so the question. i think this is a great book. we've got to go with it. you all so much. thank you, providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy.

♪ peter: joining us from chicago is pamela toler the author of this book, the untold story of an american reporter in nazi germany. who was robert mccormick? pamela: robert mccormick was the owner and publisher of the chicago tribune in the years between the two world wars. he was an artillery officer in world war i, had inherited the paper from his father, and he was a newspaperman to the core. peter: how would you describe his work?

pamela: he was fascinated by world politics. he was fascinated by the military. he also was an isolationist. he was antisemitic in sort of a reflex way. much in the way that he was presbyterian and inherited an identity that he had not thought three very much, he had hesitations about the east coast of the united states, was anti-england, and gradually came to go from disliking franklin roosevelt to actively hating him and that combination of isolationism and being anti-roosevelt shaped much of his policies around the paper but at the same time, he was

just interested in putting out a good paper. so he hired good people and pretty much let them run the stories they thought needed to be told. peter: one of those people was sigrid schultz. who was she? pamela: sigrid schultz was the first woman to be a bureau chief for a major american newspaper. 1925 through 1941, so she was there during the rise of the nazi. she started the tribune in 1919 as a translator, girl friday, number two correspondent when the tribune first opens the bureau in berlin after world war i and she was one of the first american reporters to tell the readers how dangerous the nazis were.

she would end up being one of the last american reporters to leave berlin while it was still possible to get out. she was enormously important in her reporting consistently throughout the duration of the rise of the nazis. she was there for the whole story. that made her very unusual. peter: how did she get the job? pamela: she stumbled into it. she is an american, despite the name sigrid schultz and being in berlin, she was born in chicago but basically grew up in europe. she was educated for a short time in germany but for the most part in paris. in world war i, she and her parents ended up stranded in berlin. her father was a norwegian portrait painter who had set up a studio in berlin. they were there when the war broke out on both of her parents

were too ill to leave so she became the primary breadwinner for the family. she was in berlin throughout the were -- the war. after the war she ends up meeting dick little, the first of the bureau chiefs for the chicago tribune. she was not expecting, during carnival the first major party held in berlin after world war i, she was excited to be invited to carnavale, the host, during the war she tutored the children

of wealthy german families in england and so she is invited to the party but she does not know -- her host was an important banker and he and one of his german business friends really wanted to meet the american reporters who were starting to come to berlin after the war. this was a new thing, just being founded and berlin was one of the important cities where american newspapers were starting to keep reporters on a permanent basis. so her host show them around to different hotels where american reporters were staying, invited them to the party, and told them if they came they had a chance to meet a young american woman who could give them a first-hand account what it was like in berlin during the war and then in revelations that led to the

development of the republic. two report -- reporters accepted the invitation. one was little. he was one of the first reporters to get to berlin. the other was ben hecht, which your listeners might know better as an important screenwriter but at the time he was the bureau chief of the chicago berlin news. she did not know reporters were coming but she was really excited to go to the party. she was dressed in beautiful 18th-century french style ball gown and had her hair done up in a pompadour and she walked through in the dark because public transportation was not running and at one point she ran into men who were in suits and followed her down the street because things were going to get

violent again and she was looking forward to dancing and food and really enjoying this event, a party that she had not been doing a long, long time. that did not happen. almost as soon as she met via two american reporters, they found themselves surrounded by a group of europeans who were eager to talk to the americans. there was a problem. the americans did not speak german. it would not be very helpful. even the germans who spoke english did not speak it well enough for the americans to understand them. she understood what the problem was. she said, no problem, i will translate. one of her skills was languages. she was fluent in german, french, english, norwegian,

italian, she could fake her way through other several languages. that night she translated for hours back and forth between german, french, and english in this intense discussion of politics and economics and the fear that soviet russia was going to invade from the east and about the building of the new constitution. even though she had come to dance, she loved it. that conversation went on until dawn. they walked out and the americans promised to meet up again and a few days later, little met her at the hotel where they were staying and he came with a bundle of german newspapers and handed them to

