Manfred Steinfeld was born in a small town of 419 people in Germany in April 1924. He attended public schools. When Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] came to power, Steinfeld being Jewish, life became difficult. His father had died in 1929, and his mother decided to take her children out of Germany and sent Steinfeld to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] in 1938 to live with a relative. She sent Steinfeld's younger brother to Palestine. She and her daughter were not able to leave, and were killed in a concentration camp in Poland in 1945. When Steinfeld went to New York, it was his first terrifying night. He was 14 years old and spoke very little English. A tag was put around his neck with the name of his aunt in Chicago. He was a quick learner, and adjusted. He was doing homework in the kitchen when a radio broadcast was interrupted by the announcement that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He realized a war had started and eventually the United States would be involved. He joined the Army in 1943.

Manfred Steinfeld was not a citizen of the United States [Annotator's Note: having emigrated from Germany in 1938] and could not enlist, but was drafted into the Army in March 1943. [Annotator's Note: Interviewee asks to take a break.] Steinfeld was sent to Scott Field, Illinois and given an IQ test. He was accused of cheating because he scored 158 out of 160. They accepted his explanation, and he was assigned to the infantry and sent to Camp Roberts, California for 13 weeks of basic training. He was then sent to New York by train. The ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] had begun, and he was enrolled in a language program at City College of New York [Annotator's Note: generally referred to as CCNY; in New York, New York] to study Russian and German. He remained there until January 1944 when the ASTP was discontinued. Steinfeld was then sent to the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. There were different tracks offered, and Steinfeld graduated from IPW, or interrogation of prisoner of war, in six weeks, and then did did four weeks of order of battle school, becoming an expert in German Army organization. They would do simulations with American officers in German uniforms. From Camp Ritchie, Steinfeld was sent overseas and stationed in London, England shortly after D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. There was a call for volunteers for the airborne, specifically for men who specialized in order of battle, which Steinfeld did. He volunteered and went to jump school. He joined the 82nd Airborne [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] in Leicester, England in early August 1944. He will never forget his first jump. He was the last man in the stick [Annotator's Note: the line of paratroopers in a plane waiting to jump out] in a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. The jump master went up to Steinfeld and told him to give him his watch and wallet. When Steinfeld asked why, the jump master responded that one in every 1,000 parachutes failed, and if Steinfeld was the lucky one whose failed, he wanted his watch and wallet. Steinfeld was a staff sergeant at the time, but rank made no difference. He was scared to jump, but did.

After completing jump school, Manfred Steinfeld was assigned to the G2 section [Annotator's Note: intelligence section] of the 82nd Airborne Division, which had just come back from Normandy [Annotator's Note: after taking part in D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] to Leicester, England to recuperate and retrain for the next battle assignment which came about in September 1944. General Gavin [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General James Maurice "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin] told them they would be jumping into Holland [Annotator's Note: Operation Market Garden, 17 to 27 September 1944; the Netherlands]. The 101st [Annotator's Note: 101st Airborne Division] would jump into Eindhoven, the 82nd would jump at Nijmegen, and the British at Arnhem [Annotator’s Note: Eindhoven, Nijmegen, and Arnhem, the Netherlands]. Steinfeld was assigned to enter by glider rather than jumping. Glider casualties were five times heavier than by jumping. The glider crash-landed and Steinfeld woke up in a first aid station. The next day he returned to his unit. General Gavin, commanding officer of the 82nd Airborne Division, was an outstanding leader. Headquarters lived in foxholes just like the men on the front lines. They remained there for two months, after which time the 82nd was sent back to Sissonne, France in the middle of November [Annotator's Note: November 1944]. One Sunday afternoon, they learned that the Germans had broken through in the Ardennes Forest and they would be moving out. They went to Belgium, on the northern side of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They spent the first night in Houffalize [Annotator's Note: Houffalize, Belgium]. His unit was assigned to the British 2nd Army at the time. They remained there for the duration of the Bulge, until around January 15 [Annotator's Note: 15 January 1945]. Having sustained heavy casualties, they returned to Sissonne until around March 1945 when they were assigned to the US 9th Army and became occupation troops on the east bank of the Rhine River at Cologne, Germany.

