Henry Paul Grosshans

Henry Paul GROSSHANS Henry Paul Grosshans (born 1921), former editor of the Washington State University Press and a history professor within the WSU Honors Program until his retirement in 1982 after 30 years on the faculty, passed away October 21, 2010, in Shoreline, Washington. After graduating magna cum laude from Doane College in Nebraska in 1943 and being commissioned as a naval officer, Professor Grosshans took part in the North Atlantic campaign and the D-Day invasion, later commanding a ship in the Pacific war theater as well. Following WWII, he completed a Master of Arts degree at the University of Iowa and won a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, earning the Bachelor of Letters degree there in 1950. While at Washington State University, he raised the profile of the WSU Press as a scholarly publisher by attracting notable journals in the sciences and humanities, also authoring articles in his own specialty of European history for learned journals elsewhere and writing the books The Search for Modern Europe (Houghton Mifflin), Hitler and the Artists (Holmes & Meier), and German Dreams and German Dreamers: Gottfried Benn's German Universe (Wyndham Hall). In addition, he wrote and recorded episodes of a radio series on Russian literary figures entitled 'Russian Profiles' broadcast on many NPR stations around the country and a nationally award- winning film featuring his interview of Alexandra Tolstoy in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's death. Beyond his personal academic pursuits, Professor Grosshans served for a number of years on the grant panel for history, philosophy, and political science of the National Endowment for the Humanities and on the Washington selection committee for Rhodes Scholars. In 1977 his accomplishments were recognized with the conferring of a Doctor of Humane Letters degree in a ceremony at Doane College. Donna Ruth Grosshans, his steady, strong partner for over 60 years, predeceased him, passing away in 2008. He was lovingly honored and now is as lovingly grieved by his daughter Annie Grosshans and her family, Robert Flanigan and Sam Henry Flanigan, and by his son Geoffrey Grosshans and his family, Nonglack Grosshans and Kleigh Grosshans.