Valters Nollendorfs

Valters Nollendorfs is board chair of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia and a professor emeritus of German language and literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Nollendorfs was born 22 March 1931 in Riga, Latvia, where his father, Kārlis Nollendorfs, was a police officer in the Old Town. At the age of thirteen, together with his family, he fled Latvia to Westphalia, Germany, where he spent almost six years in a displaced persons camp. In 1950 he emigrated to Texas. In 1981–82, he chaired the Division of 18th and Early 19th Century German Literature of the Modern Language Association.

At the age of 24, Nollendorfs became the first editor of the Latvian-language journal (New Tide). From 1996 to 2000 he was director of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies' Baltic office. and an officer of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on 5 December 2017.