Overview
- Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner sent official congratulations, with Steinmeier praising him as a great ambassador of German‑American understanding.
- He was born in 1926 in Oranienburg, fled to Shanghai in 1939 after his father’s internment at Buchenwald, then emigrated to the United States in 1947.
- After serving as U.S. Treasury secretary from 1977 to 1979, he led the Jewish Museum Berlin from 2001 to 2014, extending an initially two‑year mandate to 17 years.
- Opened in 2001 in Daniel Libeskind’s distinctive building, the institution grew into Europe’s largest Jewish museum with roughly 750,000 annual visitors, complemented since 2012 by the W. Michael Blumenthal Akademie.
- He is marking his centenary in Princeton, New Jersey, reflecting his enduring transatlantic life.