[2] Raster returned to Europe in 1890 when his health began to fail him and died filling a minor diplomatic role in Berlin.

[3] Today he is best remembered for his extensive correspondence with Western intellectual and political figures of the time, such as Joseph Pulitzer, Elihu Washburne, and Francis Wayland Parker, much of which is preserved at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

He was the son of statesman Wilhelm Christian Raster, a friend of Leopold IV, Duke of Anhalt who served as the chief Collector of Customs and Excise for the Duchy and was a noted translator from the English language.

Spurred by an encounter with the writer Bettina von Arnim, Raster became an important leader of the 1848 Revolution in Dessau, and passionately wrote pamphlets criticizing both the Caesaropapism of the Lutheran Church and the autocracy of the state.

In 1851, during the aftermath of the failed revolutions, Raster was given the choice to emigrate permanently from the German States like other Forty-Eighters or to face criminal prosecution for his actions.

His journalistic reputation grew quickly and in February 1853, Raster was made editor of the New-Yorker Abend-Zeitung, one of the most influential German-language papers of the time.

[15] In 1872, Raster resigned from the position as Collector of Internal Revenue to save more time for the paper and help campaign for Grant in the upcoming election.

That same year at the National Republican Convention in Philadelphia inserted the "Raster Resolution" in its platform which greatly opposed the Temperance movement.

Once the perpetrators were caught he wrote a letter to the Governor, John Peter Altgeld demanding that the prisoners be put to death.

[21] The hall was decorated with hanging crepes and his casket, made of walnut and "heavily" mounted with silver, was "literally covered in floral emblems sent by various German-American press organizations."

[23] On his death, the Chicago Tribune produced an article which said, "His writings during and after the Civil War did more to create understanding and appreciation of the American situation in Germany and to float U.S. bonds in Europe than the combined efforts of all the U.S. ministers and consuls."

Raster's son-in-law was Chicago architect Arthur Hercz and his granddaughter Corrine married Chicago-based industrialist and horticulturist Bruce Krasberg.