Werner Erwin Stark Collection
Scope and Content Note
This collection contains materials about Werner Erwin Stark. It includes vital and identification documents such as a birth certificate, German and American passports, a counter intelligence corps identification card, and a naturalization certificate; short family trees for Werner Erwin Stark, Juda Neu, and Meier Stark; and about twenty snapshots and portraits of women, some with inscriptions to Stark. Also found in the collection is a manuscript entitled "Alias Karl Werner," a typescript of a novelistic autobiographical account of Stark's youth and experiences as a counterintelligence agent during World War Two.
Dates
- Creation: 1921-2002
Creator
- Stark, Werner Erwin, 1921-1995 (Person)
Language of Materials
This collection is in English.
Access Restrictions
This collection is open to researchers.
Access Information
Readers may access the collection by visiting the Lillian Goldman Reading Room at the Center for Jewish History. We recommend reserving the collection in advance; please visit the LBI Online Catalog and click on the "Request" button.
Biographical Note<extptr actuate="onload" altrender="Werner Erwin Stark" show="embed" title="Werner Erwin Stark" href="http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1691158"/>
Werner Erwin Stark (1921, Munich, Germany – 1995, Oakland, Michigan) was born into a Jewish family of textile merchants. Together with his older brother Walter, he immigrated to the United States via France in 1938. His parents and sister were able to join him shortly thereafter.
During World War Two, Stark enlisted in the US Army and was trained in counterintelligence at Fort Ritchie, Maryland. He served in Europe as one of the "Ritchie Boys," a group of mostly Jewish German and Austrian men whose language and cultural skills proved valuable to the Army in Europe. Stark performed a variety of counterintelligence tasks, including being dropped into Germany under a false name. According to a summary of an oral history Stark provided to the Holocaust Memorial Center, Zekelman Family Campus, in Michigan, he also served "… as an interpreter at the Nuremberg trials of war criminals, … [interrogated] the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, and [provided] surveillance of the former girlfriend of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the German Security Service as related to her associations with American army officers."
Extent
4 Folders
Abstract
This collection contains materials about Werner Erwin Stark (1921-1995), who during World War Two was one of the "Ritchie Boys" (a group of mostly Jewish German and Austrian men whose language and cultural skills proved valuable to Army intelligence in Europe). It includes vital and identification documents, family trees, snapshots and portraits of women, and a novelistic autobiographical account of Stark's youth and experiences as a counterintelligence agent during World War Two.
Digitization Note
The collection was digitized and made accessible in its entirety.
Separated material
Three photographs of Stark have been removed to the LBI Photo collection and digitized.
Processing information
Materials were rehoused. Photographs were placed in envelopes.
Subject
- Stark, Werner Erwin, 1921-1995 (Person)
- Title
- Guide to the Werner Erwin Stark (1921-1995) Collection 1921-2002 AR 11946
- Author
- Processed by Kevin Schlottmann and LBI staff
- Date
- © 2013
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Sponsor
- Processed as part of the Leon Levy Archival Processing Initiative, made possible by the Leon Levy Foundation. Digitization made possible by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany.
Revision Statements
- August 2015: dao links and digitization information added by Leanora Lange.
Repository Details
Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository
