Kurt Sell
Dr. Kurt G. Sell (ca. 1884 - February 17, 1949) was a former diplomat and Germany’s first foreign correspondent to the United States representing the press offices of the Weimar and National Socialist governments. He worked as a journalist for the German News Agency (Deutsches Nachrichtenburo DNB) in Washington DC in the 1930s. Starting in 1931 he had a bi-weekly shortwave radio program sent to Germany over the US National Broadcasting Corporation radio network. He reported from Washington for 15 years attending press conferences of the Secretary of State and President Roosevelt. Sell was a popular and genial figure. Many in Washington considered him Germany’s unofficial ambassador.
However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor he was arrested and placed in "protective custody" in a Baltimore hotel room. Supposedly, a powerful shortwave radio was found in his home. In May 1942 he was released as part of an exchange of German and American diplomats. In 1943 he wrote a book about his time in America.
1917 expulsion
In 1917 while a diplomat at the German consul in Chicago, Kurt Sell and his wife Helena Sell were removed from America with the entire German diplomatic corps with the severing of diplomatic relations.[1]
Death
Kurt Sell died February 17, 1949 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Works
- Worüber man in Amerika spricht (1943)
