Josef Sigmund Maria Thanner

Josef Thanner, 97, Rutgers University Professor

Dr. Josef Sigmund Maria Thanner, a retired Rutgers University Professor, died on January 17, 2024 at his home in Dunbarton, New Hampshire. Dr. Thanner was born in 1926 in Altötting, Germany and emigrated to the United States in the 1950s where he attended Wichita State University on a UNESCO World Heritage Scholarship. Upon graduation he attended Princeton University where he earned his Doctorate in Germanic Language and Literature. After earning his PhD in 1962, Dr. Thanner embarked on a long and distinguished career as a Professor of German Language and Literature at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey where he taught in the graduate school until his retirement in 1994. 

Prior to enrolling in graduate school, Dr. Thanner was employed as an editor at Winkler Publishers Munich during which time he also began translating various works into German from the original French and English. Among these works were Merimee’s “Carmen,” Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield,” and Oscar Wilde’s “Short Stories and Fairy Tales.” Ultimately, he was able to quit his job and become a freelance writer and achieved his greatest success with his final Dicken’s translation of “Great Expectations” and his adaptation of “The Arabian Nights.”

Dr. Thanner met the love of his life while studying at Princeton and married Phyllis Madeleine Reinemann, the literal girl next door, in 1960. The couple raised their three children in Middlebush, New Jersey before moving to Dunbarton, New Hampshire to enjoy a lengthy retirement. 

Dr. Thanner was an avid gardener and dedicated over an acre of his yard in New Jersey to propagating lettuce, green beans, strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes and a multitude of other vegetables which his family, friends and neighbors enjoyed during the summer months. Not to be defeated by winter, he experimented with growing lettuce in the cellar of his New Jersey home when the weather was inhospitable. The results were often unsightly, but he took delight in the outcome regardless. 

A lover of fine wine and good food he could speak rapturously and in intricate detail about a meal and wine pairing he’d enjoyed forty years earlier. He also relished a well-made martini and delighted in introducing neophytes to their first taste of the glorious elixir. He truly enjoyed mentoring his graduate students and took great pleasure in their personal success, remaining lifelong friends with many of his former students. On first impression he often seemed imposing and formal, but it didn’t take long to realize how much love he held in his heart. He also could forgive someone for almost any transgression except not having a sense of humor. 

For much of his retirement he and Phyllis spent part of each year at their second home in Taching am See in Bavaria, Germany where they entertained frequent visitors from the United States and friends and family from Germany. In Dunbarton they continued to enjoy martinis with friends and relatives and took delight doting on their eight grandchildren. 

Professor Thanner - or “Opa” and “Papa Joe” as his grandchildren called him - is survived by his loving wife of sixty-four years, Phyllis Thanner, his brother Rudolf Thanner and his wife Jutta and their children, his sister Irmengard Thanner, his children Megan Guerra and her husband David, Koren Thanner-Rasmussen and her husband Tim, Christopher Thanner and his wife Shari, and his grandchildren Abigail, Sophia and Nicolas Guerra, Mackay and Case Rasmussen, and Brenna, Annie and Christopher Thanner. 

There will be a small private service on February 17, 2024 followed by a celebration of life. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, please consider donating in Josef’s honor to Granite VNA at granitevna.org.