William S. (Willi) Schlamm (originally Wilhelm Siegmund Schlamm, June 10, 1904 – September 1, 1978) was an Austrian-American journalist.

Biography

Schlamm was born into an upper middle class Jewish family in Przemyśl, Galicia, in the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence ...

. He became a Communist early in life, and when he was 16 years old was invited to the Kremlin to meet

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

. After completing secondary school, he became a writer with the Vienna Communist newspaper, ''

Die Rote Fahne ''Die Rote Fahne'' (, ''The Red Flag'') was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communi ...

''. He left the Communist Party in 1929 and joined the left-wing magazine ''

Die Weltbühne ''Die Weltbühne'' (‘The World Stage’) was a German weekly magazine for politics, art and the economy. It was founded in Berlin in 1905 as (‘The Theater’) by Siegfried Jacobsohn and was originally a theater magazine only. In 1913 it be ...

'' in 1932. Later, Schlamm moved to the United States, where he worked for Henry Luce, the publisher of ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'', ''

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, ...

'' and '' Fortune'' magazines. He became a U.S. citizen in 1944 alongside code breaker Jeremy Spiro. Schlamm encouraged

William F. Buckley, Jr. William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...

to found the conservative magazine, ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...

'', with Buckley as the sole owner. Schlamm became a senior editor but was later fired by Buckley. He then became associate editor of the

John Birch Society The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, or libertarian ide ...

's journal, ''American Opinion''. After writing for conservative magazines, he returned to Germany in 1972, where he was a controversial columnist for

Axel Springer Axel Cäsar Springer (2 May 1912 – 22 September 1985) was a German publisher and founder of what is now Axel Springer SE, the largest media publishing firm in Europe. By the early 1960s his print titles dominated the West German daily press ma ...

's ''Die Welt am Sonntag'' and published the magazine ''Die Zeitbühne''. He died in 1978 in

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label= Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

. Schlamm is remembered for having coined the saying, "The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists."Bridges and Coin, p. 51 After World War II, he worked as journalist for German newspaper ''

Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter All ...

''.

External links

* ''Germany And The East West Crisis The Decisive Challenge To American Policy'' (1959
online

Notes

References

* Bjerre-Poulsen, Niels. ''Right face: organizing the American conservative movement 1945-65''. Denmark: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002 * Bridges, Linda and Coyne, John R. ''Strictly Right: William F. Buckley, Jr. and the American conservative movement''. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2007
Lange, Ansgar. ''Eine Kassandra von rechts: William S. Schlamm und seine Fundamentalkritik der frühen Bundesrepublik''
("A Cassandra from the Right: William S. Schlamm and his fundamental critique of the early Federal Republic"). In: ''Eigentümlich frei'', 10 April 2009. * Regnery, Alfred S. ''Upstream: the ascendance of American conservatism''. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Schlamm, Willi People from Przemyśl Austrian emigrants to the United States John Birch Society 1904 births 1978 deaths Die Welt people