Gunther E. Rothenberg

Gunther Erich Rothenberg (11 July 1923 – 26 April 2004) was an internationally known military historian, best known for his publications on the Habsburg military and Napoleonic Wars. He had a fifteen-year military career, as a British Army soldier in World War II, an Israel Defense Forces officer in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and in the United States Air Force during the Korean War.

Escape from Nazi Germany and military service Gunther Erich Rothenberg was born in Berlin, Germany, during the time of the Weimar Republic, as the son of Erich Abraham Rothenberg and Lotte Cohn. His family was a culturally assimilated German Jewish family. In 1937, Rothenberg moved to the Netherlands with his mother; his father later joined them. The family moved next to Britain, where Rothenberg had some schooling. His father, Erich Joseph Rothenberg, was an importer, and both his parents spoke English, Hebrew, French, and German. Their visas, issued in Lisbon, Portugal, claimed Cuban citizenship. At the age of 57, his father registered for the fourth draft in 1942, listing his residence as New York City, and his next of kin as his wife, Lotte.

In 1941, Gunther Rothenberg volunteered for the British Army, serving in an all-Jewish unit. He was wounded in North Africa. He transferred from the Royal Army Service Corps to the Intelligence Corps and fought with the Eighth Army. He served in the Italian campaign, in the Yugoslav war of liberation and in Austria. He rose to the rank of captain in the Israel Defense Forces. had become a naturalized United States citizen. To be with her in New York City, On 19 November 1948, he crossed the international border into the United States at Buffalo, with $12.00 in his pocket. As a graduate student, Rothenberg reviewed W.E.D. Allens Caucasian Battlefields: A History of the Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828–1921 (Cambridge University Press, 1953) for Journal of Modern History, He wrote his 1956 masters' thesis entitled General Crook and the Apaches, 1871–1874: the campaign in the Tonto Basin. Rothenberg received his doctorate from the University of Illinois: his 1959 dissertation, Antemurales Christianitatis: then military border in Croatia, 1522–1749, was published in 1960 by the University of Chicago Press, as The Military Border in Croatia, 1522–1749; he followed this with a second study, The Military Border in Croatia, 1750–1888: a study of an imperial institution in 1966, also published by University of Chicago Press. Both volumes were translated into German in 1970.

In part-time temporary teaching positions in Illinois He also wrote two more books. Rothenberg's scholarly integrity has also been noted. After publishing a critique of a publication, the author contacted him, and proved the critique unjust; Rothenberg immediately wrote to a review retracting the criticism, and the two scholars remained friends for the remainder of his life.

High Point University conducts the Gunther E. Rothenberg Seminar in Military History.

Personal life and family His first marriage in 1952 ended in a 1967 divorce. In 1969, Rothenberg married Ruth Gillah Smith, a widow with three daughters (Judith Goris, Laura Allman, Georgia Jones (all born Herron)), whom he helped to raise; she died in 1992. In 1995, he married for a third time, to Eleanor Hancock, a lecturer at Monash University in Australia. Her 1988 doctoral thesis, National Socialist Leadership And Total War, 1941–45 for the Australia National University was published by St. Martin's Press in 1992.

Publications Rothenberg published hundreds of journal articles, reviews, and lectures. This is a partial list.

Books

(Subsequent editions titled Napoleon's Great Adversary: the Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army.)

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Journal articles