Sigrid Schultz
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Sigrid Schultz | |
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Died | May 14, 1980 | (aged 87)
Other names | John Dickson (pseudonym) |
Education |
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Occupation(s) | Journalist, bureau chief |
Employers | |
Known for | Reporting on Nazism |
Notable work | Germany Will Try it Again (1944) |
Parents |
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Sigrid Schultz (January 15, 1893
Early life and education
Schultz was born in
Education
For the first two years in Germany, while her father painted in Württemberg, Sigrid and her mother stayed with Hedwig's family in Wiesbaden. During that time, Sigrid was sent away to a school in Munich, where she experienced loneliness and was mocked for her German accent.[6] Once the family moved to Paris, Sigrid attended Lycée Racine — lycée is the French equivalent of American high school education — and subsequently studied international law at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1914.[7] She taught French and English in Berlin for much of World War I.[5]
Some sources claim that while in Germany with her mother, she fell ill with what was believed to be
Career
At war's end, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, needed a correspondent fluent in both German and English. Among other things, McCormick wanted someone able with the ability to explain in detail the Battle of Jutland, the war's most significant naval battle, to Tribune readers. Schultz joined the Tribune in 1919[10] and, with fluency in several languages to her credit, became the chief for Central Europe in 1926.[11] She had been named the chief of the Berlin bureau for the Tribune late in 1925.[12] At that time, Schultz worked with Richard Henry Little and Floyd Gibbons.[13] It is believed that Schultz was the first woman to ever hold such a position for a major news media organization.[14]
Convinced by events that
Beginning in 1938, Schultz began to report for the Mutual Broadcasting System[15] along with the Chicago Tribune. In doing so, she became "the first woman to broadcast regularly on an American network from Europe."[3] She was considered by some of her fellow reporters as only a fair writer but a superb investigator and reporter.[16] Fellow Berlin correspondent William L. Shirer wrote that "No other American correspondent in Berlin knew so much of what was going on behind the scenes as did Sigrid Schultz."
Though Nazi German officials were often displeased with Schultz's reporting — which they deemed as critical of the regime — she had not been expelled from Germany as had other reporters deemed "hostile" to the nation's "revival" under Nazism. In order not to jeopardize her ability to work in Germany without imprisonment or expulsion, Schultz during 1938 and 1939 filed some of her dispatches under a
On July 13, 1939, one of Dickson's articles received front-page placement in the Tribune. The dispatch forecast the
It was Schultz who awoke
- Berlin, September 1
- At six a.m., Sigrid Schultz — bless her heart — phoned. She said: "It's happened." I was very sleepy — my body and mind numbed, paralyzed. I mumbled: "Thanks, Sigrid," and tumbled out of bed. The war is on![2]
Schultz reported on the many military triumphs of the Wehrmacht during the first year of World War II, but was not permitted to travel to the front because she was a woman. She left Germany after being injured in an Allied air raid on Berlin. While in Spain, she developed typhus and returned to the United States in early 1941.[3] What had been expected to be a brief leave developed into a three-year convalescence from the disease.
During this period, Schultz wrote a book about Germany titled Germany Will Try It Again[17] and made a nationwide lecture tour about her quarter-century in Germany.
Schultz returned to Europe as a war correspondent in January, 1945 and accompanied the
After the war, she continued her reporting and wrote several books. Schultz was working on a history of antisemitism in Germany when she died in 1980. (Her obituary in the Chicago Tribune said that she was "working on a book that was to be a history of the two World Wars and the Holocaust.")[10]
Schultz's writings
This article's "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality. (February 2021) |
In Schultz's book Germany Will Try It Again, she describes, based on her first-hand witness reports on what is in essence would equate with a German-Austrian
Schultz also covers the successful appeal of the Nazis to both British and American corporations to ally themselves with Germany in a fight against Communism. While not so successful in Britain, alliances were successful with American corporate investors such as Prescott Bush.[citation needed] Nazi agents in the USA promoted the German American Bund, the roots of many current neo-Nazi groups, and sought to provoke divisive American racial tensions through support of other American racist organizations.[citation needed]
Lastly, Schultz covers the Nazi drive to build up business and political alliances in South America,[19] which led to the foundations of[citation needed] the Juan Perón regime in Argentina, the Alfredo Stroessner regime in Paraguay, and the more recent Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile.
