My father, Nick Jacobs, who has died aged 85, was a publisher who brought German writers closer to British readers at a time when there was little interest in doing so. Few have paid attention to the dissemination of German literature in the English-speaking world as much as he did.
While in Germany on national service aged 18, he began to take an interest in German literature, and on leave in East Berlin he bought a book by Bertolt Brecht, War Primer, that 40 years later he would issue in an English translation.
