- Description
- The Rolf and Hannah Wartenberg papers include biographical materials, Nuremberg trials materials, photographs, and printed materials documenting Rolf and Hannah Wartenberg’s work at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. The papers also include audiocassettes, speaking engagement records, and subject files documenting lectures and testimony given by Rolf and Hannah Wartenberg about the Holocaust and Nuremberg trials, and related Holocaust research and memorialization.
Biographical materials include identification papers documenting Rolf Wartenberg during his work at the Nuremberg trials, a phonebook page and family trees documenting the Wartenberg family, and a photocopy of Hannah Wartenberg’s diary documenting her move to Palestine in 1935-1936. This series also includes a pass Wartenberg made for his German shepherd dog as a way to test Nuremberg tribunal security.
Nuremberg trials materials consist of court records, reports, name lists, and visitors’ passes documenting the International Military Tribunal, US Military Tribunal Case 3 (the Justice Case), and US Military Tribunal Case 9 (the Einsatzgruppen Case). This series includes a calling card for Heinrich Himmler with a 1937 note written on its reverse and a draft order about a special jurisdiction for criminal cases concerning SS relatives signed by Himmler.
Photographs depict Rolf and Hannah Wartenberg and their relatives, the Nuremberg Palace of Justice and scenes from trials, and Hermann Goering and other defendants. This series includes two small photo albums documenting the Wartenbergs’ honeymoon in Prague in March 1947 and excursions from Nuremberg in the summer of 1947.
Printed materials consist of clippings about Rolf Wartenberg, the Holocaust, World War II, and the Nuremberg trials; bound copies of the International Military Tribunal, Justice case, and Einsatzgruppen case indictments; Nuremberg court cartoons by Günter Peis; copies of Aufbau from 1948 and 1967; and articles about the Nuremberg trials and the Holocaust.
Speaking engagement records document lectures given by Rolf and Hannah Wartenberg about the Holocaust and the Nuremberg trials. Records include correspondence about scheduling speeches and fees, particularly with the Jewish Welfare Board Lecture Bureau and Yad Vashem, speeches, notes, programs, announcements, bulletins, and biographical data about Rolf and Hannah Wartenberg. The series also includes audio cassette tapes which include Rolf’s oral testimonies.
Subject files consist of correspondence, notes, brochures, research materials, and reports on topics such as antisemitism, Holocaust memorialization, Holocaust denial, Sepp Dietrich’s SS Honor Sword (which Rolf Wartenberg owned and later sold), Ben Swearingen’s research into how Hermann Goering obtained the cyanide capsule he used to commit suicide, and sheet music written by Hedy Wartenberg (Rolf's mother).
- Date
-
inclusive:
1930-2004
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Thomas Wartenberg
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Rolf Wartenberg, in memory of my parents Ernst Wartenberg and Hedy Hevar
- Collection Creator
- Rolf Wartenberg
Hannah Wartenberg
- Biography
-
Rolf Wartenberg (1912-1996) was born in Berlin, Germany in 1912 to Ernst (1878-1934) and Hedy (née Zender, 1884-1975) Wartenberg and had a brother, Henry (1908-1971). Rolf fled Germany for San Salvador in late 1938 and immigrated to the United States in 1940. He joined the United States Army in 1942 and served with the Seventh Army Interrogation Center in 1944 and 1945, as executive officer of the Bodyguards of the Allied Judges and Prosecutors at the International Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1946, and, as a civilian, as Senior Interrogator for the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes at Nuremberg on the Einsatzgruppen case. He met Hannah Schiller, who worked as a translator for the Nuremberg trials, in March 1947 and married in Nuremberg. They had two children.
Hannah Wartenberg (née Schiller, 1921-2012) was born in Berlin, Germany in 1921 to Edwin (1891-1948) and Rosa (née Oleÿnicki, 1890-1965) Schiller and had one brother, Rudolf (1923-1931). She left for Palestine with her parents in 1935, and then moved to Switzerland in June 1936, to be close to a dying grandparent. They immigrated to the United States in September 1936. During the war, Hannah worked for the Office of War Information as a propaganda analyst and for CBS as a news writer. After the war, she worked as a simultaneous translator for the Nuremberg trials, and worked on the “Justice” trial from October 1946-October 1947. She met Rolf Wartenberg, who also worked for the Office for War Crimes, while they were both working on the Nuremberg trials and married in 1947. They had two children.
