Jack Martin Fleischer : News correspondent during World War II
Posted on Sunday, October 8, 2006
As a war correspondent in Europe during World War II, Jack Martin Fleischer was one of the first American reporters to reach Hitler’s retreat, Eagle’s Nest.
Fleischer learned German from his grandfather while growing up in Green Bay, Wis., making him a natural to cover the war for United Press, a precursor to United Press International. By his late 20 s, Fleischer was making a name for himself as a gritty reporter with an eagerness for excitement, an eye for good news and a propensity for trouble.
Fleischer, who moved to Arkansas in 1990, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 91.
Born in 1914, Fleischer grew up during the Great Depression. He earned a scholarship to Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., and took a job with United Press upon graduation.
At the beginning of World War II, Fleischer was reporting in Berlin with his roommate, the late Howard K. Smith, the legendary CBS World War II correspondent.
The two were living on the second story of an apartment building when Nazi Gestapo arrived to tell them to be at the train station at 8 a. m. the next morning for imprisonment.
The Jews living beneath them had been arrested during the night.
Though under Nazi guard, Fleischer and his fellow correspondents and diplomats were treated with dignity, residing in one of Germany’s nicest hotels, where the staff served them three meals a day with a glass of wine at dinner.
Fleischer made a habit of pouring his dinner wine into a water pitcher so he had a week’s worth come Friday nights.
After being held for five months, Fleischer was exchanged along with other allied correspondents and diplomats for German personnel, but not before nearly botching the exchange when he and two others left the station during a stop to find booze at a nearby bar. The group almost missed the train, jeopardizing the exchange.
Fleischer returned to United Press headquarters in Stockholm, where he continued to cover the war, traveling across Europe by Jeep.
“He was a journalist... a newspaperman,” said his daughter, Josie Cote of Midland, Mich.
In 1943, while in Stockholm, known to be a party town during the war since Sweden remained neutral, Fleischer met his wife, Ann-Charlotte Ahman.
“A friend of mine, a British journalist, asked if he could have a tea party at my apartment,” Fleischer’s wife said. “He said, ‘ There is a young American journalist that is new here, and I would like to invite him. ’”
The couple married in 1945.
After the war, Fleischer joined the U. S. State Department and spent the next 20 years living in various parts of Europe, including Munich, Germany; Oslo, Norway; Vienna, Austria; and Prague, Czechoslovakia.
While in Munich, Fleischer was the editor in chief of Die Neue Zeitung, an Americansponsored newspaper.
“It was the first official German newspaper after the war,” his daughter said.
Eventually, the Fleischers settled on an abandoned farm in Italy after Fleischer took a job with the United Nations.
Fleischer and his wife spent years restoring their centuriesold farm and were eventually able to make wine and olive oil from their crops of grapes and olives.
After living in Italy for 22 years, the couple moved to Arkansas 16 years ago.
“My husband felt like we were getting too old,” his wife said. “I didn’t feel particularly older, [but ] if you get sick in Italy, you don’t have the same care.”
Known by his family and friends as being too honest for his own good, he had to leave behind all the fruits of his labor when the couple left their Italian farm for Petit Jean Mountain.
“When he left Italy, they couldn’t legally bring the wine into Arkansas,” Cote said. “There were not really any consequences, but he refused to bring it. He was a great diplomat in that way. When he believed in something, he didn’t budge.
“ He said later that it was probably a detriment to his career.”
Despite his family’s repeated requests, Fleischer never chronicled his adventures.
“He refused to write his memoirs,” Cote said. “I think he was a private person. He liked to tell stories, [but ] when we would ask him about his memoirs, he just said, ‘ I’m working on it. ’”
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