Marcel Fodor

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.

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 Magyar 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, emigrated 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.

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 Magazine described how and why Fodor's major career transition happened:

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