Obituaries

Irmgard Neumann Economist

Irmgard Neumann, 87, a German immigrant who became an economist with the Commerce Department, died Sept. 22 at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville after a heart attack. She was a Silver Spring resident.

Mrs. Neumann began working for the federal government in 1971 as a senior international economist who focused on the European Economic Community and European Free Trade Association nations and policies affecting multinational corporations. She represented the Commerce Department at the United Nations and made annual trips to New York and Geneva as part of the U.S. delegation.

She was born Irmgard Hartmann in Grossengottern, Thuringia, in central Germany and was a champion javelin thrower. She enrolled in the University of Leipzig and took classes in language and economics, graduating with an advanced degree as a simultaneous translator in 1943.

Mandatory government work assignments followed, and she worked in Berlin at a government-owned radio station, translating French and American radio shows into German. In 1944, she started working at the German Embassy in France while attending universities in Berlin, Paris and later, Frankfurt.

By 1949, she began working as the personal secretary to the German ambassador to the United States and moved to Washington in 1950. She acted as the ambassador's translator as well. In 1953, she enrolled at American University and received a second graduate degree in international economics. She married in 1958 and became a U.S. citizen. The next year, she resigned her job at the German Embassy. Her family spent eight years in Massachusetts, where she joined a variety of organizations, became a certified master weaver and taught night-school classes in economics to graduate students at Northeastern University in Boston.

The family returned to the Washington area in 1968 and Mrs. Neumann soon began working at the Commerce Department.

She retired in 1981 and enjoyed travel, including an annual trip to Germany to see family members.

Her husband, Albrecht J. Neumann, died in 1987.

Survivors include twin daughters, Barbara Neumann Beers and Eva Neumann, both of Bethesda; a brother; a sister; twin granddaughters and a grandson.

-- Patricia Sullivan