O. J. Matthijs Jolles

Who was O. J. Matthijs Jolles?

Otto Jolle Matthijs Jolles performed a major service to strategic studies in the United States by providing the first American translation of Carl von Clausewitz's magnum opus, On War. Jolles himself is a bit obscure to students of military affairs, largely because his translation of On War was his only published effort in that field. Even his nationality has been misidentified -- he has been variously identified as Hungarian, Czech, and Dutch. Military historian Jay Luvaas once quoted an unidentified Israeli professor as saying "whereas the first English translation was by an Englishman who did not know German, the 1943 American translation was by a Hungarian who did not know English." There is little in the Jolles translation to warrant such a comment. In the field of German literature, Jolles is quite well known, especially for his work on Friedrich Schiller. Most of his published work, however, is in German.

Born in Berlin of a Dutch father and German mother, Jolles was brought up as a German and educated at the Universities of Leipzig, Hamburg, and Heidelberg. He received his doctorate in the philosophy of literature from Heidelberg in 1933. He then served one year as a volunteer in the horse artillery. Although he was not Jewish, his anti-Nazi politics got him into trouble. In 1934 he emigrated to France, where he studied at the Sorbonne. The following year he emigrated to Wales, where he taught German. Offered a teaching position at the University of Chicago, he entered the United States with his new British wife in 1938. He became a professor of German language and literature, obtaining American citizenship in 1945. Leaving Chicago in 1962, he spent the remainder of his life at Cornell.