Born into a
Jewish family in
Prague,
Czechoslovakia, he was educated in Prague,
Vienna, at
Barry County School in Glamorgan and at
St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took his
M.A. in 1947. During the war, he served in the Czechoslovak army in exile. He took up a lectureship at
Bedford College, London, and then at
Cambridge University in 1952, returning to St. John's. He was Professor of German at
University College London from 1972 to 1986. A prolific scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century German literature, he wrote on
Nietzsche,
Kafka,
Jünger,
Rilke and
Mann, and edited the series
Landmarks in World Literature. One of his most influential works was
On Realism (1973). He was also known for his study
Hitler: The Führer and the People, which was translated into several languages. He married Sheila McMullan (23 June 1922 – 16 November 2005) in 1944, having met her as a student in 1940. He died in
Cambridge on 18 November 1991 and was cremated on 25 November 1991 at Cambridge Crematorium, and his ashes were interred at the
Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge. His wife's ashes, following her cremation on 29 November 2005, are also interred there. ==Works==