Michael Blumenthal

W. Michael Blumenthal
Born	Werner Michael Blumenthal Template:Birth year and age
Birthplace	Germany
Nationality	American
Occupation	Government official, corporate executive, author
Known for	U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (1977–1979), CEO of Burroughs Corporation and Unisys, Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin
Education	Ph.D., Princeton University

Werner Michael Blumenthal (born 1926), known as W. Michael Blumenthal or Mike Blumenthal, is a German-born American government official, corporate executive, museum director, and author whose life has traced one of the more remarkable arcs in twentieth- and twenty-first-century American public life. A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany as a child and spent years in exile in Shanghai during World War II, Blumenthal went on to earn a doctorate from Princeton University, serve as the United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1979, lead major American corporations including the Burroughs Corporation and its successor Unisys, and later return to Germany to serve as the founding director of the Jewish Museum Berlin. Often noted as the "youngest" individual to achieve certain noteworthy milestones in American government and business, Blumenthal has been described as having lived multiple lives across continents and careers. As of 2025, at age 99 and approaching his centennial, Blumenthal remains active as a writer of historical fiction and a commentator on American public life, residing in Princeton, New Jersey.

Early Life

Werner Michael Blumenthal was born in 1926 in Germany into a Jewish family. His early childhood coincided with the rise of National Socialism, and the Blumenthal family was among the many Jewish families forced to flee the country as persecution intensified in the 1930s. The family eventually made their way to Shanghai, China, which during World War II became one of the few places in the world that accepted Jewish refugees without requiring entry visas. Blumenthal spent his formative years in the Shanghai ghetto, enduring the hardships of wartime displacement and statelessness.

After the war ended, Blumenthal emigrated to the United States, the country he would later describe as having welcomed him with optimism and opportunity. In a 2025 opinion essay published in The Wall Street Journal, Blumenthal reflected on the America that received him after World War II, describing it as an optimistic and proud nation. The experience of being a refugee and immigrant profoundly shaped Blumenthal's worldview and later career, informing both his public service and his eventual return to Germany decades later to lead the Jewish Museum Berlin.

His journey from wartime Shanghai to the highest levels of American government and industry became a defining narrative of his public identity — a story of survival, reinvention, and the possibilities afforded by the United States to those who arrived on its shores with little more than determination. As Blumenthal approached his hundredth birthday, he continued to reflect publicly on what had become of the country that had taken him in, expressing concern about changes in American civic culture and national character.

Education

Following his arrival in the United States after World War II, Blumenthal pursued higher education with considerable distinction. He ultimately earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University, an institution with which he maintained a lifelong association. Princeton, New Jersey, also became his long-term place of residence. His academic training in economics and public policy provided the intellectual foundation for his subsequent careers in government, business, and diplomacy.

Career

Government Service

Blumenthal's career in the United States government spanned several decades and administrations. He held positions of increasing responsibility in trade negotiations and economic policy before reaching the pinnacle of government service in economic affairs. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Blumenthal as the United States Secretary of the Treasury, a position he held until 1979. His appointment was notable for several reasons, not least that he was a naturalized citizen who had come to America as a refugee. Throughout his government career, Blumenthal was frequently noted as the "youngest" individual to achieve certain noteworthy positions, a distinction that the TAPinto profile highlighted as a recurring theme of his early professional life.

As Secretary of the Treasury, Blumenthal was responsible for overseeing U.S. fiscal policy, managing the national debt, and serving as a principal economic advisor to the President during a period of significant economic challenges, including inflation, energy crises, and shifting global trade dynamics. His tenure coincided with one of the more turbulent periods in American economic history during the late 1970s.

Corporate Leadership

After leaving government service, Blumenthal transitioned to the private sector, where he took on leadership roles at major American corporations. He served as the chief executive of the Burroughs Corporation, one of the leading computer and technology companies of the era. Under his leadership, Burroughs merged with Sperry Corporation in 1986 to form Unisys, creating one of the largest information technology companies in the world at the time. Blumenthal served as the chief executive of Unisys during the critical early years of the merged entity.

His corporate career demonstrated a capacity for leadership across very different organizational environments — from the bureaucratic structures of the federal government to the competitive dynamics of the technology industry during a period of rapid transformation in computing and information systems.

Jewish Museum Berlin

In what represented yet another dramatic career shift, Blumenthal returned to Germany — the country from which his family had fled decades earlier — to serve as the founding director of the Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin). This appointment carried deep personal and symbolic significance: a Jewish refugee who had escaped Nazi persecution was now leading Germany's premier institution dedicated to documenting and commemorating Jewish history and culture in the country. Blumenthal's leadership of the museum was widely covered in international media and seen as a powerful statement about reconciliation, memory, and the complex relationship between Germany and its Jewish heritage.

The Jewish Museum Berlin, housed in a striking building designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, opened to the public under Blumenthal's directorship and became one of the most visited museums in Germany. Blumenthal guided the institution through its founding period, establishing its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs focused on the two-thousand-year history of Jews in Germany and the devastating impact of the Holocaust.

