Lorenz Edwin Alfred Eitner was born on August 27, 1919, in
Brno,
Czechoslovakia, to Katherina (née Thonet) and William Eitner, who were
Austrians. William Eitner was a doctor of law, though never practised, born in
Vienna in 1884; prior to World War I, he worked in an Austrian ministry. His parents married after the war. His mother, born from an Austrian father and American mother, was from a family of industrialist makers of
bentwood furniture. The family moved several times for business. After moving from Brno, they lived in West
Berlin, in a largely
Jewish quarter; the vast majority of his early childhood friends were Jewish. His first
Gymnasium was named Helderschule, after
the poet, and he immensely disliked it. They moved to
Frankfurt, and he attended Goethe-Gymnasium, which he liked much more, and whose principal was Jewish. They left Frankfurt in 1934 and moved to
Brussels. He went to the
German School, which was undergoing
Nazification ineptly, because the teachers were new to it. where his father managed a factory of the
Thonet firm and he attended
Florence High School. There was ambiguity over whether the family would remain in America, but in 1938,
Austria was occupied, and his parents did not want him to be
drafted into the Germany military, so they remained in America, where they would later become
naturalized citizens. He did not intend to pursue English literature as a career; he was interested in art history even then. He was the editor of
The Archive, the local
monthly. At recommendation from his teachers, he went to
Princeton University, which he was disappointed by, as they specialized exclusively in early
medieval art. == Office of Strategic Services and Nuremberg Trials ==