Richard Wolfgang Sonnenfeldt (23 July 1923

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, Germany – 9 October 2009,

Port Washington, New York Port Washington is a Hamlet (New York), hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) on the Cow Neck Peninsula in the North Hempstead, New York, Town of North Hempstead, in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on the North Shore (Long Island), No ...

) was a

Jewish American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and

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most notable for being the U.S. prosecution team's chief interpreter in 1945 prior to the

Nuremberg Trial The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Life

Richard was born Heinz Wolfgang Richard Sonnenfelt in 1923 to Jewish parents, Walther and Gertrud (Liebenthal) Sonnenfeldt, in Gardelegen. He was eventually driven from his homeland by the harshness of the

Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...

. In 1938, his mother was able to deliver Richard and his brother

Helmut Helmut is a German name. Variants include Hellmut, Helmuth, and Hellmuth. From old German, the first element deriving from either ''heil'' ("healthy") or ''hiltja'' ("battle"), and the second from ''muot'' ("spirit, mind, mood"). Helmut may refer ...

to Bunce Court, a boarding school in England. After Germany attacked England in 1940, he was interned in England as an

enemy alien In customary international law, an enemy alien is any native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and ...

. Sonnenfeldt was sent to a prison in Australia, then released. On arrival in Australia he gave his name as Wolfgang Heinz Israel Sonnenfeldt. He emigrated to India and then the United States, arriving in April 1941 and reunited with his family in Baltimore. (His brother,

, not treated as an enemy alien because he was under age 16, obtained passage from England to the U.S. Their parents escaped from Germany to Sweden and made it from there to the U.S.) 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 The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...

, he was in combat action. In April 1945, he briefly entered the liberated

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

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 The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(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 Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Unit ...

, 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

Radio Corporation of America The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

(RCA) team that invented color television, involved in work for NASA on the

moon landing A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959. The United St ...

s, a senior executive at the

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(NBC), the dean of a business school, and inventor and holder of many patents, among other things. 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 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

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'' Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial'' and many other documentaries. Richard Sonnenfeldt died on October 9, 2009 from complications of a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

at his home in

at the age of 86.A. G. Sulzberger
"Richard W. Sonnenfeldt, Nuremberg Interrogator, Is Dead at 86"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Retrieved on October 13, 2009.

Books

* (Witness to Nuremberg) by Richard W. Sonnenfeldt

References

External links

"Richard Sonnenfeldt's Memoir, Witness to Nuremberg"
Press Release.
An interview with Richard Sonnenfeltd on charlierose.com .
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnenfeldt, Richard Nuremberg trials 1923 births 2009 deaths People from Gardelegen Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States People educated at Bunce Court School People from Port Washington, New York 20th-century German translators 20th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers