Bernstein, Bernard (1909-1990)

A lawyer and Treasury Department official who was a financial adviser to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in World War II. Bernstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Treasury Department from 1933 to 1942; from 1942 to 1945, he was Eisenhower’s financial adviser for Civil Affairs and Military Government, for the ETO and for the MTO, with the rank of Colonel. He was also financial adviser to the North African Economic Control Board in 1942 and 1943. In 1944 and 1945, he served as director of the Finance Division and director of the Division of Investigation of Cartels and External Assets for the U.S. Group Control Commission for Germany.  Bernstein was one of a group of finance officers identified with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. who pressed for hard-line proposals in dealing with postwar Germany.