Heribert von Feilitzsch

Heribert von Feilitzsch grew up in his family's ancestral community in Upper Franconia, Germany, only a few meters from the German-German border, the "Iron Curtain". After graduating from high school and military service, he came to the United States in 1988 as a student. Fascinated by the Mexican-American border, he completed a master's degree in Latin American history with a focus on relations between Mexico, Germany and the United States at the University of Arizona in Tucson. For von Feilitzsch, the Mexican-American border marks an artificial barrier that separates several distinct native and European cultures as well as two different national identities. This border creates a complicated economic and political framework, which von Feilitzsch continues to research. While pursuing a business career in later years, adding an MBA from Wake Forest University, he also authored books and articles on the Mexican-American border. After twenty years of pain staking original research in the United States, Mexico, and Germany, von Feilitzsch wrote his first of six books, as well as a dozen scientific articles in 2012 on the German secret service in the United States during the Mexican Revolution and World War I. He lives in Virginia and North Carolina with his wife.