As a crusading diary keeper , Dorothy Thompson made mountain of enemies — but her most formidable foe was Adolf Hitler . Thompson spend well over a decade agitate against the Nazis in print and on the radio , warning Americans of the threat of fascism years before the official U.S. entry intoWorld War II . Her efforts made her one of the most far-famed women in the United States — and the first American correspondent Hitler release from Germany .
Stumping for Suffrage
Born on July 9 , 1893 , in Lancaster , New York , to British immigrants , Thompson grow up in a religious menage . Her father was a Methodist diplomatic minister , and he ofttimes take his eldest girl on visits to parishioners across the suburbs of upstate New York . When Thompson was just 7 years old , her mother perish of sepsis rumored to have been fetch on by a botched miscarriage . Thompson ’s Church Father , eager to provide his three children with a maternal figure , soon remarried . But Thompson did not get along with her stepmother , whom she exact had " an allergy to child . " A few years subsequently , she went to live with her auntie in Chicago , where she attended a junior college call the Lewis Institute .
Thompson was a shiny student who showed a love for literature and discourse . She persist in her education at Syracuse University , where she earned a bachelor ’s degree in 1914 .
Upon graduation , Thompson dedicate herself to feminist pursuits . Her first line of work out of college involved stuffing envelopes for the Woman Suffrage Party in Buffalo , though Thompson soon convinced her boss to put her in the field . As Jack Alexander would later indite in theSaturday Evening Post , “ Stumping for right to vote consisted largely in starting arguments in public place , which was , of course , Dorothy ’s peach . " She spent the next few year press for cleaning lady ’s right to vote and other reformist pursuits , working in New York City andCincinnatias well as upstate . But activism did n’t give well , so she also smatter in advertizement and publicity work to help oneself support her younger sib through college .
Yet Dorothy also nutrify aspiration of being a journalist . She already had the names and act of several editors , after pen op - erectile dysfunction on social jurist for the major New York newspapers . She also had a suffragist friend , Barbara De Porte , who was itch to go to Europe in search of story and dangerous undertaking . Once they had saved up enough money , the pair board a ship to London in 1920 , where they embarked upon careers as foreign correspondents .
Hitler: “A Man Whose Countenance Is a Caricature”
Thompson and De Porte both like a shot sought freelance work at the International News Service , an American agency with bureaus all over Europe . The I.N.S. assignment suit Thompson , a workhorse who also had unbelievable luck . In one former succeeder , she bring down the last interview with Terence MacSwiney , a leader of the Sinn Fein motion who drop dead in prison on a hunger strike , while visiting congeneric in Ireland . She afterward snagged an scoop with Karl I , the deposed former B. B. King of Hungary , by sneaking into a castle dressed as a Red Cross nurse . After this twine of scoops , Thompson bring down a job in Vienna as a foreign correspondent for thePhiladelphia Public Ledger .
Through this mail , she rise a deep understanding of central European politics — bolstered by her eloquence in German and 1923 marriage to Hungarian author Josef Bard — that catapulted her to bureau tribal chief of both thePublic Ledgerand theNew York Evening Post , which shared foreign service . She was , as her biographerPeter Kurthput it , “ the first womanhood to manoeuver a foreign news authority of any grandness . ”
But a period of change was in advance . well-worn of her husband ’s many affairs , Thompson filed for divorce in 1927 ; that same year , she meet Sinclair Lewis , the successful novelist ofElmer GantryandMain Street . He was instantly soft on . In 1928 , Thompson accept one of Lewis’smany proposalsand resigned her Emily Price Post to marry him , pull up stakes Germany to bulge a raw life with him in Vermont .
life-time in the country did not dull her pursuit in international affairs , however . Thompson keep to report on alien politics as a freelancer , do several months - long trip back to Germany in the early 1930s to chronicle the break down Weimar Republic . She had been following Hitler ’s rise to baron since at least 1923 , when she assay to interview the future dictator following theBeer Hall Putsch , a failed government takeover that put Hitler in prison house . Her audience request was finally approve in 1931 under strict conditions : She could only ask him three questions , which were to be posit a full twenty-four hours in advance .
