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August 2, 2012

Robert A. Nitschke

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TRAVERSE CITY — Robert A. Nitschke, a former vice president and Associate General Counsel of the General Motors Corporation, who combined a career in anti-trust law with an interest in rediscovering and growing rare fruit varieties, died July 31, 2012.

As attorney handling anti-trust matters at General Motors from 1948 to 1977, Mr. Nitschke guided the corporation through the most challenging anti-trust period in the its history. In the 1950s and 1960s the Justice Department filed eight major anti-trust cases against GM while the automobile industry was the subject of two massive congressional anti-trust investigations.

Mr. Nitschke was made vice president and associate general counsel in 1977 and retired in 1980. Before joining General Motors in 1948 Mr. Nitschke was an attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Beginning in 1939 he was a special attorney in the department's Chicago office. In 1943, he became chief of the Department's Economic Warfare Unit, Chicago branch. In 1946, he was named chief of the department's Patent and Cartel Section and transferred to Washington, D.C.

It was his move to Detroit in 1948 that prompted his interest in growing fruit. Dismayed that he could not find the apple, peach and pear varieties with the excellent flavors he remembered from his youth, he began collecting scion wood of hundreds of rare varieties from all over the United States and Europe. He concentrated on those that had the finest taste. He grafted the scions onto dwarf trees he had. By the early 1960s, at his home grounds in Birmingham, he had 210 varieties of apples that were not commercially available because of appearance, poor keeping quality or irregular bearing. In addition to apples he grew peaches, grapes, pears, cherries, plums, guinces, gooseberries and currants. He created Southmeadow Fruit Gardens in partnership with nurseryman Lorne Doud of Wabash, Ind., and later with Theo Grootendorst of Lakeside and Beroda. Their dwarf trees were supplied to home fruit growers.

Robert A. Nitschke was born in Lakewood, Ohio, in 1915, the only son of Alfred E. Nitschke, a Christian Science teacher and Practitioner and Elizabeth Hartner Nitschke.

He graduated from Adelbert College of Western Reserve University in Cleveland (now Case Western University) in 1936 and from Yale University Law School in 1939, where he was on the editorial board of the Yale Law Journal. He was the author of numerous articles on anti-trust law and pomology.

He married Jane Amend, of Evanston, Ill., in 1941. She died in 1989.

He is survived by his four children, Eric, of Decatur, Ga., David, of Longboat Key, Fla., Nancy Franco, of Bellevue, Wash., and John, of Evanston, Ill.; and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to First Church, Christ Scientist, 210 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA 02115 or The Leelanau Conservancy, 105 North First Street, PO Box 1007, Leland, MI 49654.

Please sign the online guestbook at www.flintofts.com.

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