In April 1963, I entered the University of Tokyo's College of Arts and Sciences and took a German language class for experienced learners. I had learned a little German in high school and I wanted to read the works of Marx and Popper in their original language.
My instructor was professor Kozo Komiya. He was the son of professor Toyotaka Komiya, a disciple of novelist Natsume Soseki and the model for Soseki's novel "Sanshiro." Professor Komiya had us study modern German by having us spend a semester reading "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engels, rather than the writings of Goethe and Schiller, and using clippings from the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine as teaching materials.
