Bernard B. case

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Bernard B. Fall (born November 19, 1926 in Vienna as Bernhard Fall; † February 21, 1967 north of Huế, South Vietnam ) was an American war correspondent and political scientist . From 1953 he reported on the war in Indochina.

life and work

Fall was born in Vienna to Jewish parents. In 1937 he and his younger sister were brought to France at the instigation of their parents. There Fall attended a primary school in Paris and quickly learned the language at the level of a local. His parents Anna Seligmann and Leon Fall fled to France in 1938 after the annexation of Austria . In 1940 his father Leon Fall became a member of the Resistance . Leon Fall was captured and killed by the Gestapo . Anna Seligmann died in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp . In 1942, at the age of 16, Bernard Fall also became a member of the Resistance. For his services he was awarded the Médaille de la France libérée . From 1946, Case worked for the court of the Nuremberg Trial . The case was the rapporteur in case X, the so-called Krupp trial . After the end of the Nuremberg Trials, he began studying in Paris in 1948 and studied at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich from 1950 . He was a participant in the Fulbright program and was able to finish his studies at Syracuse University .

From 1953 Fall reported on the First Indochina War as a war journalist . Because of his French passport, he was able to report directly from the front and from the French armed forces. War correspondents without a French passport were denied direct access to the French troops and the front. Fall criticized early on that France was losing the war and that the United States was not getting enough involved in the war.

After his return to the United States in 1956, Fall was a lecturer in politics and international studies at Howard University . In 1962 he was appointed professor there.

Fall continued to work in Laos and Vietnam . He studied the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. He also worked for the Royal Institute of Cambodia and was also able to conduct an interview with Ho Chi Minh during this time . Fall was a staunch supporter of US engagement in Vietnam. With the beginning of the Second Vietnam War , Fall expressed skepticism about the USA's chances of success. He criticized that the US had not learned from the mistakes of the French in Vietnam. Fall died in a land mine while visiting a unit of the US armed forces in 1967 .

Colin Powell , in 1997, in his book My American Journey, criticized that the then US government should have listened to the skeptical reports Fall about the prospects of success in the Vietnam War earlier.

Orders and awards

French awards

Publications (in English)

  • The Viet Minh Regime (1954).
  • Street Without Joy (1961).
  • The Two Vietnams (1963).
  • Viet-Nam Witness, 1953-66 (1966).
  • Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (1966).
  • Last Reflections on a War (1967), published after his death.
  • Anatomy of a Crisis: The Laotian Crisis of 1960-1961 (1969).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoper E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) , Copenhagen, 2011, p. 168

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Case, Bernard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fall, Bernhard; Case, Bernard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer and war correspondent
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1967
Place of death Vietnam