Henry W. Wald

Henry W. Wald
Henry Wald (born as Heinz Werner Schőnwald) poses in his Army uniform, circa 1943.
Personal details
Born	1912 Germany
Nativity	Germany
Religion	Jewish
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	37457978
Rank	Private First Class

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Henry W. Wald (born 1912) was a Ritchie Boy (from Germany; Jewish) who trained at Camp Ritchie.

Biography

(37457978)|Henry Wald]], born as Heinz Werner Schőnwald in 1912, is among the thousands of Ritchie Boys who started life in Germany – and whose Army service, including time at Camp Ritchie, is still somewhat undefined. After high school, he pursued several advanced programs in business and served as the junior manager of the department store owned by his parents.

Henry was then transferred to the Army Specialized Training Program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, where he joined a cohort of 25-30 fellow German Jewish refugees. After the war, Henry returned to Nebraska, where he had been studying accounting at the university prior to his induction.

Before he completed his coursework, he and his Stanford colleagues were transferred to Camp Ritchie in October 1943. He spent just a year in the Army before his release, at Fort Sill, Stanford, and a very brief time at Camp Ritchie.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was arrested by the local police for a “race crime.” He fled his hometown, lived briefly in Berlin until 1938, and then left Germany for New York in March 1939. Worked as salvage man; classifying waste metals, etc. Though technically an enemy alien, Henry volunteered for the Army two years after arriving in the U.S.

And was inducted at Fort Francis E. He was transferred to Camp Sill in Oklahoma and was granted American citizenship after completing Basic Training there. Due to various medical issues and, likely, to his age, he was granted an honorable discharge and returned to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he had lived for some years.

Subsequent paperwork shows, however, that he performed the duties of a Ritchie Boy trainee while overseas. (37457978)|Henry Wald]] while Prisoners of War, one in Paris, the other in a small town near Großröhrsdorf. Despite considerable effort, Wald’s wartime activities have not been fully clarified, leaving it unclear how he was engaged in those interrogations.

He resumed his studies and continued to work for the Northwestern Metal Company, his first permanent employer in the U.S. Together with two other students, he formed an accounting practice.

In the 21st century, a resident of Großröhrsdorf located two veterans of the German army, both of whom affirmed that they were interrogated by [[Wald, Henry W. He was active in the local Jewish community, serving for nearly 40 years as treasurer of the Lincoln Jewish Welfare Federation and president of the local Little League baseball organization.

Research notes

• Defective vision (CDD)
• ASTP Stanford (son = Ken Wald)

Gallery

• 
  Wald, at right, with fellow GIs in front of an artillery emplacement.

Technical record

Field	Imported value
row_source	demographics

Timeline

• Born 12 May 1912 in Germany.
• March 1943 — Promoted to Pfc.
• Enlisted in Army as Pvt (ASN: 37457978).
• You said that you had already checked that your dad was not employed by OSS.

Sources

• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)
• Ritchie Boys of WWII Facebook page, post dated 2026-07-13 (1 post)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Henry W. Wald for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 1 source documents reviewed)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Wald, Henry W. for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 1 source files: HENRY W. WALD.doc)