Marcel W. "Mike" Fodor (17 January 1890 in Budapest, Hungary - 1 July 1977 in Trostberg, Germany; often cited as M. W. Fodor), was a foreign correspondent for several British and American newspapers in Vienna during the years between the world wars, editor of the Berlin edition of Die Neue Zeitung and correspondent for Voice of America in Europe after World War II, and an author who specialized in the Balkans and Central Europe.
Early life and education
Fodor was born as Marcel Vilmos (Mike William) Fodor in Budapest in 1890. His father, Janos Fodor, was a Danube Swabian whose family name "Fischer" had been translated into the Hungarian language as "Fodor" during the Magyarization movement of the late 1800s. Janos was a wealthy industrialist who owned newspapers in Vienna and Budapest. Fodor's mother, Berta Auspitz, was a member of a wealthy family of bankers and industrialists in Central Europe.
Fodor studied in Budapest and Charlottenburg, receiving a degree in chemical engineering in 1911. At the outbreak of World War I Fodor, a firm pacifist, immigrated to Great Britain, where he worked as a chemical engineer. However, he was soon interned as an enemy alien. At the conclusion of the War, Fodor returned to Budapest. In the revolutions that shook Hungary immediately after World War I, Fodor's parents were named as "class enemies" by the new communist regime and killed. In the turbulent years of war and revolution, their fortune was lost as well.
Early journalism
In Budapest, Fodor met and befriended journalist Dorothy Thompson. Fodor himself soon made the transition from chemical engineer to journalist, becoming the Vienna correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. Time described how and why Fodor's major career transition happened: An engineer, fluent in five languages, [Fodor] had been grumbling along as manager of a steel mill in the English Midlands. Postwar retrenchment shut the mill, freed Fodor. The Manchester Guardian liked his occasional letters from Middle Europe, asked for cables, soon hired the shy, whip-smart, "relentlessly honest" little man as a fulltime correspondent. Thereby the Guardian conferred a major boon on U.S. foreign correspondence.
Interwar years in Central Europe
In the 1920s and the 1930s, Fodor worked as a journalist in Central Europe, posting stories with the Guardian; several major newspapers in the United States; and magazines such as The Nation, The New Republic and American Mercury.
In 1922, Fodor married Marie Martha Roob, born in Miskolc, Hungary. Their son Denis was born in the mid 1920s.
Covering the interwar turmoil in Central Europe, Fodor was a friend or mentor to several renowned journalists who covered the same beat, including Dorothy Thompson, John Gunther, Frances Gunther, William Shirer, George Eric Rowe Gedye, H. R. Knickerbocker, Edgar Mowrer, Frederick Scheu, Robert Best and others who frequented the Stammtisch at the Café Louvre, the unofficial headquarters of foreign journalism in interwar Vienna. Best and Fodor presided at the Stammtisch, where journalists and regular visitors discussed the days news and exchanged information. J. William Fulbright, who met Fodor and other correspondents at the Café Louvre, described a typical day:
Fulbright, who later served as US senator for Arkansas for 30 years and established the US foreign exchange program that bears his name, first met Fodor in Vienna. In spring 1929, Fulbright, who had just finished his studies at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, joined Fodor on a factfinding trip across several Balkan countries and Greece. Fodor arranged press credentials for Fulbright, and both interviewed diplomats and government leaders across the region.
That sort of mentoring relationship was common for Fodor:
Because of the relationships Fodor developed; his fluency in several languages spoken in Central Europe; and his encyclopedic knowledge of history, politics and personalities of the region, Fodor had a strong reputation among his fellow journalists:
In 1934, Fodor and Gunther interviewed Adolf Hitler's poor relatives in Hitler's Austrian hometown of Braunau, the first journalists to cover Hitler's birthplace, origin, acquaintances and relatives. Their coverage clearly showed Hitler's humble beginnings and family, in stark contrast to the official Nazi propaganda about his origins. For that reason, Gunther and Fodor were soon placed on a Gestapo "death list" and remained in continual danger as the Nazis moved across Europe.