Henry (Heinz) Kissinger by Kingston Jones

kingstonjones3 — 2025-04-29 16:31:15 UTC

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The Act of Resistance: Notes, Details, Dates, Important Facts: "On April 10 [1945], just days before the roundup of the Gestapo sleeper cell, Kissinger stared the Holocaust in the face when he and other members of the 84th Division stumbled upon the concentration camp at Ahlem," Niall Ferguson wrote in his biography Kissinger, Vol. 1, 1923-1968: The Idealist, in which Ferguson republished Kissinger's two-page reflection on that day.

"I see the huts, I observe the empty faces, the dead eyes," Kissinger wrote. "You are free now. I, with my pressed uniform, I have lived in filth and squalor, I haven’t been beaten and kicked. What kind of freedom can I offer? I see my friend enter one of the huts and come out with tears in his eyes. 'Don’t go in there. We had to kick them to tell the dead from the living.'"

The experience, he wrote, exemplified "humanity in the 20th century," at a time when the very definitions of life and death seemed to blur.

As a kid

kingstonjones3 — 2025-04-29 16:37:23 UTC

Part of a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution and migrated to the United States in 1938.On August 20, 1938, when Kissinger was 15 years old, he and his family fled Germany to avoid further Nazi persecution. The family briefly stopped in London before arriving in New York City on September 5. Kissinger later downplayed the influence his experiences of Nazi persecution had had on his policies and view of the world, writing that the "Germany of my youth had a great deal of order and very little justice; it was not the sort of place likely to inspire devotion to order in the abstract." Nevertheless, many scholars, including Kissinger's biographer Walter Isaacson, have argued that his experiences influenced the formation of his realist approach to foreign policy

Early Life

kingstonjones3 — 2025-04-29 16:41:13 UTC

Kissinger vividly recalled being nine years old in 1933 and learning of Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor of Germany, which proved to be a profound turning point for the Kissinger family. During Nazi rule, Kissinger and his friends were regularly harassed and beaten by Hitler Youth gangs. Kissinger sometimes defied the segregation imposed by Nazi racial laws by sneaking into soccer stadiums to watch matches, often receiving beatings from security guards. As a result of the Nazis' anti-Semitic laws, Kissinger was unable to gain admittance to the Gymnasium and his father was dismissed from his teaching job.

kingstonjones3 — 2025-04-29 16:42:35 UTC

Impact of what happened: More than six decades later, during a screening of a documentary about the camp, Angels of Ahlem, he said that seeing the victims was "one of the most horrifying experiences of my life." He knew that, had his family not fled Germany in 1938, he too could have been one of the victims of the Holocaust. It was a realization that would shape his worldview for decades to come.

What Henry saw going into the camp

kingstonjones3 — 2025-04-29 16:45:52 UTC

There was a boy, about fifteen years old, who was lying in his own vomit, urine and stool. When he looked at me, I could see he was crying for help…. Our troop had just come through six months of bloody battle but what we were seeing here made us sick to our stomachs and some even cried.

Henry Kissinger explaining the horrors of Nazi Germany

kingstonjones3 — 2025-04-29 16:49:14 UTC

He explains how as his troops and him were driving their army jeep down the roads of Ahlem near the concentration camp he sees many skeletons in suits laying there mostly meaning those were Jews who were probably killed really early during when the Nazi's started killing and just chose not to clean up.

kingstonjones3 — 2025-05-03 15:54:39 UTC

Henry Alfred Kissinger was appointed Secretary of State on September 21 by President Richard M. Nixon and served in the position from September 23, 1973 to January 20, 1977. With his appointment, he became the first person ever to serve as both Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, a position he had held since President Nixon was sworn into office on January 20, 1969. However, on November 3, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford removed him from his National Security Adviser position while keeping him as Secretary of State. He was also the first to do this as a foreigner.

Conclusion

kingstonjones3 — 2025-05-03 15:56:17 UTC

Henry Kissinger was a bright young man who's family was even brighter being able to escape Germany as a Jewish family seeing Hitler was not going to be good for them then coming back and being able to save a bunch of Jews is a perfect example of someone who rose over the Nazis.