Frederick Augustus Voigt was a Berlin correspondent for the Manchester Guardian from 1920 to 1932, and he did not look like a brave reporter.
A kind 1935 portrait Filmed by Bauhaus photographer Lucia Moholy, it makes him look as if he wants to stay away from the camera, with his suspicious eyes blocked behind thick round glasses. In his 1957 obituary, his appearance was described as “looking fragile, demeanor nervous, short-sighted, and smiling with the corners of his mouth down.”
Voigt may be so neurotic. He once revealed to his editor that on a bad day, he didn’t have the courage to cross the road in a traffic jam. “Like many hatreds, my hatred of cars stems from fear.”
However, brave is the only suitable adjective to describe Voigt journalism. He is called “Freddy” among his colleagues in the UK, and his friend in Berlin is called “Fritz”, but for readers of the Manchester Guardian, he is just “our own correspondent”. Vogt is always straight Ben is where the story is, even if the story might endanger his life.
Within a few months after arrival GermanyWhen reporting the uprising of miners in the Ruhr area of Essen, he was kidnapped by a rogue German Wehrmacht officer, accused him of being a spy, leaned him against the wall, and filled the space around his head with bullets. His report on the incident pointed out the officer who abused him and described the poor conditions of other prisoners, which earned him an official apology from the German Chancellor.
his 1926 Exclusive The secret cooperation between the Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army led to the collapse of the German government. Other reporters will know about this secret transaction, which is common sense in European intelligence agencies, just as they will know that making it public may lead to treason and be sent to jail. They decided not to publish. Vogt did it.
Most importantly, while experiencing and reporting on this turbulent and disoriented decade in European history, Vogt managed to maintain the most important story in his patch-the rise of Nazism-and soon realized it. It’s not that he has the ability to give “both parties” treatment.
One hundred years later, I inherited Voigt’s land in Berlin, but despite our background in modern languages and German descent-I moved to London when I was a teenager and he was born in Hampstead, a wine merchant and German immigrant. ——The common ground soon ended.
Technology has changed the possibilities and requirements of our work beyond recognition. Freddy Voigt must send a copy of him before 6 pm every day. Any content sent after this will miss the first page, which puts the correspondents of the Manchester Guardian and the London newspaper at a disadvantage, the latter having to write their thoughts by 9pm. In general, the challenge of gathering information is much easier than sending it to a typewriter in Manchester.
Nowadays, foreign journalists can write and submit articles anywhere—in a press conference, in a cafe, or on the train home. But we also need to do this at several points of the day, sometimes after midnight and on weekends, or between recording podcasts.
The range of topics we cover and our news records covering them have also expanded: my colleague Kate Connolly I write about the cultural and social life on our patch and what happened inside the Bundestag. In doing so, we often switch between news reports, features, interviews, and more personal columns. Voigt’s voice is unmistakable, combining attention to detail with strong beliefs and in-depth study of philosophy and theology, but he is essentially a political correspondent. Despite living next door to the Nuremberg Diller Bar, a hot spot for gay and artistic life in Berlin during the Weimar era, nightlife in the German capital has never been the subject of his reports.
Several contemporaries claimed that Voith and the artist George Groz were close friends, and George Groz was the great satirical chronicler between the two wars. If this is the case, the reporter has never transformed his personal relationship into an article about him or his work. Voigt’s 1928 report on Grosz’s imprisonment—a picture depicting a priest balancing a cross on his nose—does not contain any direct quotes from criminals.
The most critical change occurred in the country we are writing about: Germany in the 1920s suffered a humiliating defeat in the war. Its borders are disputed, its economy is unstable, its democratic traditions are fragile, and street violence is rampant. In a letter to Voigt, his first editor, CP Scott, mentioned that Rudolf Breitscheid, a representative of the Social Democratic Party-a Guardian writer, who tried to help him immigrate to London-was “the only one German liberals”.
Among the top seats of power in modern Germany are liberal politicians. This is a society with a high level of awareness of the dangers of right-wing incitement, and a powerful institution established to defend its democratic traditions.In my five years as the head of the Guardian’s Berlin bureau, the only time I shaved due to street violence was when I found myself near Breitscheidplatz that night. 2016 Christmas market terrorist attack, Or ride a bike through Hamburg’s city centre G20 riots in 2017.
There are still Those who yearn for the unfree German era of the past, A group of people who dream of bringing them back, with Flashes of street violence by those who acted on these fantasiesHowever, dedicating news resources to these extreme minorities will paint a distorted picture and betray the power of civilization, which Vogt tried to emphasize even in Germany’s darkest period.
The most interesting part of Voigt’s letter is a confession. He once told his editor in London that the challenge of writing an article about Hitler’s Germany was that the political situation was so abnormal, “I worry that the most boring description of it must seem sensational.”Therefore, referring to a report recently submitted in 1932, he said, “I have described his [Hitler] Try to be as gentle as possible in my article, just because I want to avoid arousing suspicion. “
One hundred years later, the act of balancing the facts on the ground with the preconceptions in the reader’s mind remains unchanged. Readers are no longer just in the UK, but all over the world, and it can be said that it has become more complicated. However, the challenge of cultural translation is different: German politics abhors the hysterical style that prevailed in the 1920s, so it sometimes looks so ordinary and uninteresting. You often need to scratch off the seemingly plain surface to discover the drama, absurdity, injustice, or quirk of modern Germany.
Voigt is good at articulating the reality that other reporters refuse to see. The man in the Manchester Guardian in Berlin first reported the “Jewish decoy” in 1921 and warned of the threat of the National Socialist dictatorship in the fall of 1930. According to the government’s policy of appeasement, their article highlights the key points. He warned his editor WP Crozier in March 1933 that the rise of the Nazis was “the biggest historical event since World War I.”
At that time, Vogt, through communication with his extensive network, reported developments in Germany in Paris, and became the first international journalist to be expelled from the Third Reich.
Around Christmas in 1933, French officials informed him that there were plans to attack his office to confiscate his documents and notes—or so he initially thought. Later he learned that the Gestapo’s intention was to assassinate him. Three French intelligence agents were assigned to protect him. One of them slept in his room with an automatic pistol “I’m sure it must be the size of a heavy weapon” in his hand.
How can a person who is so easily frightened write so bravely? During the Western Front, Vogt learned that fear is a physical reaction, as natural as feeling cold in winter. However, as he realized in the airstrike described in the memoir of World War I, “Comb”, you can temporarily suspend your fear through intense intellectual exercise.
“I was so focused on self-analysis that I lost consciousness about everything except my concentration,” he wrote in this short but heart-wrenching book based on his war diary. “Even the feelings I tried to analyze, because the act of analysis is destroying them.”
