Marguerite Higgins

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Marguerite Higgins (married Marguerite Higgins Hall ; born September 3, 1920 in Hong Kong , † January 3, 1966 in Washington, DC ) was an American journalist and war correspondent . She became known in connection with the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945. She received the Pulitzer Prize for her subsequent reporting in the Korean War .

Marguerite Higgins went to school in France, studied in California and at Columbia University in New York. She worked there at the New York Herald Tribune , from 1944 in London in the Tribune's office there . In 1945 she was in Germany as a war correspondent and interviewed Hermann Göring , Julius Streicher , Emmy Göring and other people. For the New York Herald Tribune she also reported on the Nuremberg trial of the major war criminals .

Role in the liberation of the Dachau camp

Dachau roll of honor for members of the 7th US Army and the 42nd Rainbow Division

On April 29, 1945, the Dachau concentration camp was liberated by a battalion of the 7th US Army .

Lt. Colonel FL Sparks and his US troops arrived at the camp at noon. US Brigadier General H. Linden and his crew had also received the order to take the camp. Both troops later fought over the question of the first liberator. Your statements differ greatly from one another and are sometimes also contradicting one another.

The von Linden troops were in the city of Dachau in the morning. She arrived at the camp around 3 p.m., in the SS area at the level of the train with dead prisoners from Buchenwald , the discovery of which US soldiers later described as a traumatic experience. With them was Marguerite Higgins. Peter Furst, correspondent for Stars and Stripes magazine , and the Belgian journalist Paul Levy also accompanied the troupe.

In the book Das war Dachau , published on the initiative of the former prisoner committee , the eyewitness Stanislav Zámečník reports how the camp entrance was initially under American fire. The first US soldier then carefully entered the prison camp through the Jourhaus entrance building . The white flag was hoisted. A row of cheering inmates rushed to him, they picked him up and threw him into the air. The SS fired at the prisoners from watchtower B, and a Polish prisoner died as a result. The crowd of prisoners dispersed, some of them returned to the apartment blocks. US troops disarmed the SS men on the eight watchtowers. They did not lead the SS guards away, but placed them against the camp wall. Prisoners entered the watchtowers and armed themselves there, while others helped the US soldiers in other towers disarm the SS guards.

On the parade ground , a cheering crowd had again formed by four Americans: Marguerite Higgins, Peter Furst, WJCowling (adjutant Linden), and a fourth person. It was now about 5:15 p.m.

Many memoirs later stated that the first American soldier to enter the camp was a woman. The group itself apparently did not experience the incident with the first soldier and assumed that it was the same. In later statements by Higgins and Cowling, however, the shot Polish prisoner at the entrance gate was mentioned. Her own statements and Zámečník's eyewitness account contradict the legend that Higgins was the first person to enter the camp.

For her war reporting from the Korean War , she was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Foreign Reporting in 1951 . In 1966 she died of complications from leishmaniasis .

literature

  • Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau. Comité International de Dachau, Luxemburg 2002, pp. 390–396.
  • Jürgen Zarusky : That is not the American way of fighting. In: Dachauer Heft e 13, Court and Justice, 1997, pp. 27–55
  • JH Linden: Surrender of the Dachau Concentraition Camp 29th April 1945. The Rainbow Liberation Memories, edited by Sam Dann, 1998.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ " Weaned from caviar and champagne". In:  Wiener Kurier. Published by the American armed forces for the population of Vienna , September 29, 1945, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wku
  2. ↑ a b c d from: Stanislav Zámečník: (Ed. Comité International de Dachau): That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002.
  3. ↑ See Linden, JH, "Surrender of the Dachau Concentraition Camp 29th April 1945", The Rainbow Liberation Memories, edited by Sam Dann, 1998.
  4. ↑ Higgins reports this in their report from May 1, 1945 in the "New York Herald Tribune": "33,000 Dachau Captives Freed By 7th Army". She suspected here that the inmate tried to escape during the night and was shot in the process.
  5. ↑ Cowling writes about it in the letter "Dear Folks" of April 29, 1945, printed by Linden, pp. 51–53.
  6. ↑ Photo Higgins Photo
  7. ^ Higgins postage stamp in USA
  8. ^ Antoinette May: Witness to war. A biography of Marguerite Higgins. Beaufort Books, 1983, ISBN 0825301610 , p. 265.
personal data
SURNAME Higgins, Marguerite
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Higgins Hall, Marguerite
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and war correspondent
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Hong Kong
DATE OF DEATH 3rd January 1966
Place of death Washington, DC