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Richard Curt Hottelet (September 22, 1917 – December 17, 2014) was an American broadcast journalist for the latter half of the twentieth century. Hottelet was the last surviving member of the Murrow Boys, a World War II-era team of war correspondents recruited by
Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe ...
at
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
.


Early life

Hottelet was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 22, 1917. He was the son of German immigrants; the home language was German. He graduated from
Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...
in 1937, and then enrolled at the University of Berlin.


Hottelet at United Press

At the start of World War II, Hottelet worked for
United Press United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...
. As a correspondent for UP, he was arrested by Germans under suspicion of being a spy. He was released in 1941 during a U.S.-German
prisoner exchange A prisoner exchange or prisoner swap is a deal between opposing sides in a conflict to release prisoners: prisoners of war, spies, hostages, etc. Sometimes, dead bodies are involved in an exchange. Geneva Conventions Under the Geneva Conve ...
.


Hottelet in prison

On Saturday, March 15, 1941, at 7 a.m., Richard C. Hottelet was confronted in his Berlin apartment by members of the German secret police. He was taken to the old police
presidium A presidium or praesidium is a council of executive officers in some political assemblies that collectively administers its business, either alongside an individual president or in place of one. Communist states In Communist states the presid ...
at the
Alexanderplatz () ( en, Alexander Square) is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from in the nort ...
in Berlin. Once there, he was informed that he would be held as a "guest" until some certain papers arrived from another department. As a guest Hottelet was finger printed, photographed and placed in a cell in the police prison in the same building. That first evening, after a dinner of
sauerkraut Sauerkraut (; , "sour cabbage") is finely cut raw cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria. It has a long shelf life and a distinctive sour flavor, both of which result from the lactic acid formed when the bacteria ferme ...
, Hottelet received some preliminary questioning and was denied being told the reason he was being held. The police took his eyeglasses, to prevent suicide, and denied him reading material as well. Hottelet described the first three days of his four-month ordeal as "the hardest and longest I ever spent." Hottelet didn't receive a formal questioning session until the following Tuesday. On Tuesday, March 18, the secret police finally revealed to Hottelet why he was being held, "suspicion of
espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
," they told him. The police, he wrote, were very friendly, "we are your friends and we want to help you," they told him. Hottelet flatly denied any knowledge or dealings in espionage. The police were not pleased, they threatened him, threatened to use "the brutal methods of the American police," with the help of
klieg light A Klieg light is an intense carbon arc lamp especially used in filmmaking. It is named after inventor John Kliegl and his brother Anton Kliegl. Klieg lights usually have a Fresnel lens with a spherical reflector or an ellipsoidal reflector with ...
s. During the weeks at Alexanderplatz, Hottelet endured assorted mental anguish, threats and fear. After one session of questioning beneath the klieg lights a police officer leaned toward Hottelet and asked him if he had heard of a man named Tourou. Hottelet hadn't. "He was one of the brutal specialists in third degree in the New York police, and we can use exactly the same methods he used on Johanna Hofmann," the interrogator responded. The first week in prison brought a visit from a member of the American
consulate A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of diplomatic mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth co ...
in Berlin. He was given clothing, but the toothbrush, soap and toothpaste sent with the clothing were withheld for reasons unknown to Hottelet. At Alexanderplatz, Hottelet found himself amongst people of many nations and faiths, represented among the population were: Russians, Czechs, Poles, Japanese, Italians and Catholic priests. The first few weeks as a prisoner didn't yield much exercise for Hottelet or his prison-mates. Exercise consisted of one half-hour weekly session of walking around in a circle in a 15×40 yard courtyard. As the weather improved, those sessions increased to twice weekly. The last few weeks at Alexanderplatz were significantly less grueling. Sessions with the secret police became less frequent and Hottelet maintains he was never mistreated. On May 31, he was transferred to the investigation prison,
Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood ...
, in another part of Berlin. The building housed about 2,000 prisoners in its four-story frame. Moabit was a much stricter place than Alexanderplatz, no secret contacts with other prisoners, no smoking, but better food. After four weeks at Moabit, Hottelet was finally allowed to receive a daily newspaper and two books per week from the prison library. The guards at Moabit always brought him the English selections, which were not always pleasing to Hottelet. He once received "The Fuel Problem of Canada," and an 1867 book of verse for young women. Some reading material did please him.
Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...
,
Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy'' ...
and poetry by
Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who ha ...
. The most interesting reading, he found, was
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
's " De Profundis," which was written as Wilde served a two-year English prison sentence. The prisoners at Moabit were given work to complete in their cells. The work consisted of "pasting tissue paper over the windows of doll houses and twirling little throwaways for the Reich lottery." At the end of his nine weeks in Moabit, Hottelet collected his full salary of 4.50 marks or about $1.80. The prisoners exercised a half-hour daily, save for Sundays. Moabit exercises consisted of walking around and calisthenics. The days became depressing and marked by rigid routine. Military discipline was enforced and prisoners made to take regular army marching orders, though most of the prisoners had military training. Twice a day the prisoners would receive half-gallon jugs of water, with which to wash themselves, their dishes and flush their toilets. Hottelet and the other prisoners received "German haircuts" at the discretion of the barber. The hairstyles were less than desirable. On July 8, 1941, after almost four months, Hottelet had a pleasant surprise. A guard came to his cell door, opened it and told him to pack his things. Hottelet asked if he was being released or transferred, and when the guard told him released he was flabbergasted. He collected his belongings and was moved to a transport cell for about an hour. The Germans turned over his money, including his 4.50 marks, and valuables and turned him over to the custody of a representative of the American Embassy. From July 8 to 17 Hottelet left Berlin and lived "incognito" with an American Embassy representative. After his release on July 8 he had no further contact with any secret police or German officials. On July 23, Hottelet crossed the Franco-Spanish border.


