Distinguished Professor Emeritus Guy Stern turns 100
Wayne State's Junior Year in Munich Program extends our huge congratulations to Wayne State University's Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Holocaust survivor, Guy Stern, who celebrated his 100th birthday on Jan. 14, 2022!
Renowned as the transatlantic bridge-builder, Professor Stern has been a long-time friend of JYM and spent much time on both sides of the big pond, always dropping in for a visit to JYM and the LMU whenever he is in Munich.
Professor Stern was born in Hildesheim Germany in 1922. As the National Socialists were rising to power and Jews were ever more persecuted, his family sent him, the eldest son, alone to America in 1937 to live with an uncle in Saint Louis. He was the only member of his family to escape and survive the Holocaust. Towards the end of WWII Guy Stern had joined the US military and would first return to Germany in American uniform to help the allies end the war.
He was a member of the special intelligence unit dubbed the Ritchie Boys, named after the secret Camp Ritchie in the Blue-Ridge Mountains of Maryland where they were trained. Many of the Ritchie Boys were immigrants and German-born Jews, who had fled Nazi Germany. They were selected particularly for their knowledge of the German language and culture. The counter-intelligence and their interrogation tactics amounting to psychological warfare were pivotal in tracking down and capturing Nazi war criminals and bringing them to justice during the Nuremberg trials.
Several JYM alumni may recall watching a documentary film called The Ritchie Boys (2004) featuring Guy Stern and a few other famous Ritchie Boys. There was even a special viewing just for JYM students together with Guy Stern and the film director Christian Bauer at the Rational Theater in Munich in 2011.
A CBS 60 Minutes special report featuring the last of the surviving Ritchie Boys including Guy Stern appeared last year. After the war, Stern went on to become one of the most well-known Germanists in the world and a pioneer in the fields of Exilliteratur and Holocaust studies. This year Stern was honored by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Frankfurt with an online celebration, where two books published for the occasion of his centennial birthday were presented, namely the German translation of his autobiography and a festschrift.
His wife, author and journalist, Susanna Piontek read from his autobiography, which she had translated into German. From the German National Library: Guy Stern on his 100th birthday.
JYM feels honored to have a friend in Guy Stern, who heroically shows no signs of stopping, even at 100 he still works six days a week. Alles Gute und bis bald, Professor Stern!