Hubert
Renfro Knickerbocker (January
31, 1898 – July 12, 1949) was an American journalist and author. He was nicknamed
"Red" from the color of his hair.
Knickerbocker was born in Yoakum, Texas. Knickerbocker's father was Rev. Hubert Delancey
Knickerbocker. Knickerbocker graduated from the Southwestern University in
Texas and then studied psychiatry at Columbia University. Knickerbocker
was a journalist. Knickerbocker was noted for reporting on German politics
before and during World War II. From 1923 to 1933 he reported from Berlin, but because of his opposition to Adolf Hitler he was deported when Hitler came to power.
On December 1, 1930, Knickerbocker interviewed Soviet leader Stalin's
mother, Keke Geladze in
Tiflis for New York Evening Post through
a Georgian interpreter. The article was titled “Stalin Mystery Man Even to His
Mother.”
Back in America, he continued writing about the threat posed by Nazism.
On April 15, 1933, he wrote in the New York Evening Post:
"An indeterminate number of Jews have been killed. Hundreds of Jews have
been beaten or tortured. Thousands of Jews have fled. Thousands of Jews have
been, or will be, deprived of their livelihood." In 1931, as a
correspondent for the New York Evening Post and
the Philadelphia Public Ledger,
he won the Pulitzer Prize for
"a series of articles on the practical operation of the Five Year Plan in
Russia".
After World War II, Knickerbocker went to work for radio station WOR, in Newark, New Jersey. He was
on assignment with a team of journalists touring Southeast Asia when they were all killed in a plane crash
near Bombay, India, on July 12,
1949.
Knickerbocker was married first to Laura Patrick in 1918, and they had
one son, Conrad, who became a daily book reviewer for The New York Times.
His second marriage was to Agnes Schjoldager, with whom he had three daughters,
including Miranda, who married actor Sorrell Booke.