Leonie Zuntz


Leonie Zuntz was a German Hittitologist who settled in Britain in 1934 as refugee scholar at Somerville College, Oxford. She was included in Black Book, the list of British residents to be arrested after a Nazi invasion of Great Britain in 1940.

Life

Leonie Zuntz was from a family of Jewish descent, although her grandfather Nathan Zuntz had converted to Christianity. In the 1920s she was romantically involved with Elias Joseph Bickerman. In the late 1920s, while studying at Munich, she befriended the orientalist Fritz Rudolf Kraus. After gaining her doctorate, she emigrated to England in 1934. Settling in Oxford, she taught German at Somerville College and worked for Oxford University Press. In 1934-5 she introduced Oliver Gurney to Hittite. She committed suicide in London in 1942.

Works