Ronald Gray was born in London on 1 November 1919.?After school in Battersea and Wandsworth, he won a major scholarship to read modern languages at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, although he got a chance to pursue this ?only?when his aunt Edie offered to put up the ¡°caution money¡± of ?50.

Although he started his degree in 1938, Dr Gray did not graduate until 1945, since he spent most of the war as a captain in the armed forces.

Already a brilliant Germanist, he was recruited to work at the codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park, where his most memorable moment was translating a message that read ¡°Our shield and F¨¹hrer Adolf Hitler is dead¡±.

He then worked at the University of Zurich (1947-48) and as a lektor in English at the University of Basel (1948-49), gaining a PhD (1949) for his research on Goethe¡¯s scientific studies.?

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It was at this point that Dr Gray returned to Cambridge for the rest of his life, as assistant lecturer (1949-57) and then lecturer (1957-82) in German. From 1958, he was also a fellow at Emmanuel, where he went on to serve as treasurer, domestic bursar and vice-master.

Along with general studies of German literature, he wrote two books each on Goethe, Kafka and Brecht as well as studies of Ibsen and Shakespeare.

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¡°Of the distinguished British Germanists of the last half-century,¡± said John Harvey, fellow in English at Emmanuel, Dr Gray was ¡°among the most prolific, and the most radical in probing the German tradition.

¡°When he ceased lecturing to the young, he joined the University of the Third Age, where, with weakening vocal chords, he could hold an audience rapt through his nineties.

¡°When that stopped, still he would shuffle regularly into Emmanuel, peering over his glasses with his failing eyes and looking like a cross between King Lear and an owl ¨C but keen still to discuss alchemy, West End theatre or Shakespeare¡¯s Dark Lady.

¡°As a younger man he had a fine presence. For many years he was a senior sponsor of the Marlowe Dramatic Society and also acted in their plays. I had first seen him in the 1960s, taking a demotic part in Brecht¡¯s Galileo, where he added to the student production a robust, nuanced voice from the world of wars and life.¡±

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Dr Gray died on 19 November 2015 and is survived by his partner Dorothy Sturley, a son and a daughter.

matthew.reisz@tesglobal.com