Turn 1. Course Out To give an account of the Rosenbergs, one of the families that anchor America’s upper class, means going back to the days of the Weimar Republic. Around the time an infamous dictator who rejected the Republic came to power, Heinrich Rosenberg, a distant relative of the Grand Duke of Hesse, quietly gathered up his entire fortune and fled to America. Determined to cut all ties with the family traitors who had stayed behind in Germany, Rosenberg changed his citizenship and became American. That choice led to the Rosenbergs of today.