Gerald Gross dies at 94; published memoirs of Hitler advisor Albert Speer

Gerald J. Gross, an influential publisher and editor who is credited with giving English readers a chilling look inside Nazi Germany by publishing the memoirs of one of Adolf Hitler’s closest advisors, has died at the age of 94.

Gross, who died Oct. 14 in Baltimore, was being treated for cancer.

World War II had been over for nearly 20 years when Gross — a Jewish man who served in the U.S. military as a navigator and bombardier in bombing raids over Germany — pulled off what was considered a publishing coup.

The English-language translation of Albert Speer’s “Inside the Third Reich” became an international bestseller that Gross believed stood as an important, relevant book for Americans.

At Gross’ insistence, Speer’s royalties from book sales in America were directed to U.S. refugee aid organizations.

During his lengthy career, Gross worked with some of the day’s most respected writers: Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Barbara W. Tuchman and E.E. Cummings among them.

“He is entirely responsible for my literary career,” said Jerald Walker, an author and professor at Emerson College in Boston. “I had been writing for some time for literary magazines and one day, out of the blue, he called me and said he had read my story ‘Visible Man’ — which reminded him of Ralph Ellison, with whom he had worked and who had written ‘The Invisible Man.’

“He asked if I had other pieces and helped me get a literary agent,” said Walker, whose memoir, “Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion and Redemption,” won the 2011 PEN New England/L.L. Winship Award for Nonfiction.

Gerald Jeremiah Gross was born in Jersey City, N.J., on Oct. 10, 1921. His father was a milliner and his mother a homemaker. The family later moved to New York City, where Gross attended City College.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, he dropped out of college, got married and enlisted in the Army Air Forces — “all in the same week,” said his son, Adam Gross.

He served with the 8th Air Force’s 44th Bomb Group, the most decorated group of World War II, and flew 24 missions over Germany. A lieutenant, he was involved in the Battle of the Bulge and Remagen, “two of the most harrowing bombing runs of the war,” his son said.

When the war ended, he landed his first job in publishing with Rynal & Hitchcock, a company that merged with Harcourt Brace, where he remained for 14 years.

During his years at Harcourt Brace, he was the first editor to have the National Book Award presented to two of his authors in the same year: for fiction, Wright Morris’ “Field of Vision,” and for poetry, Richard Wilbur’s “Things of This World.”

He later joined Pantheon Books and supervised publication of “Born Free,” “Dr. Zhivago,” “The Tin Drum” and “The Leopard,” which became motion pictures.

In 1962, he joined Macmillan Publishers, where as senior vice president he was in charge of the company’s general book division, responsible for the publication of 450 books per year.

That allowed Gross to worked with writers such as Alfred Kazin, Le Corbusier, George Orwell, Lewis Mumford, Carl Jung and Hannah Arendt, as well as film director Frank Capra and actors Marlene Dietrich, Jack Lemmon and Maurice Chevalier.

But it was the publication of Speer’s wartime memoirs that resonated the loudest.

During his confinement at Spandau Prison in Berlin, Speer completed the memoir in 1954 that became the basis for his book. He had been a German architect and an advisor to Hitler, and he became a close friend of Gross. Their relationship continued until Speer’s death in 1981 in London.

Gross’ son said his father was one of the only World War II veterans to have had a relationship with a ranking member of Hitler’s cabinet. Speer was the only Nazi leader at the Nuremberg war-crimes trial to admit guilt, but his claims that he knew little or nothing about the death camps is doubted by some historians.

Gross left publishing in 1975 and moved to Boston when he was named vice president for arts, publications and media at Boston University.

After Gross moved to Baltimore in 1995, he maintained a vigorous schedule. He taught and lectured on publishing at Goucher College, New York University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Boston University and the Pratt Institute.

His wife, who was a director of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, died in 2005.

In addition to his son, Gross is survived by a daughter, Sarah Gross; and two granddaughters.

Frederick N. Rasmussen is a staff writer with the Baltimore Sun

A Los Angeles Times staff writer contributed to this report.

fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com