her and said, translate this editorial for me. she knew it was a test of some kind. so she translated very carefully and thoroughly and stopped and explained what some of the information behind the scenes was that the american might not know. at the end, of course he exploded because his translator had clearly not been giving him the entire article in translation but then he offered her a job as a translator and told her if she was -- she was going to get interviews for him that he had been trying unsuccessfully to arrange, she would make him -- he would make her the number two correspondent. in your book you write that she described tohe mid-1920's in germany as when people were still living at top speed,

trying to catch up with the fund they missed during wartime and fun they might miss in the upheaval that was bound to come. what was life like in berlin in germany post-world war i through the 1920's? pamela: it was hectic. we have this image of bailar germany as jazz and cabarets and that was certainly part of it. there was a lot of drinking and dancing, she did her fair share of that. but it was also a time of political upheaval. the bailar republic was really new. it came into being right at the end of world war i and germany had no tradition of democracy. so people were making it up as they went along.

there were dozens of political parties at any given time. a centrist groups of parties managed to hold the coalition for most of the time with the largest of the parties being the social democrats but there were extremists on either side. people on the extreme right who were monarchists and later ended up describing themselves as nationalists who really were against republican wanted it to end. on the left there were every range of socialist all the way to radical. and there was continued political upheaval, fighting in the streets, a revolution from the right on the left. it was an extraordinary and complicated time politically. and the other thing about the bailar republic that was

important was it was creating a social safety net for people. people had rights they had never had before. social security. the vote was expanded. it was a very progressive, creative time not only artistically, but politically. peter: how did you find her story? she has been kind of lost to history. pamela: she is never entirely lost because she shows up in footnotes but i stumbled across her by accident. one morning and interesting news items showed up in my feed on it architectural salvage vendor in chicago had found a 75 photo negatives in the attic of an old house in what is now ravenswood

in chicago. those photos show a woman, a small child, a very large dog and it is unusual because that kind of plate was usually used to make formal portrait studios and these were taken in and around the house so he had gone out to try to find out about the people in the pictures. turns out the little girl was named sigrid schultz. the woman was her mother, hedwig. the pictures had been taken by sigrid's father, a successful norwegian portrait painter who had moved to the united states in 1893. sigrid schultz had been a

groundbreaking work correspondent during the rise of the nazis. i was fascinated ani s hooked. peter: you writen ur book that her fir bwl with the chicago office following her promotion to bureau chief was one that women continue to fight almost 100 years later. she had to argue that her pay and expense alone should equal that of the full-time male correspondent. pamela: yes. and she fought for almost a year before we were willing to give her that salary. they argued that the men had dependents they had to support, they argued that the men had to maintain homes in the united states as well as in berlin and she had lived in berlin since 1919 and did not have to

maintain a separate residence, they argued that she could entertain more expensively because she could do it at home and not have to do it at a hotel and the other one that she did not answer was the fact that she actually had her mother as a dependent who she supported but otherwise she hit it point after point that the fact that it was her home did not make it any less expensive to live there, that she was already paying for things out of her own pocket that the men had been allowed to charge to the account, it took her a full year and a lot of conversation going over the head of the accounting department before she got the equal pay. by the end of her career she was the most highly paid foreign correspondent at the tribune. peter: what was her relationship

with robert mccormick? pamela: it was complicated. they disagreed on just about everything. but she also saw the tribune as family. so at some level, mccormick was one of the many complicated father figures she found throughout her life. what they really did disagree about just about everything but he never censored her work, he never tried to control what she work -- what she wrote. sometimes important stories about the rise of the nazis for instance would be further back in the paper, in the entertainment page with a piece about mae west instead of on the front, but it was a complicated relationship but she admired him tremendously. peter: in your book, you wrote sigrid schultz was more daring

in her private reports to robert mccormick then she was in her ories were public. those reports she shared what she thought about hitler and the nazis in addition to what she could prove. she often referred sarcastically to the darling darling nazis and the darlins, particularly when they pulled what she called little stunts against members of the foreign corresponde community. she talked about the cruelty of the stormtroopers and described little joe global as rabbit. pamela: there was a lot she cannot say in her news article. but she made sure she always had -- she had to have sources. that was something she was taught from the beginning. her contemporaries certainly did not necessarily believe that but as far as she was concerned, if there was not a source, she