Hottelet at CBS

Hottelet was hired by
Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe ...
in January 1944. On D-Day he aired the first eyewitness account of the seaborne invasion of
Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
; Hottelet rode along in a bomber that attacked
Utah Beach Utah, commonly known as Utah Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), during World War II. The westernmost of the five code-named ...
six minutes before
H-Hour The military designation of days and hours within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is specified in AAP-6 (STANAG 3680), ''NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions'', and marked ''(NATO)'' in what follows. Those entries marked ''(US)' ...
. He also covered the
Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war ...
for CBS. Later, he parachuted to safety when the plane he was in was shot down by enemy fire. While working in Belgium, shortly after D-Day, Hottelet received a memo from then General Eisenhower that allowed reporters "to talk freely with officers and enlisted personnel and to see the machinery of war in operation in order to visualize and transmit to the public the conditions under which men from their countries are waging war against the enemy." Under these conditions with what he called "fussy" censorship rules, but not crippling, Hottelet set out from the U.S. First Army press camp in
Spa, Belgium Spa (; wa, Spå) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium, whose name became an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties. It is situated in a valley in the Ardennes mountains so ...
for the Fourth Division headquarters in Hürtgen Forest. He was surprised by commanders when he arrived telling him of a German paratrooper landing the night before and a big battle going on to the south. As it turned out, it was the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge, which Hottelet reported later. In 1946, he was assigned to
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
to report on the beginnings of the Cold War. That same year the Soviet government applied a ban on all foreign radio broadcasts, despite an appeal sent to Joseph Stalin by Murrow, who at that time was a vice president at CBS. Later in his career, Hottelet was CBS News resident correspondent at the United Nations in New York, reporting on speeches given by world leaders in the General Assembly and current world events which were on the agenda of the Security Council. Hottelet stayed with CBS for 41 years.


Life after CBS

After leaving CBS, Hottelet continued to write op-ed pieces and lecture. In 2001, he began writing commentary for ''
The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
'', which he continued to do through 2005. Hottelet guest lectured classes in the early 2000s at
George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...
and participated in the opening of the University's Media and Public Affairs Building in 2002. In March 2005, he accepted a two-year appointment as a GW Welling Presidential Fellow at GWU. He also appeared as a panelist on GW's Kalb Report forum series at The
National Press Club Organizations A press club is an organization for journalists and others professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Press ...
. Accepting an award there for his career in journalism on August 10, 2011, Hottelet received a standing ovation for his short acceptance speech:
Thank you very much. I just want to tell you, I tried.
A collection of papers pertaining to Hottelet's work from 1948 to 1990 is cared for by GW's Special Collections Research Center, located in the Estelle and Melvin
Gelman Library The Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, more commonly known as Gelman Library, is the main library of The George Washington University, and is located on its Foggy Bottom campus. The Gelman Library, the Eckles Library on the Mount Vernon campus ...
. He died at his home in
Wilton, Connecticut Wilton is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 18,503. In 2017, it was the sixth-wealthiest town per capita in Connecticut, the wealthiest U.S. state per capita. Officially reco ...
, on December 17, 2014. He was 97 years old.Obituary
/ref>


References


Murrow's Boys
CBS News article

By Richard C. Hottelet
Hottelet accepts GWU post
(press release)

By Richard C. Hottelet for ''George Washington Magazine''


External links


Hottelet reporting on flight over Normandy
(audio clip)

— Richard C. Hottlelet, ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'', August 11, 1941
"Stop Being a Lone Ranger on Iraq"
— Richard C. Hottelet, ''The Christian Science Monitor'', August 5, 2002
Preliminary Guide to the Richard C. Hottelet Papers, 1948-1990, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hottelet, Richard 1917 births 2014 deaths People from Brooklyn Journalists from New York City American television reporters and correspondents American radio reporters and correspondents American male journalists American war correspondents of World War II CBS News people American people of German descent Brooklyn College alumni