Austin App

Austin Joseph App (24 May 1902 – 4 May 1984) was an American professor of medieval English literature who taught at the University of Scranton and La Salle University. App defended Nazi Germany during World War II. He is known for his work denying the Holocaust, and he has been called the first major American Holocaust denier. Life and career Born in Milwaukee to German immigrant parents who were farmers, he attended St. Francis Seminary near Milwaukee and graduated in 1923. He studied English Literature at the Catholic University of America and received the Ph.D. in 1929. He served as an instructor of English at that university from 1929 to 1935. From 1935 to 1942 he served as the head of the English Department at the University of Scranton, publishing widely in scholarly and popular journals. Among the latter, he often wrote for The Catholic Home Journal, Magnificat, Queen's Work, and The Victorian. By his own account, he was particularly devoted to the cultural value of good manners, well-developed public speaking, and chivalry. App never married. He was a frequent public speaker. He wrote many letters to the editors of magazines and newspapers. He complained about the American declaration of war on Germany, and argued that without American intervention the Axis Powers would have won World War II. He blamed Jews and communists for Germany's postwar problems. Few of his letters were published. In a manner of criticism typical for his generation, App often examined literary aesthetics according to categories of virtue and truth. In a collection of essays printed in 1948, he argued for a Christian interpretation of literature in chapters titled “Presenting Sin and Temptation in Literature” and “How to Judge a Novel Ethically.”