could not print it. as time went on under the nazis there were stories she could not print because it would endanger her sources. and she was determined to tell the truth but also determined to not get thrown out. she wanted to be there to tell the whole story. it became harder and harder to get the stories out. but in those letters to mccormick, we get a counterpoint to the stories that were published because she is able to be much more open and those, at least as long as she is able to get them out. so she does talk about what was happening with the nazis, she talked about her personal experiences, in one of the letters she describes the first time she get called by the gestapo, only a few months after hitler was in power, she gets a note asking her to come by at a

time of her convenience on a particular day and she is not worried about it but she wanted to tell mccormick about it ahead of time because she had the opportunity to send a letter and then her follow-up letter, it's kind of a chilling story from the perspective of the modern reader because she goes in with such innocence. she knows things are happening but she is so sure she will not get in any trouble because everything she has reported is true and accurate and that has always been her shield as a reporter. she gets there and the man who called her is not there and she is extremely annoyed she is extremely annoyed, she doesn't have time wait for him, they can make a real appointment

and she'll meet with him, and then she leaves. she's basically told the gestapo that she doesn't have time deal with them. the next week, they call her. they gave her a time. she told the embassy, i'm going back. i don't expect any trouble. but if i'm not back in a couple of hours, do something. this time they keep her waiting for an hour and a half. all the foreign correspondents learn that's pretty much standard operating procedure. at the end of the time she is kind of startled by what she gets called in for. she's been writing really hard-missouried articles about the enabling act, a set of legislation that the nazissing manied to push through the like stag -- through the reichstag

that render the reichstag irrelevant. instead of calling her in on that they call her in on a smaller article, give her warnings that make it clear that just because things are true isn't enough anymore. a small slap on the wrist, let her go. that's the kind of story she was table tell in letters to colonel mccormick that never show up in the newspaper. peter: at the same time she was doing socializing with herman goering and atenned press conferences with g oebbel -- goebbels. pamela: yes. she wanted to find a nazi she could build a relationship with. after the point when the nazis really become a political power,

they go from having 12 seats in the reichstag to 107, they're suddenly the second largest party in the reichstag, and she sends her assistant out to find a high-ranking nazi who, she says, has good enough table manners that she can invite him to her home. that's important because during the early years of her career, she and her mother basically created an alternate social hub for politicians and journalists in their house. everyone came to their parties. they had very typical german kind of gathering that has been pretty much a stag event until sigrid came along. they had bean party, their baked beans were famous throughout their social circles she wanted to find a

high-ranking german she could comfortably invite to parties at her home. and her assistant came back with herman goering, obviously a better choice than she could have hoped for. she met him at restaurants twice. determined that though he ate enormous am, his table manners were acceptable. the first party she invited him to, she made it a large pear because there were a lot of people who were hoping to meet him. he continued to be a source for her even after hitler became chancellor and goering was no longer at parties in her home. he remained a source, she had to sort out reality from

propaganda, but he was a good source. press meetings with goebbels were open to the press corps as a whole and were farmer problematic. the nazis didn't really kreb censor newspapers but cry tried to control the information that america and -- american and other foreign correspondents got before they wrote their papers. they had press conferences twice a day foreign consider spend -- specifically for foreign correspondents. even someone like sigrid who had many, many, sources of her own and was skeptical of any official news releases, those were nonetheless meetings you needed to attend. peter: did sigrid meet hitler?

pamela: she did. the first time she met him was right after the 1930 election. he's not not a member of parliament, he couldn't run for office because he was austrian. she was meeting with goebbels at the hotel where hitler was staying. hitler had a sweet tooth. goering introduced them. he kissed her hands. she said there's a right way to kiss hands and a wrong day. what he did, she said, was the wrong way. he stared into her eyes and

kissed her hand. she didn't like that approach, she stiffened up. he noticed, he stiffened up as well. it started off their relationship on a difficult footing. he never tried to kiss her hand again. she said in the future she got a good handshake. despite the mutual disdain, she had one of the rare one-on-one interviews with him in 1931. that was an important interview. in that interview he basically made it clear that he didn't have to take germany by force. that he was giving more -- he was given more and more pow we are every election. and he really thought he'd be in control within a year. he missed that by only a month. and he also made id clear that once he and the nazis were in power they intended to undo the

