Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by
Time magazineTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as the second most influential women in America next to
Eleanor RooseveltAnna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
. She is notable as the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and as one of the few women news commentators on radio during the 1930s. Many fondly referred to her as the “First Lady of American Journalism.”
She was married three times, most famously to second husband and
Nobel Prize in literatureSince 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
winner
Sinclair LewisHarry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
, and cultivated many literary friend, particularly among
exiled German authorsGerman Exilliteratur is the name for a category of books in the German language written by writers of anti-nazi attitude who fled from Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945...
.
Early Life
Dorothy Thompson was born in Lancaster, New York in 1894 to Margaret and Peter Thompson. Margaret died when Dorothy was seven (in 1901), leaving Peter, a Methodist preacher, to raise his daughter alone. Peter soon remarried, but Dorothy did not get along with his new wife, Elizabeth Abbott Thompson. In 1908, Peter sent Dorothy to Chicago to live with his two sisters to avoid further conflict. Here, she attended Lewis Institute for two years before transferring to
Syracuse UniversitySyracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
as a junior. At Syracuse, she studied politics and economics and graduated with a degree in 1914. Because she had the opportunity to be educated, unlike many women of the time, Thompson felt strongly that she had a social obligation to fight for women's suffrage in the United States, which would become the base of her ardent political beliefs. Shortly after graduation, Thompson moved to Buffalo, New York and became involved in the
women's suffrageWomen's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
campaign. She worked there until 1920, when she went abroad to pursue her journalism career.
Freelance Writing
After working for women’s suffrage in the United States, Dorothy Thompson relocated to Europe in 1920 to pursue her journalism career. She was interested in the early
ZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
movement. Her big break occurred when she visited Ireland in 1920 and was the last to interview
Terence MacSwineyTerence Joseph MacSwiney was an Irish playwright, author and politician. He was elected as Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. He was arrested by the British on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton prison in England...
, one of the major leaders of the
Sinn FéinSinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
movement. It was the last interview MacSwiney gave before he was arrested days later and died two months after that.
Because of her success abroad, she was appointed Vienna correspondent for the Philadelphia Public Ledger. While working in Vienna, Thompson focused on becoming fluent in German. In 1923 she married her first husband, Hungarian
Joseph BardJoseph Bard , also known as Diamant József, was an expatriate Hungarian writer, known for a novel Shipwreck in Europe and short stories written in English, and as a literary editor. He settled in the United Kingdom, where he was later known as Joseph Bard...
; they divorced in 1927 In 1925, she was promoted to Chief of the Central European Service for the
Public Ledger (Philadelphia)The Public Ledger was a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania published from March 25, 1836 to January 1942. Its motto was "Virtue Liberty and Independence". For a time, it was Philadelphia's most popular newspaper, but circulation declined in the mid-1930s.-Early history:Founded by William...
. She resigned in 1927 and not long after, the
New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
appointed her head of its Berlin bureau in Germany. According to her biographer, Peter Kurth, Thompson was “the undisputed queen of the overseas press corps, the first woman to head a foreign news bureau of any importance.”
Thompson married
Sinclair LewisHarry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
in 1928 and acquired a house in Vermont. They had one son, Michael Lewis, born in 1930. The couple divorced in 1942.
Reporting from Germany
Thompson’s most significant work abroad took place in Germany in the early 1930s. While working in Munich, Thompson met and interviewed
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
for the first time in 1931. This would be the basis for her subsequent book, I Saw Hitler. She wrote about the dangers of Hitler winning power in Germany. Thompson described Hitler in the following terms:
He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the little man.
Later, when the full force of Nazism had crashed over Europe, Thompson was asked to defend her "Little Man" remarks; it seemed she had underestimated Hitler. The Third Reich considered both the book and her articles offensive and in August 1934, Thompson was expelled from Germany. She was the first journalist of either gender to be kicked out… presumably because she was the greatest threat.
