Henry Kissinger- Farewell to a hero.

Farewell from the first Jewish foreign minister in the USA, who is remembered mainly for his involvement in the Yom Kippur War and the end of the Vietnam War.

Henry Kissinger at the age of 100 died at his home in Connecticut. He was an American icon, and his character became iconic thanks to his work as Secretary of State and an influential adviser to Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Regardless of how one judges his life and his influence, one cannot deny the straight line that stretches from growing up in the shadow of Nazism through his service in the US Army to designing a foreign policy that is characteriz by pragmatism.

Kissinger used to emphasize his German background but was careful to obscure his family's story in the Holocaust. Outwardly, he made sure to radiate strength, wisdom, and composure. Jeremy Suri, the historian, interviewed him extensively in his book "Henry Kissinger and the American Century".

He was born in 1923 to an Orthodox family in the city of Furth near Nuremberg to an Orthodox family.

His father, Louis, work as a teacher of German culture in a Christian school until the 1935 Nuremberg Laws caused his dismissal. The feeling of humiliation did not leave him. He also has anxiety.

In 1938, even before Kristallnacht, the family left for New York. 15-year-old Heinz changed his name to Henry and began learning English. While studying in high school, he worked in a factory and watched Europe burn from afar. He was related to his grandparents, who were left behind and perished. At the age of 19, he enlisted in the US Army and was exposed very closely to the horrors that the Jews went through in the Holocaust, including of course members of his family.

As a German-speaking Jew, Kissinger was a highly sought-after commodity for American intelligence. He knew the language, he knew the culture, and no one suspected German Jews of having a double loyalty to their homeland.

On April 10, 1945, there was a defining moment that shaped the young soldier:

"Kissinger and the other soldiers of the 84th Division liberated a concentration camp. For years, Kissinger didn't talk about it, and in fact, he would admit that he was there only because of a picture taken by one of the soldiers".

He agreed to admit that it was him only years later and then said: "It was one of the most horrible experiences of my life." Later, he described this image's gloomy impression on him: "This is how humanity looks in the twentieth century." Kissinger came out of the war deeply suspicious of popular movements. Populists scared him the most, among other things, due to his ability to inflame the crowd with demagogic means. Therefore, he shied away from the left-wing movements that emerged in the 1960s.

In his eyes, the right solution for the country is an intelegent and educated elite, even a technocrat, who leads the society. He always said" "Academia first and then diplomacy." Realism or extreme pragmatism was his worldview that was shaped and solidified in World War II. He was known as someone who did not hesitate to work with antisemites and even leveraged the stereotypes they assumed about his Jewishness to strengthen his position in any negotiation.

Through Kissinger's glasses, the world map was an arena of ceaseless tussle in which the United States must be involved and vigilant. The world is a hostile and gloomy place, but the violent forces that operate in it are not subject to a final decision. He believed in the ability of the US to limit and restrain these forces. In his work as a security advisor and foreign minister, he promoted the notion that communism is another incarnation of fascism and, therefore, the US should eradicate any communist threat.

Although he is mostly remembered for the war in Vietnam, it was a legacy from previous administrations. He had an accurate instinct to partially identify totalitarianism in many regimes that identified themselves as communist. Still, he projected this thinking onto more complex goverrments more than once . Communist tendencies of countries justified, in his eyes, the use of violent force that cost the lives of masses. His bloody legacy is remembered, and not positively, in many countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, and Argentina.

Another critical example is Chile, in which Salvador Allende appeared in the early 1970s. He was the leader of the Socialist Party but not of the Fidel Castro type. Nevertheless, Kissinger saw him as Castro's successor, and the US promoted a military coup there. In doing so, he condemned Chile to many years of violence. In the past, Kissinger wrote that in a highly violent world, extreme violence is sometimes need in response. He always resorted to violence only to prevent a third world war. In countries like Vietnam and Chile, he saw the shadow of Czechoslovakia in 1938. In his book "Diplomacy" he wrote:

"Intellectuals analyze international systems, statesmen build them."

Until the end of his life, he saw himself as the one who prevented another holocaust, nuclear and global.

The murderous attack on Israel on October 7presented a considerable challenge to the State of Israel and its leaders. The level of violence of a brutal, fascist, inhuman terrorist organization has set a new level that has not been seen since the beginning of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1947.

In the two months that have passed since the day of the horrific attack on the innocent citizens of the State of Israel, it is evident that the Midianites are trying to make their way towards a goal that will have a known contribution if it is achieve at the end of the campaign. Israel is indeed using significant force against the murderous terrorist organization that controls a massive oppression of the poor residents of the Gaza Strip. These days, diplomats and politician around the world are scrambling to find a solution to eradicate the ongoing violence in the region. The current US Secretary of State, Blinken, gives the impression of backing Israel on the one hand but preventing significant steps to eradicate and destroy the terrorist organization on the other. It is good time to remember that if Henry Kissinger were around we could be a little more calm that such an attack, as it was on the seventh of October, would not happen again.

During the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir and Henry Kissinger met. Kissinger told Golda: "I am first an American, then the Secretary of State of the United States and then a Jew." Golda answered him: "We read from right to left."

Henry Kissinger 1923-2023, may you rest in peace.