Henry Kamm

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Henry Kamm
Born
Hans Kamm

(1925-06-03)June 3, 1925
Breslau, Silesia
DiedJuly 9, 2023(2023-07-09) (aged 98)
Paris, France
EducationNew York University
OccupationJournalist

Henry Kamm (born Hans Kamm; June 3, 1925 – July 9, 2023) was a German-born American correspondent for The New York Times. He reported for the Times from Southeast Asia (based in Bangkok), Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Early life and career

Hans Kamm was born in the German town of Breslau,

George Washington High School. He became an American citizen in 1943, changing his name to Henry Kamm.[2] At the age of 18 he enlisted in the army in 1944 and fought in Belgium and France, where he learned French. After the end of the war he was employed in Dachau as an interpreter at trials against suspected Nazi war criminals. However, the work of defending the accused was difficult for him; after a week he ended his participation and left Germany.[1]

In 1946 Kamm returned to New York and three years later earned a bachelor's degree from New York University. He was inducted into the honor society Phi Beta Kappa.[3][4]

He started working as a journalist for the New York Times in 1949. He reported from France (1960, 1971–1977), Poland (1966–1967), Russia (1967–1971), Japan (1977), Thailand,[3] and Afghanistan, among others.[1]

In 1969, Kamm won the

George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting.[5]

Kamm won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1978 for his coverage of the plight of refugees from Indochina.[6] His early experience of disenfranchisement and forced emigration greatly impacted his 47-year career at the Times, his son Thomas Kamm, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent, said in 2017: it "explains the interest he always showed throughout his journalistic career for refugees, dissidents, those without a voice and the downtrodden."[7]

In the 1960s he came to Germany more often, for example to interview Willy Brandt.[1] He reported from Eastern Europe on the resistance against the communist regimes and made friends with Václav Havel, Jiří Dienstbier, and Stefan Heym.[1]

Private life

In 1950, Kamm married Barbara Lifton. The couple had three children: Alison, Thomas and Nicholas as well as ten grandchildren. Kamm separated from his wife in the late 1970s and lived with a Vietnamese woman who adopted a son. In his retirement, Henry Kamm lived mostly in France. On November 18, 2018, he regained his

German citizenship, and in 2021 voted in a German federal election for the first time.[1] Kamm died at St. Joseph's Hospital in Paris, on July 9, 2023, at the age of 98.[2]

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Matthias Krupa (September 22, 2021). "Der Erstwähler". Die Zeit 39/2021 (in German). Retrieved July 10, 2023.
  2. ^ a b Robert D. McFadden (July 9, 2023). "Henry Kamm, Pulitzer-Winning New York Times Journalist, Dies at 98". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Heinz Dietrich Fischer: Complete Biographical Encyclopedia of Pulitzer Prize Winners, 2011, p. 124 [1]
  4. ^ Heinz-Dietrich Fischer: 1963–1977: From the Escalation of the Vietnam War to the East Asian Refugee Problems, De Gruyter p. 290 [2]
  5. ^ "The George Polk Awards for Journalism". Archived from the original on 2009-02-12. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
  6. ^ Kihss, Peter (April 18, 1978). "3 on The Times Get Pulitzer Prizes; Philadelphia Inquirer Wins Award". The New York Times. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
  7. ^ Robert D. McFadden (July 9, 2023). "Henry Kamm, Pulitzer-Winning New York Times Journalist, Dies at 98". buffolonews.com. The New York Times. Retrieved July 11, 2023.
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