Dorothy Thompson Expelled from Germany

The Nazis were determined to prevent criticisms of their regime and reports of Nazi brutality from reaching the outside world. Foreign correspondents were closely monitored by German authorities and faced the continual threat of expulsion or even imprisonment and violence. Dorothy Thompson was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany.

While working in Munich in 1932,  one year before the Nazi seizure of power, Thompson had met and interviewed Adolf Hitler. This interview was the basis for a book, I Saw Hitler, in which Thompson warned about the dangers of Hitler gaining power in Germany. In response to her critical writings, and after Hitler was appointed chancellor, the German government expelled Thompson from the country in August 1934.

Back in the United States, in 1936, Thompson began writing "On the Record" for the New York Herald Tribune. It became a wildly popular syndicated newspaper column, running three times each week. By 1939, “On the Record” reached millions of Americans in more than 170 papers. She remained one of America's most influential anti-Nazi voices throughout the 1930s and 1940s.