At the New York Tribune
In 1936 Thompson began writing “On the Record,” an incredibly successful syndicated newspaper column. It was read by over ten million people and carried by more than 170 papers. She also wrote a monthly column for the
Ladies' Home JournalLadies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
. Thompson wrote a monthly article for the
Ladies' Home JournalLadies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
for twenty-four years (1937–1961); its topics were far removed from war and politics, focusing on gardening, children, art, and other domestic and women's-interest topics.
Radio Career
Around the time same as she started “On the Record”,
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
hired Thompson as a news commentator. She began in 1936 and remained with NBC until 1938. Her radio broadcasts went on to become some of the most popular in the United States, making her one of the most sought after female public speakers of her time. When
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
invaded Poland in 1939, Thompson went on the air for fifteen consecutive days and nights.
Herschel Grynszpan Affair
In 1938, Dorothy Thompson championed the cause of a Polish-German Jew
Herschel GrynszpanHerschel Feibel Grynszpan was a Polish Jew and political assassin. Grynszpan's assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath on November 7, 1938, after the deportation of his family, provided the excuse for the Nazi Kristallnacht, the antisemitic pogrom of November 9–10, 1938...
, whose assassination in Paris of a minor German diplomat,
Ernst vom RathErnst Eduard vom Rath was a German diplomat, remembered for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan. The assassination triggered Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass"....
, had been used as propaganda by the Nazis to trigger the events of
KristallnachtKristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
in Germany. Thompson's broadcast on NBC radio was heard by millions of listeners, and led to an outpouring of sympathy for the young assassin. Under the banner of the Journalists' Defense Fund, over $40,000 USD was collected, enabling famed European lawyer
Vincent de Moro-GiafferiVincent de Moro-Giafferi was a French criminal attorney.Moro-Giafferi was the youngest person ever appointed to the Paris bar at the age of 24. Also active in politics, he was made a Deputy to the French National Assembly from Corsica at the age of 31 in 1919...
to take up Grynszpan's case. The assassination inspired the composer
Michael TippettSir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
to write his oratorio
A Child of Our TimeA Child of Our Time is an oratorio written by Michael Tippett between 1939 and 1941."After more than ten years of thoughtful planning, Michael Tippett summed up his musical, political, spiritual and philosophical beliefs in his first oratorio, A Child of Our Time...
as a plea for peace, and as a protest against the persecution of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany. Its haunting use of Negro spirituals to allude to the subjugation of the
JewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
was particularly innovative.
Woman of the year
As Hitler waged war on the Bolsheviks, Thompson took the world stage. She was featured on the cover of
Time (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
that same year, with an accompanying picture of her speaking into an
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
radio microphone. The article was captioned “she rides in the smoking car” and it named her the second most popular and influential woman in the country behind
Eleanor RooseveltAnna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
. She was one of the most respected women of her age. This same article explained Thompson’s influence: “Dorothy Thompson is the U. S. clubwoman's woman. She is read, believed and quoted by millions of women who used to get their political opinions from their husbands, who got them from
Walter LippmannWalter Lippmann was an American intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War...
.”
In
Woman of the YearWoman of the Year is a romantic comedy film. The movie is about an emancipated woman, chosen "Woman of the Year", and her colleague-turned-husband and their efforts to negotiate a path to marital bliss....
(1942)
Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
played Tess Harding, a character directly based on Dorothy Thompson. The
Broadway musicalWoman of the Year is a musical with a book by Peter Stone and score by John Kander and Fred Ebb.Based on the Ring Lardner Jr.-Michael Kanin screenplay for the 1942 Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film of the same name, the musical changes the newspaper reporters of the original to television...
is based on Thompson as well, this time played by
Lauren BacallLauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
.
She married her third husband, the artist Maxim Kopf, in 1945.
Disenchantment with Zionism
Seeking a new issue and a new audience after the war, Thompson turned her attention to the Middle East. Although she had supported
ZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
(the movement to establish a Jewish nation in Palestine) since 1920, she ultimately became anti-Zionist and pro-Arab when their methods appeared imperialistic. She wrote an article in
CommentaryCommentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
cautioning
American JewsAmerican Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
about
ZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
as it would lead to
dual loyaltyIn politics, dual loyalty is loyalty to two separate interests that potentially conflict with each other.-Inherently controversial:While nearly all examples of alleged "dual loyalty" are considered highly controversial, these examples point to the inherent difficulty in distinguishing between what...
