Arthur Thomas Hatto (11 February 1910 – 6 January 2010) was an English scholar of German studies at the University of London, notable for translations of the Medieval German narrative poems Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the Nibelungenlied. He was also known for his theory of epic heroic poetry, and related publications. He retired in 1977, and in 1991 the British Academy elected him as a Senior Fellow.

Hatto was born in London on 11 February 1910.^[1] His father was Thomas Hatto, a solicitor's clerk who later became the Assistant Chief Solicitor in the British Transport Commission legal service, and his mother Alice Hatto (née Waters), a nurse.^[1] The family lived in Forest Hill, and later Clapham.^[1] When Hatto was eight, towards the end of the First World War, he spent a formative year with his aunt in the relative safety of Barcombe, which Hatto would later call a "still semi-pagan" village where he was "running wild".^[1] Hatto's interest in the community and its surroundings, a rural landscape far removed from his London roots, foreshadowed his interest in the intricacies of human society.^[2] As he said later, "I didn’t feign knowing anything, so everything I saw, I learned".^[2]

In 1923, Hatto was awarded a scholarship to Dulwich College.^[3] He entered on the "modern" side and studied German ("the most exotic language available", in his later words), Latin, French, arithmetic, and elementary mathematics, among other subjects, with middling results.^[3] His highest marks came in English, which Hatto attributed to a well-received essay about roads.^[3] Hatto also ran cross country and played rugby at the school.^[3]

Hatto met more academic success at King's College London, where his father, refusing to see his son "loll on a Sixth Form bench", sent him in 1927.^[4] Hatto studied there with Robert Priebsch, Frederick Norman, and Henry Gibson Atkins.^[4] Norman, in particular, who had such an influence on Hatto that Hatto forever after called Norman "my tutor", recognised Hatto's potential in academia.^[4] He refused to take back Hatto's books at the end of term, stating "No, not yours, Mr Hatto, you will be needing them in years to come!"^{[4][note 1]}

In an effort to improve his German, Hatto left in 1932 for the University of Bern, where he taught as a Lektor for English; beforehand, John Rupert Firth helped coach him in how to teach the subject.^[7] While in Bern, Hatto also studied under Helmut de Boor and Fritz Strich, taught himself the local dialect Bärndütsch, and played the rural Swiss sport hornussen.^[7] In 1934, King's College awarded Hatto a Master of Arts with distinction for his thesis, "A Middle German Apocalypse Edited from the Manuscript British Museum, Add. 15243".^{[8][note 2]} Hatto remained proud of the accomplishment, which, at the time, was considered the equivalent of a doctorate.^[8]

Also in 1934, Hatto, who had much enjoyed his time in Bern, was offered an assistant lectureship in German at King's College.^[7] He returned, bringing back with him Rose Margot Feibelmann, a medical student from Düsseldorf whom he married in 1935.^[7] As she was Jewish, the move probably saved her life and the lives of her parents, who followed in March 1939.^[7] The Hattos settled first in Radlett and later in Mill Hill.^[7] After four years the position was no longer needed;^{[note 3]} Norman first encouraged Hatto apply for a vacancy at Newcastle University, and then, after the Hattos were reluctant to uproot themselves, recommended him for a new lectureship at Queen Mary College, London.^[8] Hatto was chosen over many other applicants, in part, he thought, because the Principal, Sir Frederick Barton Maurice, admired his skill at rugby.^{[11][note 4]} In 1938 Hatto became the Head of the Department of German, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1977.^[13]

Hatto's appointment at Queen Mary College had scarcely begun when, in February 1939, he was recruited, on the recommendations of Maurice and Norman, to work in the cryptographic bureau in Room 40 at the Foreign Office.^[13] Norman was working there also; Hatto initially worked under him in the Air Section, until on 3 September the two were sent to Bletchley Park, where they worked under John Tiltman.^[13] At least two other professors of German, Walter Bruford and Leonard Ashley Willoughby, had served in cryptography during the First World War, and many more served during the Second. ^[13] As a "nursery for Germanists", Bletchley Park included in its ranks Bruford, Leonard Forster, Kenneth Brooke, Trevor Jones, C. T. Carr, D. M. Mennie, R. V. Tymms, Dorothy Reich, William Rose, K. C. King, F. P. Pickering, and H. B. Willson.^[13]

Hatto was well-suited to the task of cryptography, given his philological background and his fluent German; rare amongst his Bletchley Park colleagues, he was able to decrypt even messages that had become corrupted.^[14] This skill generated both tension with and envy from with Oliver Strachey, working above Hatto.^[15] Strachey, however, had also assigned to Hatto's section Leonard Robert Palmer and Denys Page, who recognised Hatto's abilities and tasked him with scrutinising ciphers to look for hints of future ciphers.^[15] One of his successes was in discovering that a current cipher revealed the three-letter call signs from the preamble to messages in a future cipher, which served as the key to communications between the land, sea and air arms of the Third Reich's combined armed forces, the Wehrmacht.^[15] The discovery came before, and aided, the Allied invasion of Sicily.^[15]

After Germany fell, part of Hatto's section was dispatched to Tokyo, by way of Ceylon.^[15] Page invited Hatto to join, although he somewhat reluctantly declined, his daughter Jane having just been born.^[15]

Hatto kept silent about his wartime work, even after the work done at Bletchley Park was revealed in F. W. Winterbotham's book 1974 The Ultra Secret.^[15] Though he was not named in the book, he was nevertheless alarmed by it.^[15] According to one of his colleagues, its publication led him to fear being kidnapped by the Soviets to the Lubyanka, "so far removed from the Reading Room of the British Museum".^[15]

Wartime duties kept Hatto busy until 1945, although from 1944 onward he was allowed to lecture in Medieval German at University College London one day a week.^[16] He returned to Queen Mary College in 1945, to find the school struggling with its finances and enrolment, not to mention damaged from bombings.^[17] At least once the coke supply ran out, requiring water to be boiled or delivered by handcart.^[18] The department numbered just Hatto and a part-time colleague upon his return, though its status was raised in 1946, with the promotion of Hatto to Reader in German.^[17][18] Hatto was again promoted, to Professor, in 1953.^[17] Over his tenure, he developed a strong German Department, eventually numbering five full-time staff and one and a half language assistants.^[17]

Though much of his work was addressed to an academic readership, Hatto's best-known works are translations of three Medieval German poems: Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the Nibelungenlied.^[19][20] These were three of what Hatto saw as the four great German narrative poems of the age (the fourth, Willehalm, was translated by one of his pupils).^[21]

Following the translation of Tristan, published as a Penguin Classic in 1960, Hatto received an invitation from a professor of German at the University of Auckland to visit for several months in 1965.^[22] The ensuing trip around the world took Hatto to Istanbul, Delhi, Kathmandu, Bangkok, Auckland, Wellington, Fiji, Hawaii, California, the Grand Canyon, and New York, where he acquired a Kirghiz‐Russian dictionary.^[22]

Hatto retired in 1977,^[23] by which time he had had at least 72 works published.^[24]

Hatto and his wife Margot had a daughter, Jane, and a son-in-law, Peter.^[25] They remained married until her death in 2000.^[20]

Hatto himself died of bronchopneumonia shortly before turning 100, on 6 January 2010, at Field House in Harpenden.^[25][26]

For a list of publications through 1977, see Griffith-Williams 1977; for some subsequent publications, see Flood 2011.