Author of Historical Fiction

At age 99, Blumenthal embarked on yet another new chapter in his multifaceted career, turning to the writing of historical fiction. A 2025 profile in TAPinto described how the longtime Princeton resident, formerly known as a government and corporate leader, was reinventing himself as a literary figure. His turn to fiction writing drew on the rich and often harrowing experiences of his own life — from refugee childhood in Shanghai to the corridors of power in Washington and the boardrooms of American industry — as source material for narrative exploration.

This late-career literary endeavor was consistent with Blumenthal's longstanding interest in writing and reflection. Throughout his life, he had authored several nonfiction works dealing with subjects related to his personal history, Jewish identity, and public policy. The move to historical fiction represented an evolution in his approach to storytelling, allowing him to explore the themes of displacement, survival, and identity that had defined his life through the lens of narrative imagination rather than memoir or policy analysis.

Public Commentary

Even as he approached his centennial year, Blumenthal continued to engage actively in American public discourse. In early 2025, he published an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal reflecting on the state of the United States from the perspective of a centenarian immigrant. The essay posed a pointed question: "What happened to the optimistic and proud America that welcomed me after World War II?" The piece drew on his unique vantage point as someone who had witnessed nearly a century of American history, from the post-war boom through the social upheavals of the 1960s, the economic transformations of the late twentieth century, and the political polarization of the early twenty-first century.

The essay resonated with readers as a meditation on national identity, civic values, and the meaning of the American experiment from someone who had experienced its promise firsthand as a refugee. Blumenthal's perspective carried particular weight given his status as both a former Cabinet secretary and a survivor of one of the twentieth century's greatest catastrophes.

Personal Life

W. Michael Blumenthal has been a longtime resident of Princeton, New Jersey, maintaining deep ties to the community and to Princeton University, where he earned his doctorate. His life in Princeton has spanned decades, during which he remained an active and visible member of the local intellectual and civic community.

As of 2025, at the age of 99, Blumenthal was described as continuing to lead an active life, engaged in writing and public commentary. His longevity itself became a subject of public interest, with media profiles noting the extraordinary span of history he had witnessed and participated in — from the rise of Nazism and World War II through the dawn of the artificial intelligence age.

Blumenthal's identity as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany has been a central thread throughout his life and career, influencing his decision to lead the Jewish Museum Berlin and informing much of his writing and public commentary. His reflections on immigration, identity, and belonging have taken on renewed relevance in contemporary debates about these subjects in both the United States and Europe.

Recognition

Throughout his career, Blumenthal received recognition for his contributions to government, business, and cultural institutions. His appointment as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury at a relatively young age was itself a milestone, and his subsequent leadership of major corporations and the Jewish Museum Berlin further established his reputation as a figure of unusual versatility and accomplishment.

His 2025 Wall Street Journal essay and the TAPinto profile of his literary career at age 99 both reflected ongoing public and media interest in his life story and perspectives. The arc of his biography — from refugee child to Treasury Secretary to museum director to nonagenarian novelist — has been cited as emblematic of the possibilities of American immigrant life and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of historical catastrophe.

His role in founding and directing the Jewish Museum Berlin earned him particular recognition in Germany, where his willingness to return to the country that had persecuted his family was seen as an act of reconciliation and a contribution to the nation's ongoing reckoning with its past.

Legacy

W. Michael Blumenthal's legacy spans multiple domains and continents. In American government, he is remembered as a Secretary of the Treasury who brought both academic rigor and private-sector sensibility to economic policymaking during a challenging period. In corporate America, his leadership of Burroughs and the creation of Unisys placed him at the center of the technology industry's transformation in the 1980s.

Perhaps his most enduring legacy, however, may prove to be his work with the Jewish Museum Berlin, an institution that continues to serve as one of the world's most important centers for the study and commemoration of Jewish history in Europe. The museum's existence and success stand as a testament to the complex processes of memory, mourning, and reconciliation that have characterized German-Jewish relations in the postwar era — processes in which Blumenthal played a direct and personal role.

His continued productivity and public engagement well into his late nineties have themselves become part of his legacy, offering an example of intellectual vitality and civic commitment sustained across an extraordinarily long and eventful life. As he noted in his Wall Street Journal essay, his perspective on America was shaped by the gratitude and wonder of an immigrant who arrived with nothing and found a country willing to offer him everything — a perspective he feared was becoming increasingly rare in contemporary American life.

Blumenthal's turn to historical fiction at age 99 added yet another dimension to a life that had already encompassed refugee survival, academic achievement, government service at the highest level, corporate leadership, and cultural stewardship. Whether viewed as a public servant, a business leader, a museum director, or a writer, Blumenthal's career reflected an uncommon ability to reinvent himself across different fields and phases of life while remaining grounded in the formative experiences of displacement and renewal that defined his youth.