. The Jewish
Oscar HandlinOscar Handlin was an American historian. As a professor of history at Harvard University for over 50 years, he directed 80 PhD dissertations and helped promote social and ethnic history...
rebutted her in the same issue. Later, she became very critical of the newly created state of
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. She visited the Palestinian refugees camps in 1948 after the establishment of the state of Israel. She began to write and talk about the refugees' conditions during (Nakba or the Palestinian exodus) and criticized Israel.
In 1950 she produced a documentary film about the Palestinian refugees under the title
Sands of Sorrow, one of the oldest documentary films on the plight of Palestine demonstrating the tragedy of Palestinian refugees and the joint suffering. As a result, she was blocked by various media that were previously wish to work with her or even to hold a meeting with her, until she died in Portugal in 1961.
On Herschel Grynszpan Affair
- "I am speaking of this boy. Soon he will go on trial. The news is that on top of all this terror, this horror, one more must pay. They say he will go to the guillotine, without a trial by jury, with the rights that any common murderer has…"
- "Who is on trial in this case? I say we are all on trial. I say the men of Munich are on trial, who signed a pact without one word of protection for helpless minorities. Whether Herschel Grynszpan lives or not won't matter much to Herschel. He was prepared to die when he fired those shots. His young life was already ruined. Since then, his heart has been broken into bits by the results of his deed."
- "They say a man is entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers, and a man's kinsmen rally around him, when he is in trouble. But no kinsman of Herschel's can defend him. The Nazi government has announced that if any Jews, anywhere in the world, protest at anything that is happening, further oppressive measures will be taken. They are holding every Jew in Germany as a hostage."
- "Therefore, we who are not Jews must speak, speak our sorrow and indignation and disgust in so many voices that they will be heard. This boy has become a symbol, and the responsibility for his deed must be shared by those who caused it."
Partial text of the Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry
- "[W]e Americans of German descent raise our voices in denunciation of the Hitler policy of cold-blooded extermination of the Jews of Europe and against the barbarities committed by the Nazis against all other innocent peoples under their sway. These horrors ... are, in particular, a challenge to those who, like ourselves are descendants of the Germany that once stood in the foremost ranks of civilization. ... [We] utterly repudiate every thought and deed of Hitler and his Nazis ... [and urge Germany] to overthrow a regime which is in the infamy of German history.
Miscellaneous
- "Age is not measured by years. Nature does not equally distribute energy. Some people are born old and tired while others are going strong at seventy."
- "As far as I can see, I was really put out of Germany for the crime of blasphemy. My offense was to think that Hitler was just an ordinary man, after all. That is a crime in the reigning cult in Germany, which says Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people— an old Jewish idea. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are a German, you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I was merely sent to Paris. Worse things can happen." (1934)
- "No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will. ... When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say 'Heil' to him, nor will they call him 'Führer' or 'Duce.' But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of 'O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!'" (1935)
- "Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live."
- "Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow."
- "It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives."
- "They have not wanted peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war--as though the absence of war was the same as peace."
- "Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict."
Works
- The New Russia (Holt, 1928)
- I Saw Hitler! (Farrar and Rinehart, 1932)
- Concerning Vermont (1937)
- Once on Christmas (Oxford University Press, 1939)
- Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (Stackpole, 1938)
- Refugees: Anarchy or Organization? (Random House, 1938)
- Let the Record Speak (Houghton Mifflin, 1939)
- (1939) Christian Ethics and Western Civilization
- (1941) A Call to Action, Ring of Freedom
- (1941) Our Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor
- Listen Hans (Houghton Mifflin, 1942)
- (1944) To Whom Does the Earth Belong?
- (1945) I Speak Again as a Christian
- (1946) Let the Promise Be Fulfilled: A Christian View of Palestine
- (1948) The Truth About Communism
- (1948) The Developments of Our Times
- (1955) The Crisis of the West
- The Courage to Be Happy (Houghton Mifflin, 1957)
External links