THE GUARDIAN: Our Germany correspondent salutes the man who did his job 100 years ago, when it was far more perilous and unpredictable
Frederick Augustus Voigt, who was the Manchester Guardian’s Berlin correspondent between 1920 and 1932, did not look like an intrepid reporter.
A 1935 portrait by the Bauhaus photographer Lucia Moholy makes it appear as though he wants to back away from the camera, distrustful eyes barricaded behind thick, round glasses. His physical appearance was described in his 1957 obituary as “fragile-looking and nervous in manner, shortsighted, with a trick of smiling from the mouth downwards.”
So nervy could Voigt be, he once confided to his editor that on a bad day he did not feel brave enough to cross a street during heavy traffic. “Like so many hatreds, my hatred of motorcars arises from fear.”
And yet brave is the only suitable adjective to describe Voigt’s journalism. Known as “Freddy” to colleagues in England, as “Fritz” to friends in Berlin, but only as “our own correspondent” to readers of the Manchester Guardian, Voigt always went straight to where the story was, even if the story might imperil his life. » | Philip Oltermann in Berlin | Monday, July 12, 2021
