Joseph Padur Bauke was born in 1931 in Briesen, Germany, and grew up with one brother and three sisters.
[1] His dissertation was titled "Christian Gottfried Körner: Portrait of a Literary Man".
[2] Bauke started to teach at Columbia in 1959 and served as the chair of the German Department for twelve years.
[3] Bauke served as the primary editor for The Germanic Review from 1966 to 1983 and was the president of the Germanistic Society of America from 1970 to 1983.
Bauke was also the director of the Deutsches Haus (German House) at Columbia University.