Of the many articles and obituaries about Henry Kissinger appearing over the past few weeks; the best is likely Robert D. Kaplan’s ‘Memories from dinners at the Kissinger home’ in the British online forum UnHerd.

Henry Kissinger grew up amidst the rise of National Socialism in Germany. The family left when Henry was 15.  At 19, he joined the Army and became a U.S. citizen.  Infantry Private Kissinger joined the conflict in Europe after D-Day.  Over the next six months his intellect and language proficiency were noted.  The youthful Kissinger was assigned to Army specialties like intelligence and civil affairs where responsibilities are often tailored to individual competency rather than rank.  In June ’45 Sgt. Kissinger was the commandant of the Bergstrasse Region, a 275 sq. mile area between Frankfurt and Mannheim.  The region has 12 municipalities, including Fürth, Henry’s childhood hometown.  Today 275,000 live in Bergstrasse.  The 1945 war-ravaged population was likely about 100,000, an awesome responsibility for a 22-year-old.  

Recalling dinners past, Kaplan articulates five Kissinger “aphorisms of statesmanship.”  They are interrelated; but the most revealing is:

“The fundamental issue in international and domestic affairs is not the control of wickedness, but the limitation of self-righteousness. For it is self-righteousness that often leads to war and the most extreme forms of repression, both at home and abroad.” 

Despite Kissinger’s intimate personal experience with Hitler’s Germany and the Holocaust, Kaplan feels that Kissinger’s worldview was forged more by his Harvard PhD thesis and first book, A World Restored, a work chronicling the remarkably successful effort to restore order to Europe after the chaos of the French Revolution and Napoleon.

Image: National Archives