIII (4): 145–160. doi:10.1080/00138385708596994.
• Hatto, Arthur Thomas (December 1957b). "Notes and News: Snake-swords and Boar-helmets". English Studies. XXXVIII (6): 257–259. doi:10.1080/00138385708597004.
• For a list of publications through 1977, see Griffith-Williams 1977; for some subsequent publications, see Flood 2011.

References

Bibliography

• Combridge, Rosemary; Fowler, Frank M. (January 1977). "A. T. Hatto: A Tribute". German Life and Letters. Blackwell. 30 (2): 91–93. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0483.1977.tb00521.x.
• Flood, John L. (2011). "Arthur Thomas Hatto: 1910–2010". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. British Academy. X: 172–198. doi:10.5871/bacad/9780197264904.001.0001.
• Flood, John L. (29 May 2014). "Hatto, Arthur Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/103459. Missing or empty |url= (help)
• Griffith-Williams, Brenda (January 1977). "Publications of A. T. Hatto (excluding reviews)". German Life and Letters. Blackwell. 30 (2): 172–177. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0483.1977.tb00528.x.
• "HATTO Arthur Thomas". People. The Times (69846). London. 16 January 2010. p. 102.
• "Professor Arthur Hatto: linguistic and literary scholar". People. The Times (69899). London. 19 March 2010. p. 79. Retrieved 16 May 2017.