Norman Ebbutt

Norman Ebbutt (born January 26, 1894 in London , † October 17, 1968 in Midhurst , West Sussex ) was a British journalist. He was a longtime correspondent for the London Times in Berlin .

Life and activity

Ebbutt was the son of journalist William Arthur Ebbutt and his wife Blanche, nee Berry. The father worked u. a. for the Morning Leader , the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle . After attending school, Ebbutt also became a journalist: he got his first position in 1911 as an assistant correspondent for The Morning Leader and The Daily News and Leader in Paris . Before that, he had spent six months as a tutor for English at a language school in Duisburg in 1910 . Travel to Finland and Russia followed before returning to Great Britain in 1913.

In August 1914 Ebbutt entered the service of the Times Ltd press group for the first time, but resigned after a few months in November 1914 to join the British Navy (Royal Navy Volunteer Service), of which he was a lieutenant until the end of the First World War . It was mainly used on Atlantic cruises and in the North America Station. After the end of the war he returned to the Times publishing house in 1919, for which he initially worked in the foreign sub-editors department of The Times newspaper , the most important sheet in the publishing program and one of the most important daily newspapers in Great Britain.

In 1925, Ebbutt was sent to Berlin by the Times Ltd as an assistant correspondent. From there he reported - since 1928 as the main correspondent - for twelve years for the Times on political, economic and social events and developments in Germany. He took part as an observer in the Hague Reparations Conference, the Lausanne Conference and the Reichstag fire trial.

From around 1932 Ebbutt was also chairman of the Association of Foreign Press in Berlin, the union of the various foreign press correspondents in the Reich capital.

Since the rise of the National Socialists to power , Ebbutt, who was considered to be one of the best-informed - he had numerous insider sources in authorities, ministries, party offices, etc. - was a foreign correspondent in Berlin, accompanied political developments in Germany with strong criticism: as early as April 1933, he informed the readers the Times with that the mentality of the newly constructed system has given rise in Germany a development that would amount within five to ten years for a new war:

"In his speeches as Chancellor, Herr Hitler admitted that he wanted to pursue a foreign policy of peace. However, this is by no means proof that the fundamental attitude of the new Germany is actually peaceful. Germany is inspired by the determination to do everything it does Has lost [since 1919] and has little chance of achieving it peacefully. Influential Germans expect less than ten years to go before the war they expect to be natural and inevitable breaks out in Europe even of only five or six years. "

With the critical reports that Ebbutt sent to the London Times editorial team, he was in a decided contrast to the political line of the editor-in-chief of his newspaper around Geoffrey Dawson and Robert Barrington-Ward , which the Nazi regime up to 1938 had with a benevolent and reserved sympathy faced. Accordingly, many of Ebbutt's reports about atrocities and grievances occurring in Germany or about questionable measures and plans of the new rulers were withheld by the editor-in-chief and not published or - as an article in Spiegel from the 1960s put it - became "alarming" reports from Ebbutt's editors-in-chief "Mercilessly" shortened to break off the tip.

Nevertheless, the Berlin rulers did not hide the fact that in Ebbutt they were dealing with a resolute opponent who, through the unvarnished disclosure of the actual conditions in Germany, which he practiced in his articles - at least in those that reached the British public -, contributed significantly to the fact that the public's perception of their regime suffered severe damage to what they saw as the decisive power of Europe. When three German spies disguised as journalists were unmasked in England in the summer of 1937 and expelled from the country, the Reich Government took this as an opportunity to ask the British Government, through the Foreign Office, to encourage the editors of the Times in London to identify Ebbutt as Withdraw correspondent. This was justified with the allegation that Ebbutt had pursued espionage, as well as the accusation of years of "reporting hostile to Germany", which disrupted bilateral relations between the two countries. At the same time, a note from the German News Office (DNB) on August 20, 1937 publicly announced that if Ebbutt had not left the country by midnight on August 22, he would be treated as an undesirable foreigner and he would be granted the "hospitality right" and the residence permit would be withdrawn. Here, too, the expulsion was justified with Ebbutts "the German-English relations continuously disturbing tendentious reporting on internal German conditions".

Ebbutt left Germany on August 16, 1937 from Charlottenburg train station, with the lively participation of other foreign correspondents - who were demonstratingly gathered in large numbers on the platform - from Germany. Contemporary critics of the appeasement policy praised Ebbutt as a "key witness and martyr".

On his return to the UK, Ebbutt suffered a severe stroke from which he never fully recovered. He spent the rest of his life withdrawn in the country.

According to the monograph Huttner, Ebbutt paid "far more attention" to the history of journalism than any other British correspondent in the interwar period.

family

Ebbutt was married twice. From his first marriage he had a daughter and a son.

literature

• Markus Huttner: Norman Ebbutt. The Berlin chief correspondent of the Times in the field of tension between Appesaement and National Socialist press policy. in: Ders .: British press and the National Socialist church struggle. A study of the Times and the Manchester Guardian from 1930-1939 , 1995, pp. 205-217.
• Frank McDonough: The Times, Norman Ebbutt and the Nazis, 1927-1937. in: Journal of Contemporary History No. 27, 1992, pp. 407-424.
• Obituaries in: The Times, October 19, 1968 (reprinted in: Frank C. Roberts: Obituaries from the Times , p. 236.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Times of April 21, 1933. In the original: “Herr Hitler, in his speeches as Chancellor, has professed a peaceful foreign policy. But this does not prove that the underlying spirit of the new Germany is a peaceful one. Germany is inspired by the determination to recover all it has lost and has little hope of doing so by peaceful means. Influential Germans do not see ten years elapsing before the war they regard as natural or inevitable breaks out in Europe. One may hear five or six years mentioned. "
2. ^ William L. Shirer: Berlin Diary - The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 1st edition, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1941, p. 68.
3. ^ John Hohenberg: Foreign correspondence: the great reporters and their times. 2nd edition, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York 1995, ISBN 0815603142 , p. 194.