1 Each and every immigrant has their own personal narrative.

Each personal odyssey is slightly different than other tales prior or since. While comparing immigrants of similar backgrounds can provide a glimpse into life both prior and after immigrating to America, each individual has a different experience. Many immigrants are lured by the promise of a better life; this is often exacerbated by the dismal conditions that existed at home. For a young Jewish boy, growing up in Germany during the rise of Hitler, Henry Kissinger, would achieve his first lesson in diplomacy early in life. Heinz Alfred KissingerHeinz became Henry only in Americadid not volunteer for his first lessons in diplomacy. Nazi persecution made him a reluctant student long before he reached his teensBy the time Heinz was seven, the streets of his Bavarian village of Frth were overrun by Hitlers young thugs.1 Years before Kissinger would become the definition of international politics and diplomacy for those in America and around the world, he started off as that young Jewish boy, growing up in Hitlers Germany. Kissinger was born in Frth on May 27, 1923. It was a year that Germany and Jews would rememberbut for another reason. 1923 was the year that Adolph Hitler, in Munich, one hundred miles to the south, staged his provocative beer-hall putsch, an attempt to seize power that wasnt so much unsuccessful as it was premature.2 His early life was like that of any other boy his age. He learned the traditions of Judaism, that of the Sabbath, and the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.3 The Kissinger sons started out in a close-knit cozy world. They went to school with the other children of Frth.4 Prior to Hitlers rise in Germany, the town was well receptive of the Jewish families living there. Had life continued how it started for the Kissinger family, the
1 2

Marvin Kalb, and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger, (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974) 31 Marvin Kalb, and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger 32 3 Marvin Kalb, and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger 32 4 Marvin Kalb, and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger 32

2 young child who would become an elder statesman, may have very well remained in Germany. Unfortunately this small town would become a stepping stone in the way of the Nazi rise to power. As the Kissinger boys were growing up, the Nazis were growing stronger. In fact, the Bavarian environment was so charged with Nazi sentiment throughout the 1920s that Hitlers storm troopers goose-stepped into power in Frth in 1930three years before the house painter who wrote, The extermination of the Jews is not a necessary evilit is just necessary! was to march into Berlin as Chancellor.5 Life for the Kissinger boys would then begin to change, as Hitler started instituting policies regarding anyone of Jewish heritage. These new policies would begin with identifying Jews, separating Jews, arresting Jews, and ultimately killing Jews. Life began to get harder for Kissinger and his family. Kissinger once wrote, Until I immigrated to America, my family and I endured progressive ostracism and discrimination. My father lost the teaching job for which he had worked at all his life; the friends of my parents youth shunned them.6 What had been considered normal society began to change under Hitler and Nazi Germany. From the outset, the Nazi government used legislation, administrative decrees, and propaganda to defame and ostracize Jews and to lower their social, economic, and legal standing.7 Social harmony that had existed for decades, although strained at times, was destroyed. It took less than two years to destroy the foundations upon which Jewish life had existed in Germany since the countrys unification in 1871.8
5 6

Marvin Kalb, and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger 33 Henry Kissinger, White House Years, (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1979) 228 7 Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 17 8 Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair 17

3 It was at this point, by 1935, that Jewish families started to need to make a choice; stay and likely suffer even more indignities that already imposed, or attempt to leave. Those that stayed would in the end, either be forced into hiding, or captured and incarcerated for the crime of being Jewish. Life started to become more a test of survival than it was a quest for dignity. Every walk in the street turned into an adventure, for my German contemporaries were free to beat up Jewish children without interference by the police.9 This way of life would continue to get worse before it would begin to get better. By 1938, life for the Kissingers of Frth consisted off being one step ahead of the next Nazi roundup of Jews. Twelve of their relatives were eventually to join the six million Jews killed by the Nazis throughout Europe.10 The Kissingers story first brought them to London, prior to immigrating to the United States. The Kissinger family was one of the lucky ones that were able to escape Germany and immigrate to America. Immigration law had been written with the thought that people would only want to immigrate to America for economic reasons. While economics indeed plays a role in the lure of leaving home and traveling to a new country, there was a new reason to immigrate, to save their own lives.11 Sentiments of antiSemitism were rampant in America. From 1938-1940, anti-Semitism achieved peak levels, and generalized opposition to immigration also appears to have been high. Charles Coughlin began making anti-Semitic speeches ion 1938, and the next year his followers attacked Jewish stores in Boston and New York. Apparently with substantial

Henry Kissinger, White House Years, 229 Marvin Kalb, and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger 35 11 Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. (New York: Harper Collins, 2002) 296-297
10

4 public backing, Roosevelt in 1939 forced hundreds of Jewish refugees on the ocean liner St. Louis to return to Nazi dominated Europe.12 The family moved into an apartment in northern New York City, an area inhabited by other Jewish immigrants. However, their experience was different from that of their new neighbors. Many of the Jews living in the area had not come out of Germany, but had fled from tsarist Russia instead. While they held a similar religion, and to most outsiders, a Jew is a Jew, to the community they were different. In a sense, they were aliens to even many of the immigrant Jews. While their religion was the same, their culture was not. Those who had fled the ghettos of prerevolutionary Russia were mostly working class Jews whose language was Yiddish.13 Jews that came out of Germany spoke German rather than Yiddish, so even after immigrating there was a language barrier with their new neighbors that had nothing to do with English. However, even with the difficulties of coming to America, life was undoubtedly better after arriving. I always remember the thrill when I first walked the streets of New York City. Seeing a group of boys, I began to cross to the other side to avoid being beaten up. And then I remembered where I was.14 Life started to become more normalized for a young Kissinger. He attended high school and originally planned on becoming an accountant. E would soon however receive the same letter that millions of young boys would receive during World War II, he had been drafted. Not only did this give the young Kissinger a chance to defend the country he now called home, but it would bring him back to Nazi Germany, close to the town where he grew up. The army is also where his natural intelligence was seen, for at first he was sent
12

