John Seymour Chaloner

Chaloner has been called the “father of the freedom of press.” He died in his sleep on 9 February 2007, aged 82.

In 1990, Chaloner received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class for his services to German-British relations. He also liked to play soccer

In 1956, he published his first novel, and between 1958 and 1975 he wrote and illustrated six children’s books. Chaloner also bought a farm in Sussex, where he bred dairy cows and planted a vineyard. When he actually wanted to retire, he was hired as editor for various business magazines such as Director .

At the end of the war, Chaloner was assigned to the Public Relations and Information Services Control (PRISC), a unit that was to rebuild press, theatre, radio and cinema in Germany on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, While supervising the press in Hanover, he joined forces with two other British officers, Czech Emigrant Harry Bohrer and German Emigrant Henry Ormond to build a political weekly magazine modelled after Time magazine. The magazine was published in 1946 under the title This Week with Bohrer as acting editor-in-chief. When the Foreign Office ordered the magazine’s cessation based on critical articles, Chaloner and Bohrer handed over the magazine to one of their editors and protégés, Rudolf Augstein, who re-edited it as editor and chief editor under the title Der Spiegel.

Chaloner came from a family of journalists. His father was editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper; his mother published the magazines Parents, Ideal Home, and Woman’s Magazine. As early as 1939, Chaloner himself began working for the magazine Boy’s Own Paper . During the Second World War, he volunteered for the army and in 1945 became a member of the ‘Westminster Dragoons’ tank unit, a recent major of the British Army.

John Seymour Chaloner (5 November 1924 – 9 February 2007) was a British-born journalist who founded the German newsweekly Der Spiegel.