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From Kristallnacht to Watergate
An insider’s account of how the Washington Post broke the Watergate story, depicting the tensions, challenges, and personal conflicts that were overcome as it laid bare the criminal wrongdoings of the Nixon administration.
In this powerful memoir, Harry Rosenfeld describes his years as an editor at the New York Herald Tribune and the Washington Post, two of the greatest American newspapers in the second half of the turbulent twentieth century. After playing key roles at the Herald Tribune as it battled fiercely for its survival, he joined the Post under the leadership of Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham as they were building the paper’s national reputation. As the Post’s Metropolitan editor, Rosenfeld managed Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they broke the Watergate story, overseeing the paper’s standard-setting coverage that eventually earned it the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service. In describing his complicated relationship with Bradlee and offering an insider’s perspective on the unlikely partnership of Woodward and Bernstein, Rosenfeld depicts the tensions and challenges, triumphs and setbacks that accompanied the Post’s key role in Watergate, the most potent political scandal in America’s history.
Rosenfeld also tells the gripping story of growing up in Hitler’s Berlin. He saw his father taken away by the Gestapo in the middle of the night, and on Kristallnacht, the prelude to the Holocaust, he witnessed the burning of his synagogue and walked through streets littered with the shattered glass of Jewish businesses. After his family found refuge in America, his childhood experiences stayed with him and ultimately influenced his decision to make journalism his life’s work.
At a time when newspapers and other media are under financial pressure to cut back on investigative reporting, From Kristallnacht to Watergate reminds us why journalism matters, and why good journalism is essential to our democracy.
“Harry has a great story to tell … He knew firsthand the brutal mechanism of terror Hitler unleashed on Jews. It’s easy to trace Harry’s motivation of becoming a member of the Fourth Estate. He understood what could happen without a robust watchdog press. Harry’s book is an American immigrant’s tale as much as a newspaper memoir … But my favorite part in the entire 359 pages is how Harry met Annie. It is a beautiful love story.” — Paul Grondahl, Albany Times Union
“…[a] remarkable memoir … [and] a fascinating exploration of a golden era in journalism … the power of this volume … doesn’t lie in the specifics of the stories—which demonstrate, incidentally, that Rosenfeld could have been a great reporter, had he chosen that path rather than newsroom leadership. Rather, the book underscores that journalism’s role in preserving the freedoms Americans hold dear depends mostly upon one person after another doing their jobs with extraordinary skill and dedication, like that exemplified by the grown-up version of that little boy who walked the streets of Berlin on a tragic night of breaking glass.” — Rex Smith, Albany Times Union
“A terrific memoir by one of the great newspapermen of the era. Harry Rosenfeld was one of the key editors on Watergate. As a reader will see here, he is probing, open-minded, dogged, and unsparing of everyone including himself. Not everyone will agree with all the details, but this is real history, illuminating and told honestly with a deep sense of the moral obligation of the press.
In this powerful memoir, Harry Rosenfeld describes his years as an editor at the New York Herald Tribune and the Washington Post, two of the greatest American newspapers in the second half of the turbulent twentieth century. After playing key roles at the Herald Tribune as it battled fiercely for its survival, he joined the Post under the leadership of Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham as they were building the paper’s national reputation. As the Post’s Metropolitan editor, Rosenfeld managed Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they broke the Watergate story, overseeing the paper’s standard-setting coverage that eventually earned it the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service. In describing his complicated relationship with Bradlee and offering an insider’s perspective on the unlikely partnership of Woodward and Bernstein, Rosenfeld depicts the tensions and challenges, triumphs and setbacks that accompanied the Post’s key role in Watergate, the most potent political scandal in America’s history.
Rosenfeld also tells the gripping story of growing up in Hitler’s Berlin. He saw his father taken away by the Gestapo in the middle of the night, and on Kristallnacht, the prelude to the Holocaust, he witnessed the burning of his synagogue and walked through streets littered with the shattered glass of Jewish businesses. After his family found refuge in America, his childhood experiences stayed with him and ultimately influenced his decision to make journalism his life’s work.
At a time when newspapers and other media are under financial pressure to cut back on investigative reporting, From Kristallnacht to Watergate reminds us why journalism matters, and why good journalism is essential to our democracy.
