Henry Alter papers

Henry Alter (1918-1999), was born Heinrich Andreas Karl Alter in Vienna, Austria, on June 14, 1918, and was the son of Dr. Heinrich Alter (1879-1935) and Karoline Genschik Alter (1883-1963). His younger brother, Carl, was born in 1920. Dr. Alter, Henry’s father, was born Jewish and converted to Catholicism before marrying Karoline Genschik, Henry’s mother. The family spent several years in Volosca-Abbazia, Italy after World War I, where Dr. Alter worked as a dentist. Dr. Alter committed suicide in Vienna in 1935. Henry managed to emigrate from Austria to the United States in June 1939. He travelled to California and attended the University of California at Los Angeles before becoming the private secretary in 1942-1943 to Paul Henreid, an Austrian actor who starred in the movie “Casablanca.” In October 1943 he was recruited into the United States Army, graduating as a private from the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, MD, in April 1944. He was sent to England in July 1944, then to France, and was tasked to the Film Theater and Control Office in Occupied Territory, eventually working with the Film and Theater Information Services branch of the US Forces in Berlin and later in Austria, where he served until 1946. Upon returning to the United States, he worked for Paramount Pictures in the censorship offices. He maintained correspondence with his brother, Carl (later Charles), who spent the war in Australia, Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, Paul Henreid, and fellow US intelligence officer Martin Herz (whose correspondence with Hans Habe is also included in the collection). Henry Alter died in 1999.