Professor Eugene Mittwoch, one of the most prominent Orientalists in the world, who for years occupied an important advisory position in the Eastern Department of the German Foreign Office while lecturing at the University of Berlin on Semitic languages and literature, including Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopian, died here last night at the age of 66.
Outstanding in his field, Prof. Mittwooh, who was compelled to leave Germany in 1938, had been an advisor to the Eastern Division of the British Ministry of Information for the last eighteen months. Between 1933 and 1938 he was the head of the Berlin office of the Joint Distribution Committee. Despite his being a Jew, the Nazis permitted the German Foreign Office to use his services for many months after Hitler came to power since in all of Germany no “Aryan” professor could be found who could master all the Semitic languages with which Prof. Mittwoch was conversant.
In 1924 Prof. Mittwoch, who was the author of many books on Arab culture, was invited by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to organize the Semitic Department there. He lectured at the University of Berlin from 1906 until after the Nazis came to power. He was born in Posen and traveled widely in the Orient, completing his studies there.
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