Edgar Ansel Mowrer

Edgar Ansel Mowrer (March 8, 1892 – March 2, 1977) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and author best known for his writings on international events.

Born in Bloomington, Illinois, Mowrer graduated from the University of Michigan in 1913. From his elder brother, Paul Scott Mowrer, the editor of Chicago Daily News, Mowrer received a job and in 1914 went to France as a foreign correspondent. From there he reported on events throughout the First World War, including the Italians' defeat at the Battle of Caporetto. In 1916, he married Lilian Thomson; the two had a daughter, Diana, and would remain together until Mowrer's death 61 years later.

Mowrer remained a correspondent in Europe throughout the 1920s and 1930s, living in Rome for eight years before moving to Berlin. In 1933, Mowrer won the Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence for his reporting on the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, and was named president of the Foreign Press Association. In his dispatches from Germany he had managed to cut below the patina of normalcy to capture events that challenged the belief that Germany's transformation was democratic and natural and was therefore a target of Nazi ire. In addition to reporting for the Chicago Daily News, Mowrer wrote a best-selling book, "Germany Puts the Clock Back," published in 1933, which had angered Nazi officials to the point where Mowrer's friends believed he faced mortal danger.

The German government openly pressured him to leave the country, with Germany's ambassador to the United States notifying the State Department that because of the "people's righteous indignation" the government could no longer hope to keep Mowrer free from harm. When the Chicago Daily News learned about the threats, Frank Knox, the owner of the newspaper, offered Mowrer a position in the paper’s bureau in Tokyo. Mowrer, who did not want to leave Germany, agreed to leave after covering the annual Nazi Party spectacle in Nuremberg set to begin 1 September 1933. After American diplomatic missions to Germany refused to guarantee his and his family's safety and after a futile personal appeal to newly appointed US ambassador to Germany William Dodd, Mowrer agreed to depart immediately, in return for the release of , an elderly Jewish correspondent for the Austrian newspaper Neue Freie Presse, who was being held by the Gestapo for high treason.

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