1 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project HELMUT SONNENFELDT Interviewed By: Ch

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project HELMUT SONNENFELDT Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: July 24, 2000 Copyright 2004 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Berlin Germany England and Baltimore Maryland Na%i period Wartime Europe Family in wartime (.S. Army World War II (.S. Army - Germany 1,4. Dena%ification democrati%ation and demilitari%ation C%ech-German relations Henry 0issinger State Department - Di1ision of Foreign Acti1ity Correlation 2FC3 1,4. 4ohns Hopkins (ni1ersity 5Baltimore Maryland6 1,47-1,80 School of Ad1anced International Studies 1,81-1,82 State Department - INR - Di1ision of So1iet Research 1,82-1,.1 Russian translations McCarthyism 0orean War So1iet de1elopments Dulles regime Intelligence gathering Tito China Security issues INR influence in Department Disarmament Nuclear attack issue (SSR mission Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 2ACDA3 1 State Department - INR - Office of Director for So1iet Foreign Policy 1,.1-1,., —Missile and bomber gap“ 0hrushche1 speeches So1iet military progress (2 flights National Intelligence Estimates Sino-So1iet split Germany Cuban missile crisis 0hrushche1 —Trollope Ploy“ 0remlinology So1iet society Vietnam Arab-Israeli 1,.7 war Glassboro summit C%echoslo1akia in1asion 0issinger connection China relations Detailed to White House - National Security Council 2NSC3 1,.,-1,74 NSC and Nixon 0issinger —Backchannel“ with So1iets Secrecy So1iet (nion Middle East Germany European Defense Community 2EDC3 —Helsinki Final Act“ China Nixon Aom 0ippur War State Department - Counselor of the Department of State 1,74-1,77 Detente 0issinger Eastern Europe —Sonnenfeldt Doctrine“ European community Aalta So1iet —Empire“ loss E1ans and No1ak Helsinki —Final Act“ NATO 2 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 2CSCE3 Military issues Watergate Gerald Ford Donald Rumsfeld Reagan policies Carter policies China Cuadripartite 5Cuad6 Group Italy French left European unity European —anti-(.S.“ Dobrynin Middle East Vietnam FordDs —miss-speak“ Helsinki Accords Aom 0ippur War Africans Cubans Cyrus Vance Carter transition Ebigniew Br%e%inski Pri1ate Career 1,77 Trustee 4ohns Hopkins (ni1ersity Brookings Institution - Guest Scholar Consulting acti1ities INTERVIEW Q: oday is February 19, 2000. his is an interview with Helmut Sonnenfeldt. Let*s start. When and where were you born and something about the bac-ground of your family. SONNENFELDT: Well I was born in Berlin Germany in 1,2.. My parents were both physicians and they were practicing under the German state health insurance system in a small rural town 120 km. west of Berlin. My mother was interested in obstetrics and sheDd been trained in it in addition to other aspects of medicine. She 1ery much wanted her children to be deli1ered by her professor of obstetrics who worked in Berlin at a highly respected clinic. So my brother had been deli1ered there in 1,23 and I was deli1ered there in 1,2.. So Berlin was my birthplace but I grew up in this small town west of Berlin. It was a county seat Gardelegen in a not 1ery prosperous agricultural region. 3 My parents as physicians were respected citi%ens 5there were I think fi1e or six other doctors in the town or in the area6. They had started in their practice at the time of the great inflation in Germany. E1erybody was strugglingH but by the time I was born IDm told 5I ob1iously donDt recall it6 things were really looking up in terms of their life and their lifestyle. They werenDt e1er interested in great luxuries or extra1agances. In any e1ent when I became aware of my surroundings at age three or four we li1ed in a nicely-furnished house. On the ground floor my parents had their medical officesH and upstairs we had Iuite a large apartmentH and thatDs where I spent my childhood. Q: What about the Sonnenfeldts. What are their /erman roots, and how long were they. SONNENFELDT: On the Sonnenfeldt side my father was born in Berlin. My grandfather on my fatherDs side had been born in what was called West Prussia which once had been and later again became part of Poland 5in 1,1, when it was restored to Poland after the First World War6. ItDs a little murky before that. It is said in the family that my grandfatherDs father was a foundling. I donDt know anything about the circumstances except that he was adopted by someone named Sonnenfeldt. So what the precursors were on that side I donDt know. My grandmotherDs family came from Breslau in Silesia 5called Wroclaw after World War II6 and went back se1eral generations in that area. My paternal grandfather had a small clothing-manufacturing place in Berlin. My father and his brother were sent