Fritz Oppen­heimer may be the only for­mer sol­dier to have received two Iron Cross­es and the Legion of Mer­it. A wealthy Jew­ish Berlin­er, he and his wife, a descen­dant of the War­burg bank­ing fam­i­ly, had every right to expect a ful­fill­ing life with­in their high-achiev­ing Jew­ish cir­cle. Instead, Oppen­heimer fled the Nazis, began again at 45 in U.S. Army basic train­ing, and rose to become Gen. Eisenhower’s legal aide, tasked with denaz­i­fy­ing his homeland’s legal sys­tem post-war and recruit­ing jus­tices to fos­ter the democ­ra­cy that exists today. He also expe­ri­enced a rare rever­sal of for­tune when the Nazis sur­ren­dered in Berlin, and he took Hitler’s top lead­ers into cap­tiv­i­ty. At a time when author­i­tar­i­an regimes are once again gain­ing trac­tion, his sto­ry of com­mit­ment to estab­lish­ing the rule of law is inspi­ra­tional, and shows what one pas­sion­ate indi­vid­ual — even a 5’3”, bat­tle-scarred immi­grant — can achieve. And is sto­ry might have remained untold had the author’s hus­band not dis­cov­ered his papers while help­ing his son do a book report!