After graduating from Columbia University, circa 1932, Bernstein practiced law privately. Additionally, he held multiple offices concurrently. From 1942 through 1943, he was a Financial Adviser,
North African Economic Control Board. From 1944 through 1945, he was Director, Finance Division and Director of the Division of Investigation of Cartels and External Assets, U.S. Group Control Commission for Germany. From 1942 through 1945, he acted as Financial Adviser to Gen. Eisenhower for Civil Affairs and Military Government,
European Theater of Operations and
MTO.
Bernstein's investigations As a
U.S. Army colonel, Bernstein served as a financial adviser to
General Eisenhower in
World War II, and after the war was on the Control Commission for
Germany; he was removed when the
Morgenthau Plan, with which he was associated, was not adopted.
Investigations into Bernstein In 1955, a congressional committee investigated Bernstein for his role in alleging American corporations of espionage with I.G. Farben and then mentioned subsequent statements he made that seemed supportive of Communism (apparently because the communist
Daily Worker newspaper reported his statements): According to the
Daily Worker of December 12, 1945, Col. Bernard Bernstein charged before a Senate committee that American corporations had engaged in military and economic espionage with the German chemical firm of I. G. Farben against the interests of the United States during World War II. He named the
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, the
Aluminum Company of America, the
E.I. duPont de Nemours, and the Ethyl Export Corp. The
Daily Worker headline read: "U. S. Firm Served as Spy Center for Nazis, AMG Aide Reveals"... Again according to the
Daily Worker (February 21, 1946) Colonel Bernstein spoke at a meeting of the
American Jewish Conference held in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 20, 1946, and said that "Only the Russians have shown that they mean to exterminate
fascism and
nazism, and have already taken decisive steps in that direction." Addressing the newly launched Congress o American Women on March 8, 1946, at a meeting in New York City, in honor of International Women's Day, celebrated as an international holiday by Communists throughout the world, Col. Bernard Bernstein declared that the Soviet Union is carrying out the Potsdam agreement on Germany, while the United States is vacillating. Speaking from the same platform, Mrs.
Muriel Draper attacked
Winston Churchill's "anti-Soviet war-mongering" and scored President
Truman for going along with it. A participant in the meeting was
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a Communist leader since indicted under the
Smith Act (
Daily Worker, March 9, 1946). The Congress of American Women has been cited as subversive by the Attorney General and has disbanded. ==Personal life and death==