Werner Warmbrunn Collection
Scope and Content Note
The Werner Warmbrunn Collection documents life and professional activities of Werner Warmbrunn and to a smaller extent, members of his immediate family. The collection consists of correspondence, diaries and memoirs, educational documents, printed materials, and unpublished poetry by David Warmbrunn and Werner Warmbrunn.
Included in the collection are Werner Warmbrunn’s personal correspondence (mostly from the late 1930s); professional correspondence pertaining to his work at Stanford University and Pitzer College; as well as correspondence of his parents, David and Lilly.
However, the core of the collection consists of Werner Warmbrunn’s diaries dating back to the late 1930s that will allow a researcher to better understand Jewish youth in in pre-war Germany and in immigration.
Additionally, there is unpublished poetry by Werner Warmbrunn and David Warmbrunn, printed materials, and photo albums arranged topically by Werner Warmbrunn.
Dates
- Creation: 1885-2006
Creator
- Warmbrunn, Werner, 1920- (Person)
Language of Materials
The collection is in German and English.
Access Restrictions
Open to researchers.
Access Information
Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.
Biographical Note
Werner Warmbrunn was born on July 3rd, 1920, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His father, Dr. David Warmbrunn was a chemist, who owned a commercial laboratory.
In 1936 the Warmbrunn family moved to Amsterdam, Holland. In Amsterdam, Werner Warmbrunn attended the Barleus gymnasium.
In 1939, his parents left Holland and settled in the United States. Werner Warmbrunn remained in Holland and attended a Quaker agricultural boarding school. In 1941 he came to the United States where he stayed with his sister on a farm near Cornell, Ithaca. He got enrolled at Cornell University in 1941 and earned his BA in 1943.
He taught at a conventional school in New Hampshire and Putney School in Vermont before moving to California, where he earned his Ph.D. in History at Stanford University.
Between 1949 and 1952 Werner Warmbrunn served as a Co-Director at the Peninsula School in Menlo Park, California. From 1952 to 1964 he was a foreign student adviser and director at Bechtel International Student Center, Stanford University.
In 1963, he was invited to Pitzer College by its president, John Atherton. Werner Warmbrunn helped design the academic programs for the new college (Pitzer College, an undergraduate liberal college was founded in 1963) and developed its community.
Werner Warmbrunn is the author of two books: The Dutch Under German Occupation, 1940-1945 and The German Occupation of Belgium 1940-1945.
Werner Warmbrunn retired in 1991. He died in 2009.
Extent
2 Linear Feet
Abstract
The Werner Warmbrunn Collection documents life and professional activities of Werner Warmbrunn and to a smaller extent, members of his immediate family. The collection consists of correspondence, diaries and memoirs, educational documents, printed materials, and unpublished poetry by David Warmbrunn and Werner Warmbrunn.
Arrangement
The collection is divided into two series:
Subject
- Warmbrunn, Werner, 1920- (Person)
- Rosenthal, Hans, 1925-1987 (Person)
- Pitzer College (Organization)
- Stanford University (Organization)
- NAFSA: Association of International Educators (Washington, D.C.) (Organization)
Genre / Form
- clippings (information artifacts)
- Correspondence
- Diaries
- manuscripts (documents)
- Official documents
- Photographs
- Printed materials
Geographic
Occupation
Topical
- Title
- Guide to the Werner Warmbrunn Collection 1885-2006 AR 25202
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by Yakov Illich Sklar
- Date
- © 2012
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Sponsor
- as part of the Leon Levy Archival Processing Initiative, made possible by the Leon Levy Foundation
Revision Statements
- 2012-May-01: T.R. Mendenhall: condensed into two linear feet, relabeled folders, updated container list accordingly.
- November 12, 2014 : Links to digital objects added in Container List.
Repository Details
Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository
