Dorothy Thompson and German Writers in Defense of Democracy by Karina von Tippelskirch

Reviewed by: Dorothy Thompson and German Writers in Defense of Democracy by Karina von Tippelskirch Caroline A. Kita Karina von Tippelskirch, Dorothy Thompson and German Writers in Defense of Democracy. Bern: Peter Lang, 2018. 299 pp. "Imagine, a would-be dictator setting out to persuade a sovereign people to vote away their rights" (154–55)—the incredulous tone taken by American journalist Dorothy Thompson in the introduction to her published interview with Adolf Hitler in December 1931 echoes ominously in our current climate. It seems a fitting time to return to Thompson, who, despite her initial underestimation of Hitler, foresaw the threats to democracy developing around the world before many and became known as a fierce advocate for free speech, women's rights, and the acceptance of refugees in a time of great political turmoil. Thompson remains a relatively unexplored figure in Austrian and German Studies, yet as Karina von Tippelskirch demonstrates in her new biography Dorothy Thompson and German Writers in Defense of Democracy, Thompson played a significant role as a conduit to German culture and politics [End Page 91] in the United States in the years leading up to the Second World War, establishing a broad network that encompassed key members of the German-speaking intellectual elite. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including Thompson's articles and speeches, fragments of her unpublished autobiography, notes from the journalist's own research, and letters written during the final years of her life, von Tippelskirch traces the development of Thompson's interest in German and Austrian culture from an early age. Growing up in the small town of Hamburg, just south of Buffalo, New York, Thompson was introduced to the food, lifestyle, and traditions of the large German immigrant population. These experiences instilled in her an "awareness of cultural diversity and alterity" (48), while her Methodist upbringing taught her to believe in the "inherent worth and individual responsibility of all human beings" (59). These values, von Tippelskirch suggests, inspired not only the journalist's commitment to democracy but also her later interventions on behalf of German and Austrian Jewish refugees. In the early 1920s Thompson traveled to Europe for the first time, and it was in Vienna that she met the journalist Marcel Fodor and famed pedagogue Eugenie Schwarzwald, both of whom would play a crucial role in establishing Thompson as a journalist. Through Fodor, Thompson gained access to high-ranking political figures, including the exiled Austrian Emperor Charles and his wife Zita, whom Thompson visited disguised as a Red Cross nurse in 1920 (one of the many compelling anecdotes of the journalist's exploits featured in the book). At Schwarzwald's famed Viennese salon Thompson became a part of a community of writers and artists, including Thomas Mann, Elias Canetti, Robert Musil, and Jakob Wassermann, who gave her unique insights into German and Austrian culture. Thompson's successes in Vienna paved the way for her assignment as foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Public Ledger in Berlin, where she reported on political topics, such as the rise of nationalist sentiment and the suppression of minorities and displaced persons in the wake of World War I, as well as on Weimar culture and the Berlin theater scene. Vienna and its surroundings remained a home base for Thompson even after her return to the United States and marriage to famed American author and Nobel laureate for literature Sinclair Lewis. Von Tippelskirch highlights the elaborate week-long "winter festival" that the couple hosted between [End Page 92] Christmas and New Year's in Semmering at the end of 1932, a meeting of Lewis and Thompson's broad network of journalist and writer friends from both sides of the Atlantic, as "a farewell party to an era" (172). Indeed, just a month later, the Nazis would ascend to power, and within two years, Thompson would become the first American journalist to be expelled from Germany. The last section of the book focuses on Thompson's return to the United States and her role as an advocate for German and Austrian writers and artists in exile. Providing sponsorship, contacts, and in many cases financial support and housing, Thompson's interventions were crucial to ensuring

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