weimar republic and create a republic of what she described with some irony as truly germanic men. right from her first interview with him, 1931, he is already saying clearly what he is intending to do and sigrid is reporting it clearly back to an american audience. peter: you report the first meeting with hitler took place at the hotel kaiseroff, but another hotel w important in your story. pamela: the ball at the hotel adelon was the unofficial club for correspondents. that's where they met with sources. it was where gossipped. it was where they found out about potential stories. they often met with politicians there. it ended up willing a real issue

for sigrid when she first was fired because she grew -- first was hired because she grew up in a time and social class in which respectable women didn't go to bars unattended. they needed to be chaperoned by their father or their husband. if you're loosey goosy about it, maybe a brother or fiance. but she knew she could not avoid being at the adlon. she needed to be able to go into the bar and act like one of the boys. at the same time she knew she couldn't match of the men drink for drink. barely 5'2".leswoman. sheeally almost underweight at the time she was hired. world war i in berlin had been a pretty hungry place. she was down to skin and bones. so she made a deal with the

adlon bartender. and he created what they called she schultz. and when sigrid ordered the shut it was an orange juice-based mock tail. if anyone else ordered it, he got orange juice with a heavy dose of whatever clear alcohol the bartender had open at the time. so she created this illusion that she was just another hard-drinking newspaper man. and that was her preferred term, newspaper man. but this idea that she looked like she could match the boys drink for drink. peter: you report in your book about the in-house publ lition -- publication "the little trib," they wrote. our only lady corspdent manages the tribune's important bureau in berlin. it is a bit startling to

reconcile seone so small, fair and jolly as sigrid schultzith reports of political, economic and social news of germany. but a strong personal and keen mind are behind her gay blue eyes. pamela: yes. she was small. she was pretty. she was female. she often had to deal with men who didn't take her quite seriously. she also was prepared to use those attributes when necessary. one of her favorite ways of distracting a man she was interviewing who was being difficult or later a nazi official, she would describe it as open the blue eyes wide and look up at him. but she was sharp. and woe be it to any man who

underestimated her for very long. she did put up with an awful lot of gender discrimination, even though in her later year she is claims no such thing occurred. but if you're reading the letters as they go it's cleared -- it's clear that regularly she was having to defend her position. particularly in the early years. one of the stories she tells, she had an invitation to a meeting of german manufacturers she got there a little late. the secretary who was minding the table wouldn't let herin. say television a men's only event. she showed the invitation, the woman still said no. so she flipped it over, wrote on the back, are 200 men really that afraid of one small woman? and forced the secretary into

taking the card in to the man who was organizing the event he he came out, got her, introduced her around the room. she tells it as a funny story, a moment of triumph with a twist, claim shed never had trouble meeting with any of them thereafter. but it had to just be infuriating in the moment. that sort of roadblock was petty common. in the earlier years. h kreemplet peter: schultz is a seemed to know everyone, you wri. german nobility, politics, industrialist, diplomats including members of the american embassy who were a little snooty about correspondents but had good stories and were worth cultivating as source, performers, art tyes of all nationalities. another correspondent from the chicago tribune came along, john dickson.

who was he and why was he? pamela: john dickson was sigrid schultz. in the 1930's as things got dangerous is she realized she might need a pseudonym. it happened in a very particular context. she received an instruction from the chicago tribune through the paris office. they'd asked her to write an extended article about what was known as the night of the long knives. it happened two years earlier, in 1936 she got the request. but in 1934, in the summer, hitler had massacred the leadership of the storm troopers and anyone else he saw as a potential political rival. and sigrid wrote about it at the time. 11 articles over the course of several weeks. but now they wanted a more

extensive, in depth report on that event. but it -- the request came through paris. and the paris office wasn't living under the threat of the nazis. and they really didn't have an internal sense of just how dangerous things were. so a woman from the paris office called sigrid, and the woman with the information, totally clueless about the fact that the phones were tapped and were probably being recorded. it was made worse then by thed of the paris office who sent a note about it to sigrid at home. sigrid knew that one had been read by the nazis because it had been opened and had the censor stamp right on the envelope. so it was going to be dangerous for her to write that article. she still really wanted to write

