A career educator who earned his bachelor’s (cum laude), master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in modern languages and literature from Princeton, John died Feb. 2, 2010, in Jamesburg, N.J., where he had lived for 47 years.
A Princeton instructor in German in 1952, John moved to Williams College in 1954 and to Rutgers University in 1957, where he rose in 1974 to chairman of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature. He retired in 1981.
A prolific writer, translator, reviewer, and participant in professional activities, John was a member of seven professional societies, served on special committees, and worked on several books and periodical articles.
He roomed with Sid Doggett at Princeton, was art editor of the Nassau Lit, and a member of the Glee Club, Triangle Club, Elm Club, and St. Paul’s Society. An Army infantryman during World War II, he earned a Bronze Star and five battle stars in European combat, serving a postwar year in the U.S. Information Service in Austria.
He is survived by his wife, Isle Pracht Fitzell; sons Edward Fitzell and William Dunn; daughters Dorrit Fitzell and Isle Hughes; 10 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.