Helmut Koenigsberger

Early life

Koenigsberger was born in Berlin, the son of Georg Koenigsberger (d. 1932), chief architect of the borough of Treptow, and Käthe, a sister of the physicist Max Born. His elder brother was the architect and planner Otto Königsberger. Although his family were Lutheran Christians, they were classified as Jewish by the Nazis: both of his grandfathers had been non-practising Jews. His immediate family had all fled from Germany before 1939 under the advice of his brother Otto. They received practical help from his uncle Max and from the Quakers: Jewish organisations refused to help them as "[they] were not Jewish by religion".

From 1934, Koenigsberger was educated at Adams' Grammar School, Newport, an all-boys grammar school in Newport, Shropshire, England, before going on to study history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1937 to 1940. On 12 May 1940, just before he was due to sit his Part II Tripos exams (i.e., his 'finals'), he was designated an enemy alien by the British government and sent to a camp on the Isle of Wight and then on to a camp in Canada. While in Canada, it was explained to him that "it would be easier to help him if he were Jewish" and a Jewish organisation offered him help only if he "reconverted to Judaism". After eight months internment, he was allowed to return to the UK. By this stage the University of Cambridge had awarded him a "war degree" on the basis of his Part I exam results only, thereby denying him the possibility of attaining a double first class honours degree and, with it, a postgraduate scholarship - things that he could have achieved if he hadn't been interned.

Koenigsberger spent a short period as a schoolmaster at private schools, working as an assistant master at Brentwood School, Essex from 1941 to 1942 and at Bedford School, Bedfordshire from 1942 to 1944. Knowing that military service would speed up his application for naturalisation, he joined the Royal Navy in July 1944 as a writer, during the latter stages of Second World War. He was required to anglicise his name and choose to be known as Hilary George Kingsley. His work involved deciphering and translating German naval messages while serving aboard British ships, and was often done at night and in secret. He was demobilised in October 1945, although he had wanted to return to Germany to service with the Allied Control Council. He then resumed his birth name and returned to the University of Cambridge to undertake postgraduate research in history. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1949: his thesis concerned the government of Sicily in the sixteenth century and its relationship with Habsburg Spain.