Born: 5 January 1893, United States
Died: 14 May 1980
Country most active: Germany
Also known as: John Dickson
Pamela Toler on Sigrid Schultz transcript
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
In some cases, a woman may hide behind a male pseudonym for their own safety. As Berlin bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune during the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, Sigrid Schultz was subject to the Gestapo’s intimidation tactics (including trying to plant incriminating documents in her apartment) and censorship attempts, like disrupting her phone services while trying to relay stories. She created an entire fake identity—a fictional roving reporter named “John Dickson,” complete with correspondence and mentions of him in her diary. Schultz would leave the country to file dispatches, with fake datelines, from cities like Oslo and Copenhagen. “Dickson” reported on German attacks on churches, exposed concentration camps, recounted the persecution of Jews, and predicted the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union as well as the Munich Agreement, which enabled Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia. Schultz also had the added danger of being ethnically Jewish, a secret she kept to avoid further danger. Another Berlin correspondent, William L. Shirer, wrote that, “No other American correspondent in Berlin knew so much of what was going on behind the scenes as did Sigrid Schultz.”