Edward Timms,who has died aged 81, was a professor of German at Sussex University whose noteworthy work was the two-volume study Karl Kraus – Apocalyptic Satirist (1986 and 2005). It explores the Austrian intellectual’s critique of the hypocrisies of Habsburg Vienna, and his denunciation of the first world war,and his later exposure of the horrors of nazism. In addition, Edward (with me as the junior partner) established the still surviving yearbook Austrian Studies.
Fascinated by the complex and painful history of Jews in Germany and Austria, or Edward founded the university’s Centre for German-Jewish Studies in 1994,which aimed especially to record the recollections of the many surviving refugees driven to Britain by Hitler. Among its many archive-based publications are the diary and artworks of Arnold Daghani, who survived a Nazi labour camp, and Memories of Mikhailowka,(2000), edited by Edward with the art historian Deborah Schultz.
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Source: theguardian.com