Werner Von Rosenstiel
Werner Von Rosenstiel |
Werner H. Von Rosenstiel visited the Robert H. Jackson Center on June 4, 2002. He spoke eloquently of his experiences in Nazi Germany and his experiences with Justice Jackson at the Nuremberg Trial. He also shared his views on the parallels between the attitudes of the United States government and its people towards the German and Japanese Americans during World War II and the Muslims and Middle Easterns today. He reiterated the need for fairness and justice today in times that are similar to those immediately after Pearl Harbor and during World War II.
Von Rosenstiel was born in Germany in 1911 to a wealthy, landed family. He served in both the Wehrmacht and the U.S. Army. Trained in law in Germany and in the United States, he analyzed secret files of The German Judicial Administration after World War II, translated German witness’s affidavits, and interpreted for Herman Goering in preparation for the Nuremberg Trials. Later he was an advertising executive, and at age 60 he returned to his first love, the law, which he practiced in his own firm in Philadelphia and as a partner in the law firm in Germany. A dynamic speaker, he has lectured widely. He has addressed judges of the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, Germany. He now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with his wife Anne.
Von Rosenstiel is in the process of completing an eight volume memoir. His fifth book in the series, Tales of an American Soldier, is the true story of a German lawyer and former member of Hitler’s army who becomes an American lawyer and is drafted into the U.S. Army. One of his assignments in the Army was to serve on Justice Jackson’s staff for the War Crimes Trials in Nuremberg. There his background and special talents were used to great advantage as he read and interpreted the secret files of the Nazis who were on trial.
He has donated an endowment plus a collection of several hundred books and documents to the University of Cincinnati College of Arts and Sciences history department for a new reading room on modern European history. Click here for a biographical essay of Von Rosenstiel.