it. 1936. it was just after the berlin olympics. a lot of americans had come to the olympics and been taken in by -- by the sort of theme park version of berlin the nazis had created so they went home and said i don't know what these reporters are talking about. it was very nice. orderly. even was so polite. everyone was so friendly. can't really believe what reporters are saying. and sigrid wanted to write this article about this truly horrifying event as a way of counteracting the people who were saying the nazis really weren't that bad. so she decided to use the fact that the nazis were spying on her and so she told the chicago

office that she just couldn't write the article. there wasn't anything new to say. she had said everything in those 11 articles two years earlier. it just couldn't be done. and having said that. and being sure that the nazis had heard her say it one way or another, she went to paris. where she could safely write the article. and after she wrote it she shipped it to chicago from paris with a note that they probably ought to run it under someone else's name. so that she was not in any more danger than usual. and the name she ended up choosing was john dixon. it was a sly tribute to dick little, who she had always considered her father in journalism. and that made her dick's son. she continued to use that

pseudonym for some of her most dangerous articles until she left berlin early in 1941. at the same time as publishing many, many other articles ability the nazis under her own name she did end up complicating the situation a little bit in 1940 when she hired an actual john paul dickson to work for her at the tribune as well. i must admit when i first saw that, it confused me a little, trying to figure out whether there was a real john dickson or not. peter: pamela toler, you write that in one of her memos to robert mccormick, she wrote about the quote-unquote euthanasia story. pamela: yes. it was a story that she deeply wanted to write. her sources had told her that the germans had basically murdered thousands of people in

hospitals because they were mentally ill or physically ill and were considered a threat to -- to, let's just say, german breeding stock. mccormick wouldn't let her write the article. he said no one would believe it. and that was one of the few times where he kept her from writing something that she wanted to write. peter: the year is 1949. on july 14, an article appeared in the chicago tribune, hitler gazes at stars to guide his decisions. did that get her in trouble? pamela: oddly, no. she spent a great deal of time tracking down the astrologers that he met with. and she actually managed to meet with two of his favorite astrologers as well as with a

palm reader that he often used. part of it was a human interest story. you know, who is this man hitler, the chicago public wants to know. so she's writing about his fascination with astrology. and the way he uses it to make decisions. but it was also one of a number of leads she was following for what became the biggest scoop of her career. it was one of the paths she took to learning about the german nonaggression pact with the soviets. they signed that in late august but she first began to drop hints about it in may. and that was critical because signing that removed the last obstacle to hitler being willing to invade pole poweland.

peter: it was september 1, 1939, that the war started. germany invaded poland. sigrid schultz had 41 byline stories in 30 days in the trib. did she make it to the war font? pamela: she did not. the germans would not allow her to the front. they wouldn't even allow her to go along ons pre junkets they ran for foreign correspondents where they basically took them on germany's greatest hits version of the war she found ways to have getting around that. one thing she did was, she hired a young journalist to travel on those junkets in her place. but she also found other ways. one of her most useful tools was, she would go to the train stations in the eastern part of

berlin and eavesdrop as soldiers came and went. it turned out to be a more accurate source of information about the war than anything that the germans were handing out in theirs pre releases. peter: the bombing of berlin started the next year. she was still in berlin. what was that like for her? pamela: she would later say that, she was trying to come home but she wasn't both the air raids or the bombs. but she experienced one of those bombings, the first night actually, up close and personal. at that point in addition to working for the tribune she was a broadcast journalist for the mutual broadcasting system. and she would report on sunday nights going in late because they wanted her reports to be at dinner time in chicago.

