Lise Lindbæk | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 January 1905 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Died | 13 March 1961 Kiel, West Germany |
| Spouse | Sanfrid Neander-Nilsson (1927–1933) |
| Partner | Max Hodann (1934–1939) |
| Children | Janka (b. 1929) |
Lise Lindbæk (1 January 1905 – 13 March 1961) was aNorwegian freelancejournalist andforeign correspondent, and writer of several books. She is commonly regarded as Norway's first femalewar correspondent.[1][2]
Lise Lindbæk was born inCopenhagen, Denmark, as the daughter of priest and journalist Johannes Peder Lindbæk and teacher and writerSofie Aubert. She grew up in Copenhagen and later inRoskilde. After the death of her father, she moved with her mother toKristiania, Norway in 1920. She married newspaper editor Sanfrid Neander-Nilsson in 1927, and their daughter Janka was born in 1929. Due to political disagreements (her husband sympathized with the Nazis), the marriage was dissolved in 1933, and Lise settled in Genoa as a single mother. From 1934 to 1939 she lived with physicianMax Julius Carl Alexander Hodann, a formercity physician (German:Stadtphysicus) inBerlin-Reinickendorf who had emigrated due to harassment from theNazi regime. She was aunt to banker and businessmanJannik Lindbæk.[1]
From 1924 Lindbæk worked as a foreign correspondent in Italy for Oslo newspapers, while she studied archaeology. She is generally considered the first female Norwegian war correspondent, covering theSpanish Civil War for the newspaperDagbladet,[1] even thoughGerda Grepp arrived in Spain a few months before Lindbæk, covering the conflict forArbeiderbladet.[3] AuthorSigrun Slapgard supports Lindbæk's status as Norway's first female war correspondent on the grounds that she covered Mussolini's road to power and the 1933Reichstag fire.[3] During Lindbæk's time in Spain, she wrote the story of the German/Scandinavian-speakingThälmann Battalion of theInternational Brigades,Bataljon Thälmann being published in 1938.[1] Amongst the people she cooperated with during the war were the writersErnest Hemingway andNordahl Grieg. After the nationalist victory in Spain, Lindbæk worked to improve the conditions of the Spanish refugee children in France.[1] In theSecond World War, she was in Paris during the German invasion summer 1940, unable to return to Norway. She experienced a dramatic escape toAlgeria andMorocco, where she spent half a year and learned to know the situation ofinterned Scandinavian sailors in theFrench colonies in North Africa. She eventually reached the United States.[1][2] In the U.S., she worked for the magazineNordisk Tidende, lectured at universities, and edited theanthologyTusen norske skip (English: 'A Thousand Norwegian Ships') about the fate of the Norwegian sailors and their contributions to the war effort (issued in the US in 1943, and later also in Norway).[1]
At the end of the war, Lindbæk returned to Norway, suffering from alcohol problems she had developed during her wartime work. She involved herself in the reconstruction work in Norway's northernmost countyFinnmark, which had suffered almost complete destruction in the closing months of the war.[1] She worked as a journalist for theUnited Nations from 1945 to 1949. Her UN experiences also resulted in the bookFN; inntrykk og opplevelser fra Lake Success og Paris, which was published in 1949.[4] In the 1950s, Lindbæk worked as a reporter in Germany, both in East and West Germany. She died inKiel, Germany in 1961, committing suicide by drowning herself in the sea.[1] Lise Lindbæk was buried inRoskilde, Denmark.[1]
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