William I. Bertsche

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William I. Bertsche (1918–1998) was an American commercial translator. He spoke English and German and could sight-read Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Finnish, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Swedish.

He was the son of Carl Bertsche and Herta Woelfler. In 1908 his mother founded the Lawyers' and Merchants' Translation Bureau at 11 Broadway in New York, and his father was a founding member of the American Translators Association. Bertsche earned degrees in English and Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and a law degree from Fordham University in 1943, and he was admitted to the New York bar. In 1944–1945 he served in the U.S. Counter-Intelligence Corps as a German translator and interpreter.

After World War II he joined the family business and became owner in 1966. He ran the bureau, one of the United States’ most prestigious translation agencies, until 1994. He worked as a technical translator and a legal translator, and was involved in translator training and professionalization. He taught German translation at New York University and twice served as President of the American Translators Association, as well as chair of its Ethics Committee, Treasurer, and Accreditation Chair.

In 1986 he was awarded the Alexander Gode Medal for outstanding service to the translation and interpreting professions. Bertsche lived in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and died of cancer at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx on July 11, 1998. The New York Times called him one of the nation’s leading document translators for more than half a century.