Raul Hilberg (1926–2007), Political Scientist, Historian.

Raul Hilberg was an Austrian-born Jewish-American political scientist and historian. In 1939, Hilberg fled Vienna with his family and—after a four-month stay in Cuba—arrived in the U.S. on the day World War II broke out in Europe. During World War II, Hilberg first served in the 45th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, but was soon attached to the War Documentation Department, charged with examining archives throughout Europe. While quartered in the Braunes Haus, he stumbled upon Hitler's crated private library in Munich, which promted his research into the Holocaust. Hilberg's three-volume magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews (1961), is still considered the most comprehensive study of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Hilberg spent most of his teaching career at the University of Vermont, where he was a member of the Department of Political Science. In 1979, he was also appointed to the President's Commission on the Holocaust by Jimmy Carter and later served for many years on its successor, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which is the governing body for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.