Donald Scaife Detwiler

August 19, 1933 - December 22, 2020

Donald Scaife Detwiler, 87 of Carbondale, passed away on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at Manor Court in Carbondale. He was born on August 19, 1933 in Jacksonville, FL and grew up in Washington, D.C. He attended George Washington University on a full scholarship. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1954 with a bachelor’s degree in history and, through ROTC, a commission in the Air Force. He served as an intelligence officer in Germany from 1955 to 1957, when he separated overseas from active duty to pursue a graduate study at Goettingen with support from exchange scholarships from 1957 to 1959 and a research fellowship at the Institute of European History in Mainz 1960-61. In November 1961 he was awarded his doctorate cum laude in history from Goettingen University. At the end of that year he returned to the United States with his wife Ilse, whom he had married in 1956, and their son Henry, who had been born in Germany in 1959. For three years he taught history at Montgomery College, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and gave summer courses at American University and Catholic University. In 1956 he moved to West Virginia University at Morgantown and then to Southern Illinois University in 1967, from which he retired as professor emeritus of history in 1998. In 1987 he served as visiting research professor of history at National Taiwan University in Taipei. He authored and edited books on Germany and the Second World War. For fifteen years he was chairman of the World War II Studies Association and vice-chairman of the International Committee on the History of the Second World War. At the request of the Hoover Institution in Stanford, his papers have been deposited in the Detwiler Collection in the institution’s archives. He was a member of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, on the Carbondale Mosquito Abatement District Board, and the Carbondale Rotary Club. He is survived by his son, Henry D. Detwiler. Donald was preceded in death by his wife, Ilse Detwiler. Cremation will be accorded. There will be no services at this time. Crain Pleasant Grove-Murdale Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.