Ritchie Boy Interviews/Testimonies

Landon Grove, former director of the Ritchie History Museum, had the pleasure of having a virtual conversation with Dr. Albert Miller, a Ritchie Boy who shares his story of hardships faced during the Holocaust, his immigration to the United States, time in the military, and life after. We thank Al for his time and his service to the Country!

Interview by Landon Grove, Ritchie History Museum / Dr. Albert Miller

Landon Grove, former director of the Ritchie History Museum, had the pleasure of having a virtual conversation with Frederick John Rosenthal, a Ritchie Boy who shares his interesting story of his wartime experiences and more. We thank John for his time and his service to the Country! A quick note - We welcomed John as a graduate of the 15th class at Camp Ritchie, but he corrected us that he was a member of the 15th class, however he did not complete the courses before being alerted for his overseas assignment. 

Interview by Landon Grove, Ritchie History Museum / John Rosenthal

Lt. Col. Alfred Shehab served during WWII, and saw action during the Battle of the Bulge – Hitler’s month-long final offensive on the Western front. LTC Shehab was assigned to the 38th Cavalry Squadron, a reconnaissance unit tasked with patrolling the forests of the Ardennes region when the battle broke out on December 16, 1944. Here, he talks about his distinguished service, and the impact its had upon his life. 

Video by American Veterans Center / Lt. Col. Alfred Shehab

The Untold Stories of a Clandestine WWII Intelligence Unit: The Ritchie Boys. Ritchie Boy Stanley Carnarius was born in Illinois, but had a penchant for foreign languages. He spoke German, French, Spanish and Portuguese and was thus accepted into the Ritchie program. While at Camp Ritchie Carnarius would study photo interpretation and map-making and graduate from the 21st Class as an Order of Battle specialist. 

Video by American Veterans Center / Stanley Carnarius

Maximilian Lerner was born in 1924 in Vienna, Austria. Following the Anschluss, life in Vienna became increasingly difficult for Lerner’s family and forced them to flee to Paris. After three challenging years, they secured visas to the United States in April 1941. With a deep hatred for the Nazis, Lerner enlisted in the Army as soon as he turned 18. 

Realizing the need for German-speaking soldiers, the Army assigned Lerner to the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland in 1943. It was there he trained in intelligence, interrogation, and the German order of battle. The ‘Ritchie Boys’ would ultimately end up collecting 60 percent of actionable intelligence during the European war. 

Lerner would deploy to Europe and find himself working alongside the OSS and SHAEF in clandestine military operations. He would be one of the first Americans to enter Paris after its liberation where he interrogated Wehrmacht and SS officers. The war would become intensely personal for Lerner when he was assigned to serve as an interpreter at the recently liberated Dachau concentration camp. The memories of the camp remain with Lerner to this day.

Video by American Veterans Center / Maximilian Lerner

Born in Vienna in 1923, Richard Schifter emigrated to the United States at the age of 15 -- the only member of his family to do so. In 1943 he joined the US Army and trained as an interrogator of prisoners of war. He was assigned to France in the summer of 1944, tasked with gathering important documents and making certain arrests. 

After the war he learned that his family did not survive the Holocaust, making his emigration all the more surreal. He would go on to serve in the US State Department, the National Security Council, and the UN Security Council. Over his distinguished career, he has served his adopted country in numerous ways. 

Video by American Veterans Center / Richard Schifter

Victor Brombert was born in Berlin in 1923 into a well-to-do Russian-Jewish family that had previously escaped Russia at the outbreak of the revolution. As Hitler rose to power the Brombert family would once again find itself fleeing, this time to the United States. In 1943 Brombert was drafted into the U.S. Army. Due to his fluency in French, German, and Russian he was placed in a special unit that was trained in frontline military intelligence at Camp Ritchie. Graduates of Camp Ritchie became known as "Ritchie Boys" and would be responsible for collecting more than half the actionable intelligence gathered during World War II. In 1944 Brombert took part in the Normandy landings with the 2nd Armored Division at Omaha Beach. He would later see action at the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge.

Video by American Veterans Center / Victor Brombert

An Afternoon With Ritchie Boy, Maximilian Lerner. Maximilian Lerner was born in Vienna, Austria. His life from there followed a complex sequence of escape and resistance through World War II. He joined the U.S. Army in 1943 and - thanks to his fluency in three languages - was assigned to military intelligence.  His destiny took him back to Europe where he served in the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA, through the liberation of the continent and the end of the war. His government career terminated with his assignment as a Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps. In addition to his autobiography, “Flight and Return: A Memoir of World War II”, Lerner has published two novels based on his experiences. On October 19, 2021, this interview with Maximilian Lerner was conducted on location in New York City by Dr. David S. Frey.

Video by Glenn Godart & Peter Brannigan / Maximilian Lerner

We welcome two Ritchie Boys to the Veterans Breakfast Club: Paul Fairbrook and Maximilian Lerner. We’re also joined by Beverley Eddy, author of new book, "Ritchie Boy Secrets" which tells the story of this now declassified program. Maximilian Lerner immigrated from Vienna to New York in 1941, then enlisted in the US Army and went back to Europe as an American soldier in 1944. He was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services as a special agent for secret missions in Germany. Paul Fairbrook used a valuable stamp collection to make it to the US from Berlin in the late 1930s before being drafted into the Army and trained Camp Ritchie, Maryland. He also served in Europe overseeing interrogations and review of captured German documents. Beverley Eddy is a historian and author of "Ritchie Boy Secrets: How a Force of Immigrants and Refugees Helped Win World War II." She will guide the conversation with our veterans about this fascinating story. 

