Friedrich Katz (1927–2010)

Friedrich Katz was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Bronia Rein and Leo Katz, an Austrian Jewish journalist and novelist. As a result of his father's Communist and anti-Nazi political activities, the family fled to Paris in 1933, then to the USA, and finally won asylum in Mexico. There Friedrich, age 13, attended high school school and learned his fifth language. He obtained his baccalaureate from the Liceo Franco Mexicano in 1945 and began his bachelor's degree at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), where he first became interested in the political structure of the Aztecs. He completed his BA at Wagner College in New York. In 1948, he returned with his father to Vienna, joined the Austrian Communist Party, and earned a PhD in history at the University of Vienna in 1954. He then taught at Humboldt University in East Berlin. In 1969, he published his first book, The Ancient American Civilizations, which was badly received by the East German government. As a result, Katz sought teaching opportunities in the USA, where he hoped to find greater academic freedom. He taught for a year at the University of Texas, and in 1971, accepted a position at the University of Chicago. He became known worldwide as a leading anthropologist and historian specializing in 19th and 20th century Latin American history, particularly in the Mexican Revolution. He won the 2000 Bryce Wood Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for outstanding English-language book in the humanities and social sciences for his book The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (1998). His son Leo Katz is a writer and law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and his daughter Jacqueline Ross is a writer and law professor at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.