![]() As never before, American soldiers like Kissinger were deployed around the globe to enforce freedom, order, and democracy as the United States developed a large, permanent peacetime military force to police distant lands. This was the first contradiction of Kissinger’s career, and of the Cold War: the United States established itself at the end of the Second World War as a defender of humanity and civilization through the use of overwhelming military force. Kissinger was helping defend humanity and civilization, he believed, against its gravest threats. As Kissinger remembers, his time in the army was the period when he first felt “American,” with a special role to play in helping his newfound society. He understood German society, he could master incredible amounts of work, and there was little chance (because of his Jewish heritage) that he would sympathize with the Nazi leaders the United States sought to capture. Kissinger’s German language skills, his quick mind, and his Jewishness made him perfect for this job. Kissinger worked in counterintelligence, charged with helping American soldiers understand German society, identifying Nazi figures in Europe, and eventually managing postwar German society. ![]() In the weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Henry Kissinger joined the US Army, which is where his foreign policy career began. Life in the United States on the eve of the Second World War was difficult, but it was livable for a family that faced certain death in its original home. To help support his family, Kissinger worked in a brush factory during the day. As a teenager, Kissinger attended George Washington High School and then night school at City College-an institution that educated many poor immigrants. ![]() New York City in the late 1930s was filled with prejudices and tensions between ethnic groups, but German Jewish refugees, like the Kissingers, could at least establish new roots and make new lives for themselves. As was the case for so many other refugees, the United States was a “savior” nation for those suffering the extreme hatreds of the era. Henry Kissinger could never erase his memories of the Holocaust. They both died at the hands of the Nazis, as did many other members of the Kissinger family who could not escape Europe. Soon after they fled Germany, Nazi crowds attacked Henry Kissinger’s maternal grandparents. They considered themselves patriotic Germans who were proud of their country’s achievements, but they suffered the extremes of fascist anti-Semitism. The Kissingers were Orthodox Jews from Bavaria, descendants of rabbis and cattle merchants in the region. ![]() The family fled Nazi Germany just weeks before the Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews. Kissinger’s life in the United States began as a refugee, arriving in New York City, along with his parents and younger brother, at age 15. He remains influential and infamous in the early twenty-first century because those Cold War contradictions continue to characterize American discussions of foreign policy, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Israel and China. Kissinger’s diverse experiences, and the varied public perceptions of them, captured many of the contradictions at the center of the Cold War. Most of all, Henry Kissinger appeared throughout the global media as a genius, villain, and consummate manipulator who wielded power at the most important points in recent history. He acted as an intellectual, diplomat, and White House official, implementing some of the most enduring shifts in international affairs. He participated as a soldier, scholar, and statesman in many of the most significant policy debates of the period. Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial figures to emerge from the Cold War.
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