Video by Veterans Breakfast Club / Paul Fairbrook, Maximilian Lerner & Dr. Beverley Eddy Driver

Karl Goldsmith (1921-2002) born in Eschwege, Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1939. He served in Europe in the U.S. Army during World War II, first in the military police, and then as a interrogator and sergeant in charge of a military intelligence team. Immediately following the war, he was responsible for the de-Nazification of his hometown in Germany. Mr. Goldsmith was a 1947 graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.. He worked for Thomas Young Orchids in Middlesex before owning the "Flower House" floral shops in the Middlesex area. In 1957, he entered the life insurance business and was the owner of Karl K. Goldsmith, Inc. of Somerville. He remained active in his business until his death. 

Interview conducted for the documentary About Face: Jewish Refugee Soldiers in the Allied Forces. 

Filmed in Bedminister, NJ, February, 2001. 

Video by Steve Karras / Karl Goldsmith

Henry Butler was born Hans Buxbaum in August 1921. The Buxbaums, a tightknit German-Jewish family, fled the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Henry immigrated to New York, where he was drafted into the US Army in December 1942.

As a native German speaker, Henry was selected to train at the secret Fort Ritchie Military Intelligence Training Center in Maryland. He and thousands of others returned to their homeland to help defeat the murderous regime they had fled. Called “Ritchie Boys,” they used their German skills to interrogate prisoners on the front lines with the 3rd Army.

Henry was discharged from the Army in October 1945. 

Video by Holocaust Center for Humanity / Henry Butler

In commemoration of Victory in Europe Day, Maximilian Lerner shared his eyewitness account of military service in Europe during World War II. Lerner was born in 1924 in Vienna. After three years of challenges, he and his family immigrated to New York in April 1941. At 18, Lerner enlisted in the United States Army. Because of his language skills, he was assigned to the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie in Maryland. He went back to Europe as an American soldier in March of 1944, was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, and served as a Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps while still engaging in secret missions for the OSS. After Germany’s surrender he was involved in the denazification effort. 

Video by Museum of Jewish Heritage / Maximilian Lerner

Natick Veterans Oral History Project Interview with Nathan M. Berman, discussing Mr. Berman's service during World War II, focusing particularly on his role in Military Intelligence, which was conducted on May 6, 1988 at the Morse Institute Library.

Video by Morse Institute Library / Nathan M. Berman

A naturalized American, John Dolibois' war experiences brought him full circle to his homeland. He emigrated to America from Luxembourg in 1931 as a 13-year-old, quickly learned English, and became an outstanding student in high school in Akron, Ohio, and at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Because he spoke fluent German, Dolibois was recruited for the Army intelligence unit; at war's end he was driving around Europe, interviewing captured German officers. His postwar assignment brought him to "Ashcan," the code name for a luxury hotel in Mondorf, Luxembourg. There he joined a team of five interrogators who questioned every surviving Third Reich person of note, from Hermann Goering to Julius Streicher, in preparation for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. 

Video by Public Library of Cincinnati / John Dolibois

World War II Marine, Warren Musch is from Virginia, Illinois and enlisted while he was in college. After graduation he was sent to Camp Ritchie, Maryland for combat intel training. He was then assigned to the Third Battalion, 28th Marines, Fifth Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. He served as Combat Intelligence Officer during the invasion and 36-day securement of Iwo Jima and was hand-picked to help plan the invasion of Japan, which of course never happened. He served from 1943-1946. After his service, Warren operated his family farm and taught junior high school science. He was married for 62 years, has two children, five grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. 

Video by EF Explore America / Warren Musch

Werner Gumpertz was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States. He began his service in the U.S. Army after being drafted in 1943. He trained at the Engineering Replacement Training Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and continued his service in Pennsylvania and Camp Ritchie, Maryland, for intelligence training. He was deployed to England, and subsequently moved from the suburbs of Paris to Germany, where he joined the 7th Army as a translator, interrogating German prisoners. He later worked for the U.S. military government in Germany, where he was the agent in charge of publications. He was discharged in early 1946, and worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Frankfurt for a year before returning to the U.S. and studying engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gumpertz talks about his intelligence training, Europe after the war, and describes a brief encounter with Hermann Goering. 

Video by Newton Free Library / Werner Gumpertz

In 2009, Harold Franken sat down, beside his wife Harriet, to be interviewed by daughter and son-in-law Debbie and Scott Springgate. This is the third of three videos from that interview. Harriet Franken died later that year, and Harold Franken died two years later. 

Hellmut Frankenberg, was a Ritchie Boy — a graduate of the the Army’s elite military intelligence training program at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. Franken began to offer snippets of information about his wartime experiences only in the last few years before his death in 2011. After avoiding any discussion of his military service for decades, Franken did go into some detail when he and his wife were interviewed by their son-in-law on video in about 2009. Click to read more about Harold Franken.

Fred Fields was born Siegfried Dingfelder and fled Germany with his family just after Kristallnacht. They arrived in the United States in 1940 and lived in Brooklyn, when Fields worked as a baker until getting drafted into the army. A graduate of Camp Ritchie, Maryland, he shipped out to the ETO as an interrogator and joined his unit 69th IPW in Metz.

Fred sat for this interview with the American Veterans Center shortly before he passed away in early March, 2024. Fred, who was part of IPW Team #69, discusses in this interview growing up in Germany, his family, fleeing from Germany to England, and later coming to the USA. Later, he is drafted into the U.S. Army, and ends up on a train to Camp Ritchie. Fred finds himself sent to England, then points beyond. He discusses his military service and more in this recently release interview.

Video by American Veterans Center / Fred Fields