so she's reportinged a midnight, at 1:00, at 2:00 in the morning. she's at the german broadcasting station. and they hear the sound of planes, but they assume it's not going to be anything because they've never bombed berlin. and yet it turned out that they did bomber lynn. so there's flak from the roof of the radio station. there's plane, there's bomb, the german -- the running around, trying to get all the people in the radio station into the bomb shelter. she refuses to go until she is done her broadcast we get to the actual studio, the reporters had to cross about 100 yards of open courtyard. and they couldn't take lights

because it's a blackout situation. so she got a flashlight with a little bit of cardboard over the lens, just a pinhole of light. she's running through the courtyard she gets hit by some shrapnel right in the knee. she fall she gets up, she continues, by then her flashlight is dead, she's running by the light of the shrapnel she gets to the studio, wipes up the blood. makes her report. she never realizes that the system has failed. she is talking to a dead mike. having run through shrapnel to get there to make the report. she spent the rest of that night on the roof of the radio station with william shier who was there

as the cbs broadcaster, watching the bombing and the flak like it was fireworks. peter: williamshire went on to right a best-selling book about world war ii, didn't he? pamela: he did. of all the reporters who were there and wrote books, his is the only one that endures as a readable work of literature and history. peter: why did she leave berlin in 1941. kicked out or voluntary? pamela: voluntary. she reached the point where she couldn't get news out with any integrity. she was also beginning to fear for her life in a way that she never had before. and she was just worn out. she had been reporting the war from the beginning. and the buildup from the beginning. and she was suffering from what the foreign correspondents

called the berlin blues. not so much dealing with censorship but with self-censorship, watching every word, wanting to get as much news out as she could and yet not -- not either be arrested or be thrown out. so eventually, in early 1941, she does leave. mccormick agrees that she should come home and rest for a twhiesm idea is that she will go back after only a couple of months if not to berlin then to one of the neutral countries still in europe to continue reporting. peter: was that voyage back to the states difficult in 1941 for her? pamela: it was awful. she was on a boat that had been put out of service before the war and put back into

transatlantic service because the need was so great for people trying to escape from europe. so she's on a boat she describes as the unis a lube res you sabone. then a few days out of portugal which, she's shipped out from lisbon, they hit the worst storm in 100 years. so the -- they were two weeks late getting across the sea. the boat rocked so much that water pours in the portholes of her stateroom. people were sliding across the deck. the gal lee was filled with water, the cooks couldn't provide meals. she herself ended up being ill. she was running a high fever. had a rash. it all seemed to clear up by the time she got to new york so she

assumed it was over. that wasn't true. peter: what was her time in the states like during the war? pamela: during the war she was -- first, she was very ill. she discovered that in fact that fever and rash that she'd had on board the ship was the first sign of wartisis that killed many, many people. she was ill for a good part of a year. she also had alernl i think reactions to the only medication that was available. which caused problems. once she was well enough, they were trying to get her well enough to go back, she was hit by a cab in new york. tore up the nina had been injured by shrapnel.

again she's bedridden for months. by the time that she's beginning to get better, she's run out of sick pay. she's run out of vacation pay. they put her on half pay for a little while. ultimately even though she's officially too young to get a pension, from the tribune, they give her a pension. and she tries to find work, writing freelance articles. speaking gigs. and she tries to write a book. she does successfully write a book. it's called "germany will try it again," it comes out in -- peter: 1944. pamela: thank you. total blank on that for a moment. it was moderately successful. it goes into a second printing. soon a from the point of view of an american reader, it's pretty

much unreadable. it's really, if you're looking for a source, no one would sit down and read it for fun. by then, as she's better, she wants to get back to europe. she wants to report on the war. at one point she writes to the man who had been her editor, the man -- the overseas editor of the tribune, what's the point of living if you don't have work. peter: in 1945 she had a meeting with robert mccormick for the last time. pamela: yes. she had gone back as a war correspondent. she had reported on the death camps. she had reported on the condition of berlin after the americans arrived there she is back in the united states,

pecting to go back and report on the neurmberg trials. but she stops in mccormick's office which she always did when she was in chicago. they were talking about the trials. and mccormick said that he thought we had officers who should also be on trial. and sigrid was just shocked. and said, i'm sorry, colonel, i just -- i can't accept that. and they changed the subject. they continue to have had pleasant conversation. but when they were done she came down the stairs from his office by her own description, weeping her head off. she went to the managing editor's office and she resigned. effective end of her career with the tribune and in many ways the

