W. Michael Blumenthal

He was born in Oranienburg near Berlin in 1926. His family moved to Berlin when he was three years old. In 1938, his father was deported to Buchenwald where he was held and mistreated for six weeks. After his release, the family was able to escape to Shanghai where they survived the war.

In 1947, he immigrated to the United States and became a U.S. citizen in 1952. After completing his Ph.D. at the renowned Princeton University, he was also professor of economics there from 1954 to 1957. He then joined Crown Cork International Corporation where he rose to Vice President and Director.

In the 1960s, he entered politics and public service. He served in the U.S. State Department from 1961 until 1967 as an ambassador and advisor on trade to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Ten years as President and Chairman of the Board of Bendix followed before President Jimmy Carter appointed him as Secretary of the Treasury in 1977. In 1979, he resigned from this position. He returned to the business sector and joined the Burroughs Corporation in 1980 as Vice Chairman, then CEO and Chairman a year later. After a merger into the Unisys Corporation in 1986, he became Chairman and CEO of Unisys. Following his retirement, he was a partner of Lazard Frères & Co. LLC (1990-96).
 

It was during this period that Mr. Blumenthal turned his attention to the history of the German Jews. Researching the life stories of his ancestors – among them Rachel Varnhagen, famous for her “Berliner Salons”, the opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, and literary critic Arthur Eloesser – he knitted their biographies into the larger historical framework in his book The Invisible Wall: 300 years of a German-Jewish Family, which was published in 1998. It traces the difficult relationship of German gentiles and Jews since the 17th century and explores the question of how the catastrophe of the Holocaust could have come about.

Following his appointment as Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin in 1997, the museum’s primary focus shifted from the history of Berlin Jews to German-Jewish history in its totality. The long-aspired independent status for the museum from the Stiftung Stadtmuseum (Foundation of the City Museum) was granted on 1 January 1999. In 2001, the 14th German Bundestag passed the law to form a Jewish Museum Berlin Foundation, which has since been a foundation directly under federal government control. Its festive opening took place in September 2001.

Mr. Blumenthal lives with his wife Barbara (née Bennett) in Princeton, New Jersey. They divide their time between there and their homes in New York, Ojai, California and Berlin. They have one son and Mr. Blumenthal has three daughters from a former marriage. His memoirs in German translation entitled In achtzig Jahren um die Welt. Mein Leben (Around the World in Eight Years. My Life) was published by Propyläen Publishers in October 2010. In October 2011, a series of interviews with the Deustchlandfunk journalist David Dambitsch about his life’s work were published by Membran Music Ltd. in the audible book Auf den Einzelnen kommt es an (It is the individual that counts). He is also the author of The Payday Consipiracy (2024).

He has been awarded numerous honorary doctorates from major universities and is an honorary citizen of Berlin and Oranienburg.