Richard Sonnenfeldt
Richard Wolfgang Sonnenfeldt (23 July 1923
Life
Richard was born Heinz Wolfgang Richard Sonnenfelt in 1923 to Jewish parents, Walther and Gertrud (Liebenthal) Sonnenfeldt,
In the U.S., Sonnenfeldt finished high school, was drafted into the U.S. Army, and became a U.S. citizen. He was then sent back to Europe as a U.S. soldier. In 1945 following the Battle of the Bulge, he was in combat action. In April 1945, he briefly entered the liberated Dachau concentration camp in Germany and saw many dead bodies and near-dead survivors. After Germany's surrender, he was working in an Army motor pool in Austria when General William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), recruited Sonnenfeldt to be his personal interpreter because he spoke both German and English fluently. Donovan soon became the first deputy of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who had been appointed by President Truman to serve as U.S. Chief of Counsel for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Sonnenfeldt moved with Donovan into that project, first to Paris and then to Nuremberg.
In 1946, Sonnenfeldt left Nuremberg and the Army and returned to the United States. He studied electrical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, graduating first in his class. In his subsequent careers, he was part of the
Sonnenfeldt's memoirs, first published in Germany, were published in English in 2006 as Witness to Nuremberg (Arcade Publishing). Sonnenfeldt was interviewed for the 2006 BBC docudrama Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial and many other documentaries.
Richard Sonnenfeldt died on October 9, 2009, from complications of a stroke at his home in Port Washington, New York, at the age of 86.[3]
Books
- ISBN 978-1-55970-856-2(Witness to Nuremberg) by Richard W. Sonnenfeldt
References
- ISBN 9780871964625.
- ^ Alien registration records NAA:MP1103/1 E40691 "Prisoner of War/Internee: Sonnenfeldt, Heinz Wolfgang", NAA:MP1103/2 E40691 "Prisoner of War/Internee; Sonnenfeldt, Wolfgang Heinz Israel". National Archives of Australia.
- ^ A. G. Sulzberger, "Richard W. Sonnenfeldt, Nuremberg Interrogator, Is Dead at 86". The New York Times. Retrieved on October 13, 2009.