to uni1ersity but their two sisters werenDtH that wasnDt done in those days. Q: No. SONNENFELDT: My father studied medicine and just before he was completely finished the First World War broke out. He was drafted into the Imperial Army as a physician and was shifted back and forth between the Western and Eastern Fronts and won an Iron Cross 2German military honor3 which is something that figured later in his life. Then after the war which he was fortunate to sur1i1e he completed his medical education and started this practice in Gardelegen west of Berlin - halfway between Berlin and Hanno1er. My mother was an only child. Her fatherDs was the only 4ewish family in a smallish town in Schleswig-Holstein in the north of Germany. Her father was 1ery much personally committed to education and had been well educated I think partly by himself in classical Greek and Latin. He insisted that my mother should go to uni1ersity which she did in Hamburg. She too studied medicine. Through some complicated connections she happened to meet my father in Berlin. In Germany you donDt usually stay in one uni1ersityH you go to se1eral which is how they met. I donDt know much about my maternal grandfatherDs ancestors. But there was in his 4 family a 1ery brilliant physicist who if he hadnDt been 4ewish 5although he wasnDt a belie1er6 would ha1e been nominated to the 0aiser Wilhelm Society which was the German 1ersion of the Academy of Sciences. I didnDt get any of his genes but my one brother Richard did. C: What was his field. SONNENFELDT: Well he was a physicist and he was inter alia in1ol1ed in the in1ention of the Osram light bulb. I canDt tell you precisely what his field wasH but that was one of the things associated with his name. It earned him the approach to become a member of the German 0aiser Wilhelm Society pro1ided he con1erted to Christianity. But e1en though he wasnDt a belie1er he decided he wasnDt going to con1ert. So there was some special distinction on that side of the family. IDm not exactly sure what his antecedents were but he was ob1iously a man of great gifts. My brother became Iuite interested in science and engineering. So ID1e always said that the genes from that branch of the family came to him rather than to me. My grandfather on my motherDs side 5i.e. her father6 headed the only 4ewish family in this town of BrunsbJttelkoog which is well known in Germany because itDs at the place where what was called the 0aiser Wilhelm Canal 5now called the 0iel Canal6 joins the North Sea. So it was Iuite a well-known place. Parts of the German battle fleet were moored there in World War I. My mother kept telling us about these huge ships in her childhood. The canal was built so that ships could ha1e a short and direct link between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. In any e1ent my grandmother on my motherDs side came from Mecklenburg-Schwerin. I imagine all of them at one time or another some generations back had probably come from Po%nan or from that part of Poland which had been part of Prussia since the late eighteenth century. Q: When you grew up in your family, because it was certainly a ma1or factor in those days, how sort of 2Jewish3 was your family. I mean4 SONNENFELDT: Well they were 4ewish. They knew it. My father had been Bar Mit%1ah. My mother was an only child and she did not ha1e a similar ceremony. Coming from Berlin my fatherDs family knew many 4ews but they werenDt particularly obser1ant. I do think in our 1ery small town of Gardelegen there actually had been a somewhat larger 4ewish community in the nineteenth century than when I was growing up. They did ha1e religious ser1ices especially on the high holy days. That continued I know into my childhood because I remember going with my father into a hall that was rented for the purpose of holding ser1ices. But itDs pretty clear that until Hitler came along in 1,33 this was not a major part of their li1es. In fact my mother used to sing in the Christmas E1e choir of one of the Protestant churches in town. But they remembered their 4ewish background as did the few other local 4ewish families. In addition to ser1ices we did get some 4ewish religious instruction from a rabbi who came by train from another town e1ery week. 8 In the German schools the Prussian schools where we li1ed there was reIuired religious instruction. There was I guess a class maybe once a week maybe twice a week for the children in the school to get instruction in religion. 4ewish children e1en before Hitler were not expected to participate. But especially after Hitler came to power we were not allowed to participate. So the rabbi came I think e1ery Tuesday afternoon from a town nearer Berlin where there was a somewhat larger 4ewish community.

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