Editing Henry Kissinger (section)

==Early life and education==
Kissinger was born '''Heinz Alfred Kissinger'''{{efn|name=de|{{IPA|de|haɪnts ˈʔalfʁeːt ˈkɪsɪŋɐ|-|small=no}}}} on May 27, 1923, in [[Fürth]], Bavaria, Germany. He was the son of homemaker Paula ({{née|Stern}}), from [[Leutershausen]], and {{ill|Louis Kissinger|de}}, a school teacher. He had a younger brother, Walter, who was a businessman. Kissinger's family was [[German-Jewish]].{{sfnp|Isaacson|1992|p=20}} His great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb adopted "Kissinger" as his surname in 1817, taking it from the Bavarian [[spa town]] of [[Bad Kissingen]].<ref>{{cite news |url= http://www.br-online.de/land-und-leute/artikel/0506/02-kissinger/index.xml |title= Die Kissingers in Bad Kissingen |trans-title= The Kissingers in Bad Kissingen |publisher= Bayerischer Rundfunk |language= de |date=June 2, 2005 |access-date= February 3, 2007 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071018235610/http://www.br-online.de/land-und-leute/artikel/0506/02-kissinger/index.xml |archive-date=October 18, 2007}}</ref> In his childhood, Kissinger enjoyed playing soccer. He played for the youth team of [[SpVgg Fürth]], one of the nation's best clubs at the time.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.espnfc.com/story/1022970/uli-hesse-go-furth-and-conquer |title=Go Furth and Conquer |publisher=[[ESPN Soccernet]] |date=February 17, 2012 |access-date=May 3, 2012 |last=Hesse |first=Uli |archive-date=March 30, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330102131/http://www.espnfc.com/story/1022970/uli-hesse-go-furth-and-conquer |url-status=live }}</ref>

In a 2022 BBC interview, Kissinger vividly recalled being nine years old in 1933 and learning of [[Adolf Hitler's rise to power|Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor of Germany]], which proved to be a profound turning point for the Kissinger family.<ref>{{cite news | publisher=BBC | title=Kissinger: Henry Kissinger reflects on his life and experiences in a 2022 interview with James Naughtie | year=2022 | access-date=December 1, 2023 | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gwvzxw | archive-date=December 4, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231204151329/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gwvzxw | url-status=live }}</ref> During [[Nazi rule]], Kissinger and his friends were regularly harassed and beaten by [[Hitler Youth]] gangs.<ref name="Biography">{{Cite web|title=Henry Kissinger|url=https://www.biography.com/political-figure/henry-kissinger|access-date=November 23, 2020|website=Biography|archive-date=December 2, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202164122/https://www.biography.com/political-figure/henry-kissinger|url-status=live}}</ref> Kissinger sometimes defied the [[Racial segregation|segregation]] imposed by [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|Nazi racial laws]] by sneaking into [[soccer stadiums]] to watch matches, often receiving beatings from security guards.<ref name="Biography" /><ref>{{Cite web|title=Kissinger: My Family Escaped the Horrors of the Holocaust by 'Just a Few Months'|url=https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/06/05/kissinger-my-family-escaped-the-horrors-of-the-holocaust-by-just-a-few-months/|access-date=November 23, 2020|website=Algemeiner.com|archive-date=November 24, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124115103/http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/06/05/kissinger-my-family-escaped-the-horrors-of-the-holocaust-by-just-a-few-months/|url-status=live}}</ref> As a result of the [[Anti-Jewish legislation in pre-war Nazi Germany|Nazis' anti-Semitic laws]], Kissinger was unable to gain admittance to the [[Gymnasium (Germany)|''Gymnasium'']] and his father was dismissed from his teaching job.<ref name="Biography" /><ref>{{Cite web|title=New Books Explore Henry Kissinger's German Jewish Roots|date=June 29, 2007|url=https://www.dw.com/en/new-books-explore-henry-kissingers-german-jewish-roots/a-2649128|access-date=November 23, 2020|publisher=Deutsche Welle|archive-date=January 12, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210112001227/https://www.dw.com/en/new-books-explore-henry-kissingers-german-jewish-roots/a-2649128|url-status=live}}</ref>

On August 20, 1938, when Kissinger was 15 years old, he and his family fled Germany to avoid further Nazi persecution.<ref name="Biography"/> The family briefly stopped in London before arriving in New York City on September 5. Kissinger later downplayed the influence his experiences of Nazi persecution had had on his policies and view of the world, writing that the "Germany of my youth had a great deal of order and very little justice; it was not the sort of place likely to inspire devotion to order in the abstract." Nevertheless, many scholars, including Kissinger's biographer [[Walter Isaacson]], have argued that his experiences influenced the formation of his realist approach to foreign policy.<ref>Thomas A. Schwartz (2011) Henry Kissinger: Realism, Domestic Politics, and the Struggle Against Exceptionalism in American Foreign Policy, ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'', 22:1, 121–141, {{doi|10.1080/09592296.2011.549746}}</ref>

