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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 11, 1985)
. i me en 1 comebii learned son !rs in Texast l ()r juveiii suc h executin ien James A, c uted for a as 17. f as convici niarillo jc 975. had »nd had | iicers in i s not to s n de ouracqus We,” Tichem n ates Spanii -OR-AM, Sj Houstot de Valley. s — Wednesday, September 11,1985/The Battalion/Page 5 A&M history prof fascinated by wartime Nazi Germany By CRAIG RENFRO Reporter You walk into his office and first thing that catches your eye are the autographed pictures of The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Superman and The Cisco Kid and Pam ho. The sec ond thing you notice are the dozens ot books on wartime Nazi Germany. The office belongs to Dr. Arnold Paul Krammer, 43, a history profes sor at Texas A&M. The pictures are reminders of his youth. The books are reminders of the brutal past. Now Krammer has just finished his fourth book, “Hitler’s Last Sol dier In America.” It is about George Gaertner, a former Nazi prisoner of war and the longest running fugitive on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Krammer has been in the history department at A&M for 12 years and been promoted to full professorship. The classes he teaches cover the horrors of wartime Nazi Germany, an area of study that has f ascinated him for years. Tt is like looking ai a tarantula in a glass cage,” Krammer says. “We are attracted to it because ii is both scary and evil and the glass is all that separates us from that e\il becoming reality.” Krammer received a bachelor of science degree in German history and chemistry from the I'niversity of Wisconsin in 1963. He also re ceived a diploma in German history from the University of Vienna, Aus tria, in 1964. In IP 1 ?!) he got his doc torate in German history from the University of Wisconsin. Krammer has devoted his adult life to researching wartime Germany and has been well rewarded for his efforts. “I'm doing what 1 want to do and getting paid for it,” kiauunei says. “You can’t beat that, can you?" In 1983 he was awarded the Texas A&M University Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching. While awards are nice, Krammer says he would rather be doing re search. “I’m curious as a cat,” Krammer says. “The more I learn, the more I can pass on to my students." Krammer began his career as a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin in 1968. From 1970 to 1974 he was assistant professor of history at Rockford College in Rock- ford. Ill. While at Rockford, he wrote numerous articles and techni cal papers about Israel, Russia and Germany. In 1974 he came to A&M as an as sociate professor of history. Here he has had his greatest success. “The history department at A&M ranks with some of the best,” Kram mer says. “We are strong in Ameri can history, military history, wom en’s history and Nazi Germany history.” Because he has a background in chemical engineering, Krammer was chosen to head a project that served as the principal investigator for the German Document Retrieval Pro ject. The project has received a fellowship for the last 10 years from Dow Chemical, Union Carbide and Shell Development. In 1977 he appeared in Time magazine and testified before the U.S. House of Representatives' sub committee on his presentation, “Coal Conversion: Liquefaction and Gasification.” As a result of his research he re ceived the Congressional Award from the Missouri House of Rep resentatives for research on German synthetic fuel. While he is intrigued with re search on the chemical warfare ef forts of Nazi Germany, he is even more fascinated by the horror and death of the Holocaust. You walk into his office and first thing that catches your eye are the While Krammer enjoys researching the chemical warfare efforts of Nazt Germany. Krammer says he accepts the find ings of the experts but is upset that Mengele could not be found alive and brought to trial. “Mengele’s an animal,” Krammer says. “Anyone who can kill that many people and can perform, hu man experiments without even ad ministering an anesthetic is sick.” While the search for Nazi war criminals is not in the public eye as much as it used to be, Krammer says he thinks that it should be. “Still thousands are implicated — the truck drivers, trains, the towns’ people and the people who ran the death factories,” Krammer says. “They couldn’t be oblivious to what was going on.” Krammer also is an expert on POWs. In 1979 he published his sec ond book, “Nazi Prisoners of War in America.” He was also a consultant to two film companies that were doing films on German POWs. Krammer has written articles that appeared in Time, Newsweek and Esquire. He also has written many reviews on books about the Russian and German war machines. Krammer travels on the lecture circuit when time permits. In 1979 he was awarded the Conference Prize in American history for his pa per, '‘Industrial Data as War Booty: The Technical Oil Mission to Eu rope, 1945.” In 1984 he appeared at an invita tional lecture at the National Ar chives in Washington. At that con ference he presented “Nazis in America: German Prisoners of War 1942-1946.” President Reagan’s trip to the Bit- burg cemetery upset Krammer. “It was terribly outrageous on the administration’s part,” Krammer says. “They were supposed to be looking for SS men’s graves and they were over there looking at BMWs.” If it seems that Krammer is a workaholic, he is. But there is an other side to the warm, intelligent and sincerely dedicated man. Krammer received his scuba cer tificate from A&M and, whenever he has the opportunity to dive, he takes advantage of it. Krammer also earned a pilot’s license while teach ing at Rockford. He has a stamp col lection and plays guitar, mostly country and western. Krammer speaks German and Hungarian fluently and serves as faculty adviser on the A&M Europe Club. He also is faculty adviser for Memorial Student Center’s Great Is sues. He has held these positions since 1978. Reading is one of his favorite hob bies, but most of all he says he enjoys teaching and research. He says he plans to stay at A&M for life. “When they close the Harrington building down, I’ll be the last one in there and I’ll turn out the lights,” Krammer says. WEIGHT WATCHERS Discover the difference HQuick Start can make in your life. Starting Now! Here's your last chance this year to join Weight Watchers for the incredibly low price of only $7 That includes your registration and first meeting fee. 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