Marianne Regensburger: Local Celebrity

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"She worked for a newspaper in Munich; she worked for other newspapers. Eventually she moved to Berlin until she died in 2002. And she worked in kind of a variety of aspects in what you call the media. She wrote for newspapers. She wrote both, I think, news and opinion pieces. She was very active in the Peace Movement in Germany, sort of in leftist politics. And then she went from print to T.V. journalism. My aunt was four foot eleven, so she was short and she wasn’t you know like, she had small bones, and so I have this picture of her standing on a wooden box holding a microphone you know sort of doing an interview so she did television but before she did television she was on RIAS, the Radio International of the American Sector in Berlin. She had a very well-known voice. My mom tells a story of my grandfather being in a cab with Marianne in Berlin and she’s giving the cab driver directions and he recognizes her and says ‘Are you Marianne Regensburger?’ So she was well known for her journalism and outspokenness.”

Editor’s Note: Recognized for her academic aptitude from a young age, Marianne Regensburger received a scholarship from a Quaker organization to attend Earlham College soon after she arrived in the United States. As a teenager in Germany, and during her sojourn in England, she had studied farming techniques with aim of joining a collective farm in Kenya, but her interests turned more toward journalism and left-leaning social and economic movements in college. After graduating from Earlham, Marianne enrolled in a political science PhD program at the New School, but after getting journalism internship in Munich in 1950, she decided to stay in Germany. Although she didn't see her aunt often, Jackie had the opportunity to visit Marianne in Germany several times as a teenager and young adult. There, she learned more about Marianne's interest in exposing former Nazis and attempting to make sure that something like the rise of Hitler would never again happen in Germany. Marianne also made the decision to convert to Christianity, and her religious identity informed her intellectual and political work for peace.   As a journalist, Marianne worked for prominent media outlets including The Radio International of the American Sector which was created by the U.S. occupational authorities and was active in West Germany from February 7th, 1946, to December 31st, 1993.