Journalist at the Brink: Louis P. Lochner in Berlin, 1922-1942

Louis P. Lochner, a Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent, served in the Berlin Bureau of the Associated Press from 1924-42 and as Bureau Chief after 1928. An ardent pacifist, he had worked with Jane Addams, Henry Ford and others in the anti-war movement of 1914-1917. When his first wife died, he moved to Germany, where he had family connections, as a foreign correspondent. When he married a German woman with family ties to postwar conservative political and military circles. These, as well as his fluency in the language gave Lochner entrée into many sectors of society. He interviewed and became friendly with leaders in the fields of music, film, aviation and business as well as politicians of many stripes. Through his friendship with Louis Ferdinand, grandson of the ex-Kaiser, he became an intimate of the former royal family; and he was a confidante of many American diplomats. Over the years Lochner wrote regularly to family members in America describing his work, his social life, his initial incredulity and later his dismay at the ruthless rise and rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Lochner became the senior foreign correspondent in the German capital and a leading figure in Berlin's international community, while at the same time he developed a discreet relationship with some anti-Nazi activists. His family letters, from which this book is drawn, overflow with reports of Berlin's social and political life. Lochner was always careful not to imperil his ability to remain at his post and report what news he could slip through increasingly tough and hostile censorship. Not widely known to the public because AP reporters were denied a byline, Lochner managed through his family letters, to record the colorful, increasingly threatening life of one of the twentieth century's most dangerous trouble spots.