Manfred Steinfeld recalls that in April 1945, a special formation of Division Headquarters [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 82nd Airborne Division] was called to inform the men that Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had died. A few days later, while still assigned to the 2nd British Army, the 82nd was ordered to move out. At the end of April, they crossed the Alps and on 2 May, Steinfeld was sent on a patrol to contact the Russians. The day before, a number of German officers had come to sign surrender documents. They made contact with the Russians. It was the end of World War 2. When he got back to where they were stationed, Steinfeld heard that elements of the 82nd had liberated a concentration camp [Annotator's Note: Wöbbelin, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp in northern Germany, liberated in early May 1945]. He went to the camp, and was frightened, worried that he might see the body of someone he knew [Annotator's Note: Steinfeld, who is Jewish, was born and raised in Germany until he immigrated to the United States in 1938]. Many of the people had starved to death. Steinfeld helped to bury them. The Germans in the town were forced to pay homage and walk by the bodies. The Germans resented them for this. They returned to France, but this time went to Épinal. Around 15 June, the 82nd became occupation troops in Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. Steinfeld remained there until October, when he was told he had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to go home. He had 85 points which was enough to be discharged in October 1945, and he went home, departing from Marseille [Annotator's Note: Marseille or Marseilles, France] and arriving in Norfolk, Virginia. He was discharged from Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, but joined the Reserves and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was called back in September 1950, after being married in 1949 and becoming a research analyst with a decent job. He served two years in the Korean War. After that, he decided to separate from the Army in September 1952.

Manfred Steinfeld was a German Jew [Annotator's Note: who emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1938], but never felt any racism in the Army. They were all fighting for the same goal, to win the war. He never felt any different from any other soldier. Part of Steinfeld's job in the G2 section [Annotator's Note: intelligence section] of the 82nd Airborne Division [Annotator's Note: Steinfeld served in the G2 Section, Headquarters Company, 82nd Airborne Division] was to post a situation map and brief General Gavin [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General James Maurice "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin, commanding officer of the 82nd] every single day. When in Nijmegen, Holland [Annotator's Note: during and after Operation Market Garden, 17 to 27 September 1944; the Netherlands], Steinfeld remembers distinctly when Gavin was promoted from brigadier general to major general. The Dutch people were very accommodating. In 1966, Steinfeld took his wife and three children to Europe. They drove to Nijmegen and he showed them where his foxhole had been and rang the doorbell of a woman who lived nearby. She recognized him. He also remembers getting a three-day pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to go to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] which he enjoyed. The Bulge was cold, and they had not been issued cold weather gear besides special shoes. Steinfeld's claim to fame is that he cut General Gavin's hair. Gavin was probably the one general the most respected by his men. He was young, aggressive, dependable, and an outstanding soldier. Steinfeld once interrogated a German soldier who was from the town next to the town where Steinfeld had been born [Annotator’s Note: as a German Jew, he emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1938]. In May [Annotator's Note: May 1945] while assigned to the military government office in a German town, a woman notified Steinfeld that there was a man in town who had been an SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] guard in a concentration camp. They arrested him, and it turned out that he was indeed an SS officer in the camp at Ravensbruck [Annotator's Note: Ravensbrück concentration camp; the largest concentration camp for women in the German Reich, second in size only to the women's camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau; Ravensbrück, Germany]. The woman's husband had been executed, and she spent spent five years in a German concentration camp. The SS officer's name was Rahmdore [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. He was turned over to a British military tribunal and was later hung. Steinfeld had interrogated him before turning him over to the British.

Manfred Steinfeld was in Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] after the war was over. The Airborne troops were the elite troops, and felt that they were better than everybody else because they had done their job well. He was proud to have that feeling, and to share it with other people. The 82nd [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] had a certain esprit de corps, and identity of belonging to the best American unit. The war made Steinfeld more mature, and changed him from an introvert to someone who saw that all obstacles could be overcome. His father had died when Steinfeld was five, his mother and sister were killed [Annotator's Note: in a concentration camp in 1945], and he lived in terrible conditions while growing up. He lived with his aunt and uncle [Annotator's Note: in Chicago, Illinois after emigrating from Germany in 1938] and shared a bathroom with eight other people. He learned that you can adjust and overcome, and believes going through difficulties makes you a better person. Steinfeld majored in statistics after the war, and he loved it. He has three children, ten grandchildren, and a wife of 60 years. He feels it is important for there to be a National World War 2 Museum [Annotator’s Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] so that future generations will never forget what took place. Serving in the military made Steinfeld a better human being. He had to assume responsibility.