An Innocent Yank at Home Abroad: Footnotes to History, 1922-1945

Max Oppenheimer, Jr., a foreign-language educator and consultant, grew up immersed in four cultures American, German, French, and Spanish. He says, "My life spans four-fifths of the 20th century!"

An Innocent Yank at Home Abroad is a retelling of his life, with candor and humor, from his youth abroad through his days of service with the U.S. Army in World War II. Oppenheimer survived his personal pilgrimage and progress, remaining "at home" in the European environment by "adjusting" a good lesson, he says, for Americans to follow today.

In 1922, as a five-year-old American-born child in Hamburg, Germany, Oppenheimer gained an understanding of the nation crushed by the Allies in World War I. By age 13, he had moved with his family to Paris, and found himself learning overnight French, Latin, and the English he had forgotten, in the world's most demanding school system. Oppenheimer describes a Paris that is no longer known today.

In 1935, when Oppenheimer returned to America, he was a foreigner in his own land. With his enlistment in World War II, he became a member of the first Military Intelligence Service organization ever created by the U.S. Army, and rose from Private to First Lieutenant by 1945. He was an eyewitness to the pre-Normandy invasion experience and participated in five military campaigns, from Utah Beach in Normandy to the later meeting on the Elbe with the Russians, adding his explicit observation of how the Battle of the Bulge might have been avoided.

Oppenheimer witnessed the major World War II events in France, Belgium, and Germany, including the discovery of the first Nazi concentration camp at Nordhausen. His observations of occupied Germany are of interest, and his account of what led to Intelligence Branch of the U.S. Army in 1956 is a neglected topic in history texts.