Author Visit - A German Jew's Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany

Authors Cindy Schweich Handler and Harry H. Handler will visit the library to discuss their book A German Jew's Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany

When Prussian soldier Fritz Oppenheimer left the WWI battlefield with two Iron Crosses, he could never have imagined that the pinnacle of his military career would come 27 years later – as U.S. General Eisenhower’s legal aide at the Nazi surrender in Berlin, taking top Nazi leaders into captivity and interrogating Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Wehrmacht. At a time when authoritarian movements worldwide once again threaten to gain traction,A German Jew’s Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany
is an untold David-and-Goliath story that reminds us how even in the darkest times, one individual’s efforts can help change the course of history and forge a more hopeful future.
Fritz Oppenheimer was an improbable hero. The scion of a privileged banking family, he fled the Nazis months before Kristallnacht, joined U.S. Army basic training at 45 and quickly rose in the ranks of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force to help plan the post-invasion of Europe. His international legal skills and fluency in multiple languages made him supremely suited to play a key role in de-Nazification, and to set up a fair justice system for all Germans.
To history buffs, Oppenheimer is an empowered Zelig present at some of the biggest stories of the 20th century – battles at Verdun and the Somme, the Nazi surrender in Berlin, touring Hitler’s bunker. Lovers of biography enjoy meeting this 5’3” character with a towering personality, a perpetual outsider who loved proving his doubters wrong -- and whose choices, while bringing success on the world stage, led to tragic losses in his private life.
Oppenheimer’s remarkable story remained untold until his grandson, Harry Handler, discovered letters and documents stuffed into a closet. These include contemporaneous WWI diaries, a heretofore unknown escape plan for top Nazis, and up-close character portraits of history’s villains. Harry enlisted his wife, Cindy, a journalist for Gannett whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and other national outlets, to write A German Jew’s Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany.