HERBERT
SPIRO
Patriot, Chapter 1919
(ARMY,
WWII, Europe) Article October 1997
This is a Horatio Alger story if there ever
was one. Escaping from Germany and the coming holocaust just before the
outbreak of WWII, Herbert’s family settled in San Antonio, Texas. He
enlisted and returned to Europe with the 11th Armored Division
and was wounded in Belgium. After the war this naturalized American veteran
earned his PhD at Harvard and then became a distinguished political
scientist, educator, author, politician and United States Ambassador. He is
also a charter member who played a big part in establishing Chapter 1919 of
the Military Order of the Purple Heart in Austin.
Herbert Spiro
was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1924. Members of his family had
lived for more than 300 years in that prosperous old port city of the
Hanseatic League, but; Nazi anti-semitism increasingly threatened an almost
idyllic life. Fortunately for them, relatives had been part of the early-day
German emigration to Texas; so, an elderly Aunt in San Antonio successfully
sponsored the Spiro family’s move to America in 1938. Herbert's high school
education in Hamburg's Wilhelm Gymnasium was only briefly interrupted. He
graduated from Brackenridge High School in San Antonio.
Herbert Spiro
enlisted in the Army in June 1943. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen
while he was in training in 1944; and, by the end of that year he was with
Headquarters, Combat Command A, 11th Armored Division in action in Europe.
Herbert received the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in Belgium in January
1945. By war's end he also had two awards of the Bronze Star Medal and had
risen to the rank of Master Sergeant, as an interrogator of Prisoners of
War.
After the war he applied for admission to
Harvard University. With help from the G.I. Bill, he graduated summa cum
laude in 1949, then remained to complete his Master's Degree and then a PhD
in 1953. Since then, he has taught political science at Harvard, Amherst,
the University of Pennsylvania, the Free University of Berlin, the
University of Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, and the University of Texas. He
has held administrative positions in the U.S. War Department in Vienna,
Austria and was on the Policy Planning Staff in the U.S. State Department in
Wash. D.C. In the mid-1970's, he served as the United States Ambassador to
Cameroon and also was Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea. Herbert Spiro
has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books (on Foreign Policy, the
Constitution, the U.S. Government, the German Government, World Politics,
and African States Government, among other titles). Herbert has been a
long-time member of the Republican party and was the Republican candidate
for the office of U.S. Representative from Texas' 10th District (Austin) in
1992.
As a retired United
States Ambassador, Herbert Spiro continued to participate in
international scholarly and diplomatic conferences, appeared as a guest
lecturer at various universities, and hosted a weekly show, “Spiro’s
Conversations” every Tuesday evening on Austin Community Television. Herbert
is currently living in San Antonio where he is a member of the Alamo Chapter
of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. |
