Austria’s German Literary Scholar of the Year died suddenly at the age of 66: A tribute
On September 7, 2008, my colleague Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, whom we used to refer to as WSD, died suddeanly and unexpectedly at the age of 66. He was a Professor of German literature at the German Department of the University of Vienna, a highly regarded literary critic and an outspoken intellectual. All the Austrian media reported on this sad event. WSD, who had been voted Austria’s scholar of the year just a short time before, was truly a public figure.
I learned of his passing while on a field trip to Western Canada with a group of students, and I am writing these lines on a rainy day in a hotel room in Vancouver.