end of her career. peter: one of the things, when she did go back she had a group interview with herman goering in 1945 after he'd been arrested. do we know, did he remember her? pamela: absolutely. absolutely. she asked questions that were clearly related to conversations they had had before. including conversations about the concentration camps which he continued to claim he knew nothing about. but he definitely remembered her. peter: her career with the trib ends, december 1945678 she still has 35 years life left. what did she do? pamela: well, she tried to get work. she probably could have got and

job with one of "the tribune's" competitor, she was 53, older then than it is now. she had an elderly mother to care for. chef concerned if she worked for another paper that it would mean she wouldn't get her pension from the tribune. so she didn't take any of those job offers. instead she used her reputation as a specialist in german affairs and in that work in general to get freelance jobs writing for magazines. she certainly did continue to do some speaking programs. she would be called on for radio and television appearances when she -- when someone needed to let people explain what was happening in germany to an american audience. and for certainly 10 years after the end of her career with "the

tribune" she went back to europe on a relatively regular basis for short stays with assignments to important magazines. but gradually she just began to fade from public awareness. that said, she never was entirely forgotten. by the 1970's she's getting a stream of younger journalists and historians coming to ask her questions about what it was like to work for colonel mccormick. about the rise of the nazis. about being a woman reporter when woman reporters, or at least woman war correspond ins, were rare. those people found her totally engaging. there are a number of interview transcripts that are available in which it's clear that she's

sharp and charming and absolutely on top of the game. it's also clear that those interviews were important to her. the last ones she did shortly before her death, she ended up saying, this makes me feel more alive, and the man interviewing her said, i don't think anyone can be more alive than you are sigrid. peter: and in 1969, she relieved a lifetime achievement award from the overseas press club. it read, to a tough competitor, staunch friend, honest reporter, she worked like a newspaperman. pamela: yes. and that was exactly the way she wanted to be described. some of the younger women in the club objected to the phrase newspaperman but she claimed that title from the beginning. and i can't really blame her.

some of the phrases that got used to describe women correspondents at the time were not flattering. "timeudes" to describe them -- describe them as news hens. peter: why did you choose "the dragon" from chicago? pamela: it was a nickname herman goering gave her. he was part of an attempt to trap foreign correspondents to give them information that would make them look like they were spy. in fact, one day a gentleman she didn't know delivered a package to the apartment she shared with her mother. and her mother, as soon as he was gone, her mother called and said you should look at this. she went home, sure it was going to be a trap. it was full of what looked like

flarns airplane engines. she suspected she wouldn't have much time and if she was caught with them in her possession he would be arrested. so she shredded them by hand she put them in the fireplace. stayed until they were burned down to ash. she headed back to the office and sure enough the -- a man who she had long suspected of trying to entrap journalists was headed toward her apartment, accompanied by what schultz described as two shady characters. she stopped them on the street and said don't even bother. i destroyed it. there's nothing there to see. couple of days later, there was a mention at the foreign press club. herman goering was the guest of honor. he was there to celebrate his second marriage and sigrid was sitting next to him because she often was the hostess at these events since she was the only

woman in the club. and she called him on it. and just said, in a voice loud enough that everyone could hear, this isn't going to work. none of us are stupid enough to run these articles. he lost his temper and said, you know, you're never going to learn respect for authority, that's got to be from being from that crime ridden place like chicago. after that he and his staff called her that dragon from chicago. she wore that title with pride. peter: this is your 10th book? pamela: yes. peter: what else have you written about? pamela: most recently i wrote "women warriors: an unexpected history," a global history of women who actually fought running from the 20th century --

second millennium b.c.e. through the first woman who went to the military academies in 1976 in the united states. looking at women from across the world. i've also written a history of civil war nurses. and a small biography aimed at kids in middle school that the story of a british woman who was a driver for the french foreign legion in world war ii and in fact became the only woman to become a member of the french foreign legion. peter: pamela toler's latest book is "the dragon from chicago." she's been our guest for the last hour. thank you for the time pamela: thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its

caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> "q&a" programs are available on our website or as a podcast on our c-span now app.