Witness to the Storm: A Jewish Journey from Nazi Berlin to the 82nd Airborne, 1920–1945

Author Bio: Werner T. Angress

Werner T. Angress (1920–2010) was a German-Jewish refugee, WWII veteran, and professor of history; he taught European history at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, for twenty-five years. Werner Angress (then Tom) escaped Nazi Germany when he was seventeen and joined the US Army in 1941, serving as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, and making his first jump into Normandy on D-Day. He interrogated German prisoners at the French front lines and later at the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service as well as the Purple Heart. Along with many articles, he published three books: Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921-1923 (Princeton, 1963); Between Fear & Hope: Jewish Youth in the Third Reich (Columbia, 1988); and the German edition of his autobiography—Immer etwas abseits: Jugenderinnerungen eines judischen Berliners, 1920-1945 (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 2005). In 1988 he retired to Berlin, where he spoke frequently at schools and memorial sites about his youth under the Nazis. He continued to mentor students, and to use his skills as a teacher and writer to intervene on behalf of disadvantaged groups, including Turkish immigrants in Germany and East Germans after reunification.