W. Michael Blumenthal

Werner Michael Blumenthal (born January 3, 1926) is a German-American business leader, economist and political adviser who served as United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1979.

At age thirteen, Blumenthal barely escaped Nazi Germany with his Jewish family in 1939. He was forced to spend World War II living in the ghetto of Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, until 1947. He then made his way to San Francisco and began doing odd jobs to work his way through school. He enrolled in college, eventually graduating from University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University with degrees in international economics. During his career, he became active in both business and public service.

Before being appointed to a cabinet position with newly elected President Jimmy Carter, Blumenthal had become a successful business leader and had already held senior positions in the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. As a member of the Carter administration, he helped guide economic policy and took part in re-establishing ties with China. After he resigned, he became chairman and CEO of Burroughs Corporation and Unisys, followed by seventeen years as director of the restored Jewish Museum Berlin. He is the author of The Invisible Wall (1998, Counterpoint Press), From Exile to Washington: A Memoir of Leadership in the Twentieth Century (2013, The Overlook Press) and The Payday Conspiracy: A Berlin Noir (2024, Solanum Press). Blumenthal is the oldest living former U.S. Cabinet member and the oldest ever.

Early life and education

Blumenthal was born in Oranienburg, Weimar Republic (present-day Germany), the son of Rose Valerie (née Markt) and Ewald Blumenthal. His family was of modest means as owners of a dress shop.

With their little remaining money, his mother bought tickets for them to go to Shanghai, China, an open port city which didn't require a visa. They fled Germany on a passenger-carrying freighter shortly before war broke out in 1939.

His schooling was haphazard, and the stress of survival caused his parents to divorce.

When the war in the Pacific ended in the summer of 1945, American troops entered Shanghai. He found a job as a warehouse helper with the U.S. Air Force, which benefited from his linguistic skills. With limited education, and now a stateless refugee, he did his best to make something of himself:

I came to this country feeling that I had capabilities and talents. I read a lot. I talked to people. I wanted to do things. I found out that I can cope reasonably well. In 1952 Blumenthal became a naturalized U.S. citizen. For income, his wife worked as a secretary and he taught economics at Princeton from 1954 to 1957. His nomination was unanimously confirmed.

Blumenthal first met Carter in 1975 at a meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Japan. Although he was made chair of Carter's Economic Policy Group (EPG), and was Carter's chief economic policy official, he was still unable to chart economic policy or be recognized as the administration's chief economic spokesman. He instead had to share the role with those closer to the president, which caused confusion among outsiders and weakened Blumenthal's effectiveness. Blumenthal asked them to withdraw their troops "as quickly as possible," since it carried the "risk of wider wars." The Chinese were particularly impressed by Blumenthal's speech, adds Katz. And although the effect of his speech is not known, the Chinese army did withdraw a few weeks after his visit.

In July 1979, Carter outlined his measures for dealing with the nation's economic and energy crisis, and at the same time asked five members of his cabinet, including Blumenthal, to resign.

After resigning he joined Burroughs Corporation in 1980 as vice chairman, then chairman of the board a year later. After merging the company with Sperry Corporation, it became Unisys Corporation in 1986, with Blumenthal its chairman and chief executive officer (CEO). He remained with Unisys until 1990 when he stepped down after several years of losses to become a limited partner at Lazard Freres & Company, an investment bank located in New York. Having more free time, he taught economics courses at Princeton.

In April 2016, he was one of eight former Treasury secretaries who called on the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union ahead of the June 2016 Referendum.

Jewish Museum of Berlin

In 1997, Blumenthal became the founding director of the Jewish Museum Berlin in Germany's then-new capital of the Federal Republic. His work began in December of that year, when he accepted an invitation from the city of Berlin to become president and chief executive of the Berlin Jewish Museum. The first Jewish Museum in Berlin was founded in 1933, but was closed in 1938 by the Nazi regime. The re-imagined museum includes displays documenting 2,000 years of the often-tragic chapters in German-Jewish history, including the Holocaust, and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. with the completion and opening of the Museum in 2001 being credited to his direction. The project has attracted considerable attention within and outside of Germany. In 1999 and 2006, Blumenthal was awarded Germany's Senior Medals of Merit for his services to the Federal Republic of Germany, in recognition of his work in Berlin.

Personal life He married Margaret Eileen Polley, a child development specialist, in 1951, while attending college; they had three daughters: Ann, Jill, and Jane. They separated in 1977 and divorced in 1982.

Currently he resides in Princeton, New Jersey with his second wife Barbara (née Bennett), with whom he has one son, Michael.

In 2008, he was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and pledged to back then-Senator Barack Obama.

Blumenthal is featured in the 2020 documentary Harbor from the Holocaust.

On January 3, 2026, Blumenthal turned 100.

Awards and honors

Blumenthal was the recipient of Princeton University's Madison Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1979. In 1980, he received the Horatio Alger Award from the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. In 1999, he received the Leo Baeck Medal for his humanitarian work promoting tolerance and social justice, as well as the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2002, he received the Goethe Medal, Culture Prize of Berlin, and Berlin's Medal of Merit. In 2013 Blumenthal received the Lucius D. Clay Medal, and Roland Berger Prize for Human Dignity. In 2014 he received the Nachama Prize for Tolerance and Civil Courage, and in 2015, received the Jewish Museum Berlin's Prize for Tolerance and Understanding. He was the recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. Blumenthal holds numerous honorary degrees from major U.S. universities.