Joel S. Fetzer, Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and German, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 36 13 Marvin Kalb, and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger 36 14 Henry Kissinger, White House Years, 229

5 to school rather than the battlefield. It was here in the army that Kissinger was able to put his past behind him while attempting to fix the present. In the army, he was generally accepted by his peers, regardless of his religion, however, there was still Anti-Semitism in America, while not nearly as rampant as it was in Nazi Germany, and it still existed. During his early years in America he sensed the eccentricity of his accent, and he was deeply self conscious about it.15 This caused Kissinger to be a quiet young man who rarely spoke in public. While his family was not the typical Jewish family that Americans thought of when they heard the term, he was still fully Jewish, and antiSemitism was rampant and prevalent in America. It would be a recurring theme that Kissinger faced throughout his life both in Nazi Germany, and again repeatedly in America. Even after rising through the ranks of academia Kissinger would run into this theme of his life. At Harvard, for example, Kissinger could build new programs for international study, but he remained socially segregated with other Jews. He never gained access to elite clubs on campus, even as a renowned professor. He lived the American dream, but he never escaped the nightmare of anti-Semitism.16 Being Jewish, was just a way of life for Kissinger, while others had a problem with his religion, he felt it was simply a part of who he was. However, as a Jew, and a Jew that lived in Nazi controlled Germany, he was able to see the signs better than most. Possibly because of his fame, success, and power he was a natural target for it, but time and again throughout his life, he would see anti-Semitism from different sources.

15 16

David Landau, Kissinger: The Uses of Power, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 1972) 17 Jeremi Suri Henry Kissinger, the American Dream, and the Jewish Immigrant Experience in the Cold War Diplomatic History. 727 http://jeremisuri.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/diplomatic-historypublished-article-20-october-2008.pdf (accessed 12/5/11)

6 This concern was ever present throughout Kissingers career. It was reinforced by his close work with a White House and a Congress where prejudice against Jews remained common, despite promotion of one as secretary of state. President Richard Nixon, in particular, gave Kissinger unprecedented foreign policy power while he simultaneously referred to his advisers disloyal and degenerate Jewish characteristics.17 This is an example on how Kissingers story differed from the average American Jewish immigrant. While an average Jewish immigrant might face discrimination from a neighbor, merchant, or a random person on the street, Kissinger faced anti-Semitism from the President of the United States himself. Despite of this, and because of it, Kissinger would work to try and educate people on the signs of and how to prevent anti-Semitism. While being a Jew and a public figure, Kissinger would face discrimination as both an insider and an outsider at the same time. Kissinger was treated at the White House as an exotic wunderkinda character, an outsider. His colleagues regard for him was genuine, but so were the endless gibes at his accent and style, and so were the railings against Jewish power that were part of the casual conversation among Nixons inner circle. [ J ]ust as a black man can never change his skin, Garment observed, Kissinger could neverin fact, would nevershed his Jewishness.18 This would be a theme that would continue to follow him throughout life. One of being both too Jewish and not Jewish enough at the same time. A enduring theme that drove him to work ever

17

Jeremi Suri Henry Kissinger, the American Dream, and the Jewish Immigrant Experience in the Cold War 727 18 Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm: My Journey from Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street to Nixons White House, Watergate, and Beyond . . . (New York, 1997), 18687 quoted in Jeremi Suri Henry Kissinger, the American Dream, and the Jewish Immigrant Experience in the Cold War 727

7 harder at making the world a safer place, so sentiments such as these do not boil over and become a new holocaust. Henry Kissinger was many things in his life, a Jewish boy growing up happy in Germany, an outsider that was discriminated on and demeaned after Hitler took control, an immigrant living with other Jews that were different than him, an academic, and a statesman. All immigrants of Kissingers background did not share his worldview. Similar experiences often produce divergent perceptions. Historians must recognize, however, that certain personal experiences are formative for policymakers in their aspirations and activities.19 While it takes a singular person to overcome challenges like the ones that faced him, Kissinger often faced the same hardships faced by many immigrants, just in a different form and on a different scale. It would be these trials and his upbringing that would give Kissinger the tools and the ideas that would bring him to the forefront of international politics and win him a noble peace prize. Immigrating to America likely saved Henry Kissingers life. While there is often a lure to moving to a new country, often that lure is economic, the chance for a better life. For the Kissinger family, it was to have the chance of life itself. Nazi Germany only promised discrimination, humiliation, violence and almost certain death. The chance to come and live in America, a chance that was often denied to others in his familys position created chances, the ability to make a life for himself, a chance that Kissinger made the most out of. His personal narrative is vastly different that most other immigrants. Rarely does an immigrant have the ability or the chances in life to acquire such a powerful position. However even with all of his ability, knowledge and power,

19

Jeremi Suri Henry Kissinger, the American Dream, and the Jewish Immigrant Experience in the Cold War 747

8 Kissinger faced many of the same challenges that any immigrant faced. His is a story of the same prejudices, simply in another form, and another level.

Works Cited
Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. (New York: Harper Collins, 2002) Fetzer, Joel S. Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and German, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Kalb, Marvin, and Kalb, Bernard. Kissinger, (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974) Kaplan, Marion A., Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Kissinger, Henry. White House Years, (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1979) Landau, David. Kissinger: The Uses of Power, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 1972) Suri, Jeremi Henry Kissinger, the American Dream, and the Jewish Immigrant Experience in the Cold War Diplomatic History. http://jeremisuri.net/wpcontent/uploads/2009/06/diplomatic-history-published-article-20-october-2008.pdf (accessed 12/5/11)