Kissinger spent his high-school years in the German-Jewish community in [[Washington Heights, Manhattan]]. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced [[East Franconian German|German accent]], due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak.{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|p=37}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517217372&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull |title=Bygone Days: Complex Jew. Inside Kissinger's soul |work= [[The Jerusalem Post]] |access-date= September 4, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713124002/http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517217372&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull |archive-date= July 13, 2011}}</ref> After his first year at [[George Washington High School (New York City)|George Washington High School]], he completed school at night while working in a [[shaving brush]] factory during the day.{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|p=37}}

Kissinger studied accounting at the [[City College of New York]], excelling academically as a part-time student while continuing to work. His studies were interrupted in early 1943, when he was drafted into the [[U.S. Army]].{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|p=38}}

=== U.S. Army ===
Kissinger underwent basic training at [[Camp Croft]] in [[Spartanburg, South Carolina]]. On June 19, 1943, while stationed in South Carolina, he became a [[naturalized]] [[U.S.&nbsp;citizen]]. The army sent him to study engineering at [[Lafayette College]] in Pennsylvania under the [[Army Specialized Training Program]], but the program was canceled and Kissinger was reassigned to the [[84th Division (United States)|84th Infantry Division]]. There, he made the acquaintance of [[Fritz G. A. Kraemer|Fritz Kraemer]], a fellow immigrant from Germany who noted Kissinger's fluency in German and his intellect and arranged for him to be assigned to the division's [[military intelligence]]. According to [[Vernon A. Walters]], Kissinger also received training at [[Camp Ritchie]], Maryland, before being shipped to Europe.<ref>Cartwright, J. B., The Quiet Contingent: An Addendum on WWII: The Boys of Camp Ritchie, 2024; p. 324. {{ISBN|979-8-89379-322-2}}</ref> Kissinger saw combat with the division and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the [[Battle of the Bulge]]. On April 10, 1945, he participated in the liberation of the Hannover-Ahlem concentration camp, a subcamp of the [[Neuengamme concentration camp]]. At the time, Kissinger wrote in his journal, "I had never seen people degraded to the level that people were in Ahlem. They barely looked human. They were skeletons." After the initial shock, however, Kissinger was relatively silent about his wartime service.{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|pp=39–48}}<ref>{{Cite news | author-link = Mark Joseph Stern | last = Stern  |first=Mark Joseph |date=November 30, 2023 |title=The Lesson Henry Kissinger Took When He Liberated the Concentration Camp That Held My Grandfather |language=en-US |work=Slate |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/henry-kissinger-jewish-history-holocaust-atrocities.html |access-date=December 3, 2023 |issn=1091-2339 |archive-date=December 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202111911/https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/henry-kissinger-jewish-history-holocaust-atrocities.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger, though only a [[Private (rank)#United States Army|private]], was put in charge of the administration of the city of [[Krefeld]] because of a lack of German speakers on the division's intelligence staff. Within eight days he had established a civilian administration.{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|p=48}} Kissinger was then reassigned to the [[Counter Intelligence Corps]] (CIC), where he became a [[United States Army Counterintelligence|CIC Special Agent]] holding the enlisted rank of [[sergeant]]. He was given charge of a team in [[Hanover]] assigned to tracking down [[Gestapo]] officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the [[Bronze Star]].{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|p=49}} Kissinger drew up a comprehensive list of all known Gestapo employees in the Bergstraße region, and had them rounded up. By the end of July, 12 men had been arrested. In March 1947, Fritz Girke, Hans Hellenbroich, Michael Raaf, and Karl Stattmann were subsequently caught and tried by the [[Dachau Military Tribunal]] for killing two American prisoners of war. The four men were all found guilty and sentenced to death. They were executed by hanging at [[Landsberg Prison]] in October 1948.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yh9hDQAAQBAJ |title=Kissinger: 1923–1968: The Idealist |date=September 27, 2016 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-310975-4 |pages=181–182 |language=en |access-date=December 3, 2023 |archive-date=December 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231204151329/https://books.google.com/books?id=yh9hDQAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of the [[Bensheim]] metro CIC detachment, [[Bergstrasse (district)|Bergstraße]] district of [[Hesse]], with responsibility for [[denazification]] of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|p=53}}

In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at [[Camp King]] and, as a civilian employee following his separation from the army, continued to serve in this role.{{sfn|Isaacson|1992|p=55}}<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript1138.html |title=Henry Kissinger at Large, Part One |date=January 29, 2004 |publisher=[[PBS]] |access-date=February 13, 2016 |archive-date=June 28, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628221419/http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript1138.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Kissinger recalled that his experience in the army "made me feel like an American".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Isaacson |title=Kissinger |page=695}}</ref>