Death
On May 15, 1980, Schultz died in her Westport, Connecticut, retirement home. She was 87.[10]
Papers and named scholarship
Schultz's papers are housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society.[20]
Schultz's estate established a scholarship fund for journalism students. In 2014,
See also
- Nazi Germany
- William L. Shirer
- Martha Dodd
- William E. Dodd
- Bella Fromm
- Mildred Harnack
- In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
Notes
- ^ Also according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.[citation needed]
- ^ Detailed in the writings of Glenn Infield, Joseph Wechsberg, and Simon Wiesenthal.
References
- ^ a b c d e Consulate of the United States of America (Berlin). "Emergency Passport Application for Sigrid Schultz" (May 4, 1921) [Scan of original document]. U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925, Series: Applications for Certicate (sic) of Identity U.S. Citizens in Germany, File: 1920-1921: Volume 002 (May 1921-Nov 1921), p. 55. Lehi, Utah: Ancestry.com.
- ^ a b "Announcing The Sigrid Schultz Scholarship for Future Journalists," Connecticut SPJ (November 11, 2014).
- ^ ISBN 9780313254772. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
- ^ Mackrell, J. (2021). Going with the Boys: Six Extraordinary Women Writing from the Front Line, United Kingdom: Pan Macmillan, p. 12-13.
- ^ a b Edwards, Julia (September 11, 1988). "Dragon Lady". Archived from the original on 20 May 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
- ^ Mackrell, J. (2021). Going with the Boys: Six Extraordinary Women Writing from the Front Line, United Kingdom: Pan Macmillan, p. 13.
- ^ 'Sigrid Schultz, 87, Hitler's Enemy', Overseas Press Club Bulletin, Vol. 35, No. 11, June 1, 1980, p. 1-2.
- ^ Schultz, Germany Will Try It Again, p. viii.
- ^ Schultz, p.viii.
- ^
- ^ 'Sigrid Schultz, 87, Hitler's Enemy', Overseas Press Club Bulletin, Vol. 35, No. 11, June 1, 1980, p. 1-2.
- ISBN 9781628721157. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
- ^ 'Sigrid Schultz, 87, Hitler's Enemy', Overseas Press Club Bulletin, Vol. 35, No. 11, June 1, 1980, p. 1-2.
- ^ 'Sigrid Schultz, 87, Hitler's Enemy', Overseas Press Club Bulletin, Vol. 35, No. 11, June 1, 1980, p. 1-2.
- Little, Brown. Page 259.
- ^ Infield, Glenn (1981). The Secrets of the SS. New York: Stein and Day. pp. 245–246.
- ^ Schultz, pp. 2, 203.
- ^ "Sigrid Schultz Papers, 1835-1980". Wisconsin Historical Society. Archived from the original on 20 May 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
Sources
- ^ Levenda, Peter (1995). Unholy Alliance. New York: Avon Books.
- ^ Schultz, Sigrid (1944). Germany Will Try It Again. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock.
- ^ Shirer, William L. (1941). Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
- ^ Tetens, T.H. (1961). The New Germany and the Old Nazis. New York: Random House. LCN 61-7240.
- ^ Wechsberg, Glenn (1967). The Murderers Among Us: Simon Wiesenthal Memoirs. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- ISBN 0-528-81826-0.
External links
- Article about women reporters in American Journalism Review
- Excerpt from The Women Who Wrote the War (Harper-Collins)
- Old Time Radio article about Sigrid Schultz
- About Sigrid Schultz - Biography of war correspondent Sigrid Schultz in "Angora: Rabbit Raising in German Concentration Camps," an online image gallery documenting the SS Angora project. Available on Wisconsin Historical Images, the Wisconsin Historical Society's online image database.