Wendell Berge

Wendell Berge (1903–1955) was an American lawyer who headed the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice from 1943 to 1947. Born in Nebraska and educated at the University of Nebraska and the University of Michigan law school, he joined the Justice Department in 1930 and rose under Thurman Arnold to become Assistant Attorney General. During and after the Second World War he prosecuted international cartels in chemicals, drugs and metals and argued publicly that they had aided the Axis and threatened postwar recovery. His books Cartels: Challenge to a Free World (1944) and Economic Freedom for the West (1946) set out that case for general readers.