Thompson come away from the interview less than impressed . " When I finally walked into Adolf Hitler ’s salon in the Kaiserhof Hotel , I was convinced that I was foregather the future dictator of Germany , " she wrote . " In something less than fifty seconds I was quite sure that I was not . … He is formless , almost faceless : a man whose countenance is a impersonation ; a military personnel whose framework seems cartilaginous , without bone . He is inconsequential and voluble , ill - poised , insecure — the very paradigm of the Little Man . "
While Thompson misjudge Hitler ’s appeal ( he would be chancellor of Germany in just two years ) , her biting fictitious character judgement stayed with the Führer . He did not initially revenge , even as the interview propagate amongCosmopolitanreaders and the mass paperback food market through Thompson ’s 1932bookI Saw Hitler ! . But in the late summertime of 1934 , the Nazi government expelled Thompson from the country , informing her thatthey were " unable to extend to [ her ] a further right hand of cordial reception . " It served as one of the first significant warning to foreign journalists in Germany : Criticism of Hitler would no longer be tolerated .
" My criminal offence was to think that Hitler is just an average man , after all , " Thompsonwroteshortly afterward inThe New York Times . " That is a crime against the reigning religious cult in Germany , which read Mr. Hitler is a Messiah commit by God to save the German people — an honest-to-god Judaic melodic theme . To interview this mystic commission is so heinous that , if you are a German , you could be sent to gaol . I , as luck would have it , am an American , so I merely was sent to Paris . "
A Woman on a Mission
Back in the United States , Thompson mount a one - adult female crusade against the Nazis . She stigmatize the German administration oftentimes and vigorously in her syndicate pillar , " On the Record , " which ran in 170 newspaper and reached rough 8 million reader . She also spread her substance through regular radio broadcast for NBC , and a monthly column inLadies ' Home Journal . In one of her most memorable ( and dangerous ) remain firm against Hitler ’s movement , she pay heed a 1939 rally for the German American Bund at Madison Square Garden . sit down among 20,000 Nazi supporters , she loudly jest at the speaker , even as uniformed men undertake toescorther out of the sphere .
These actions bestow Thompson incredible celebrity and worship . In 1937 , she was invite back to her alma mater to serve as Syracuse University ’s first distaff commencement speaker . She pick up honorary degrees from Columbia , Tufts , and Dartmouth , among others , and became a frequent honored guest at charity dinners and women ’s club gatherings . When moviegoers delineate up to see the 1942 Spencer Tracy - Katharine Hepburn comedyWoman of the Year , they instantly recognized Thompson in Hepburn ’s accomplished , internationally renowned journalist .
But even as Thompson ’s popularity cover into World War II , she had already attracted critics . In February 1941 , Pacifist mothersparaded her effigyoutside the gates of the White House , denouncing her role in " a million boys ' lives in blood and hurting . " Other detractorsdismissedThompson ’s " perpetual emotion , " a complaint that would pluck up steam in her postwar career , as she shifted her focus to anti - Zionism and lost many follower in the operation . ( That include her editors atThe New York Post , who dropped her column in 1947 . ) Her star had importantly faded by 1961 , when she died of a heart attack in Lisbon at the years of 67 .
The Grimmest Party Game
In the days that followed , Thompson ’s life-time was often dwarf by or soak up in news report of her more famous 2nd husband . Her marriage to Lewis , which survive from 1928 to 1942 , coincided with some of Thompson ’s busy and most successful long time , and it also inspired one of Lewis ’s most enduring ( andrecently renascent ) novels , It Ca n’t fall out Here , a dystopian fantasy about a fascistic dictator who takes over the United States .
But unlike Lewis ’s work , Thompson ’s books are now scattered and often difficult to find . As acclaimed as she once was , her name has largely fade in forward-looking time , and frequently appear as a footnote in the wider anti - Nazi cause . One of Thompson ’s articles , however , has lasted long past her death , and even gained renewed attention in recent years .
The 1941Harper’sstory"Who Goes Nazi ? " found Thompson play the grimmest company secret plan : Which person in a room would , if it come down to it , support Hitler ’s mark of fascism ? disembowel on her years of reflection , Thompson argued with chilling specificity that the distinction had nothing to do with class , airstream , or professing . Nazism , she insisted , had to do with something more unconditioned . " Kind , good , happy , gentlemanly , secure masses never go Nazi , " Thompson indite . But those driven by fear , resentment , insecurity , or ego - loathing ? They would always fall for fascism . " It ’s an amusing game , " she reason . " Try it at the next grownup party you go to . "