“Harry has a great story to tell … He knew firsthand the brutal mechanism of terror Hitler unleashed on Jews. It’s easy to trace Harry’s motivation of becoming a member of the Fourth Estate. He understood what could happen without a robust watchdog press. Harry’s book is an American immigrant’s tale as much as a newspaper memoir … But my favorite part in the entire 359 pages is how Harry met Annie. It is a beautiful love story.” — Paul Grondahl, Albany Times Union
“…[a] remarkable memoir … [and] a fascinating exploration of a golden era in journalism … the power of this volume … doesn’t lie in the specifics of the stories—which demonstrate, incidentally, that Rosenfeld could have been a great reporter, had he chosen that path rather than newsroom leadership. Rather, the book underscores that journalism’s role in preserving the freedoms Americans hold dear depends mostly upon one person after another doing their jobs with extraordinary skill and dedication, like that exemplified by the grown-up version of that little boy who walked the streets of Berlin on a tragic night of breaking glass.” — Rex Smith, Albany Times Union
“A terrific memoir by one of the great newspapermen of the era. Harry Rosenfeld was one of the key editors on Watergate. As a reader will see here, he is probing, open-minded, dogged, and unsparing of everyone including himself. Not everyone will agree with all the details, but this is real history, illuminating and told honestly with a deep sense of the moral obligation of the press.
406 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 15, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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October 11, 2021The editor of the Washington Post during Watergate (played by Jack Warden in "All the President's Men") tells his life story. Born in Germany in the 1920s as part of a Jewish family his tale is a familiar one early on. He has a front row seat to Kristallnacht but fortunately his father had relatives in the US which was their ticket out. Harry acclimates to the US as a teenager quickly and fastens on newspaper work as his vocation. He cops a job with the Herald Tribune and does service in Korea during the war. But its his time at the Post as the boss of 'Woodstein' that makes this book. This is a perspective from an insider of Watergate I'd not heard before and it's page turning stuff. His battles with Simons and Bradlee are real and eventually he's pushed out. His time as editor-in-chief of an Albany newspaper is just postscript. Rosenfeld died about a month ago.
July 12, 2025
This book should have been entitled, "What Makes Harry Run?" or "People who have met Harry Rosenfeld." This is an overly detailed autobiography of Harry Rosenfeld's career as a newspaperman, first at the Herald Tribune and then at the Washington Post. Yes, he lived through tumultuous times, from his childhood in Nazi Germany, through the Koren and Vietnam Wars and the then the Watergate scandal.
Harry is driven to achieve success in the newspaper industry to the detriment of his family life and health. Yet except for a brief stint in Vietnam, he was never a reporter but and editor and manager. When describing his job to Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, he likens his role to an orchestra conductor. The book is full of name dropping and self-aggrandizing accolades.
For a writer and editor, I wished Rosenfeld would have used those skills on his own autobiography.
Harry is driven to achieve success in the newspaper industry to the detriment of his family life and health. Yet except for a brief stint in Vietnam, he was never a reporter but and editor and manager. When describing his job to Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, he likens his role to an orchestra conductor. The book is full of name dropping and self-aggrandizing accolades.
For a writer and editor, I wished Rosenfeld would have used those skills on his own autobiography.
August 21, 2021
Rosenfeld recently died, and I read his obituary in the New York Times. I found the obituary fascinating, so I decided to hunt down this book. It took a lot of doing, but I finally found it. Unfortunately, the book was awful!
A good memoir should have a thesis, be insightful, and contain a sense of drama. This was not a good memoir. Although Rosenfeld wrote clearly, the prose was workmanlike and pedestrian, and there was no drama in this book, even though Rosenfeld lived through some exciting events. This book was boring! I slogged through it and skimmed much of it.
The NYT obituary was better!
A good memoir should have a thesis, be insightful, and contain a sense of drama. This was not a good memoir. Although Rosenfeld wrote clearly, the prose was workmanlike and pedestrian, and there was no drama in this book, even though Rosenfeld lived through some exciting events. This book was boring! I slogged through it and skimmed much of it.
The NYT obituary was better!
June 7, 2022
I thought I'd enjoy his book even not knowing him but I didn't, really.
June 17, 2016
This an amazing book. It really explained the idea of the American dream from the perspective of a very young child. He went through Kristallnacht and then dealt with Watergate as one of the editors of the Washington Post. And the best part is that my neighbors know him, so I might get to meet him.
August 20, 2016
Mostly fine delivery of a hardworking, successful, newspaperman in the best times of national intrigue (corruption) and the print media.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews