Ronald Selkirk Panton

[Karsten S]

Hi Guys,

I was looking through the papers in the folder that was left for us about our house build in 1901.

Among photo´s, old deed´s etc, I was very surprised to find copies of an old police report dated 1940 and a later newspaper article about my house.

When the war broke out the occupying German forces detained British war reporters and one of them, R.Selkirk Panton was interned in my house for a short period!!

I did a quick search on him, but unfortunately I could not find a photo of him. Apparently he was a very significant journalist.

This is was I found:

Selkirk Panton was a Daily Express journalist who covered Berlin, like Louis Lochner and William Shirer, for twelve years. His papers are in the National Library of Australia. Attached to the British Second Army HQ, he witnessed the events just after Himmlers death in May 1945.

Ronald Selkirk Panton, born in Sydney, was for 22 years the chief foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express in Germany and Central Europe and later wrote on foreign affairs for the Sydney Sun. He was interned in the German prison camp Store Grundet in Denmark from 1940 to 1944, and was the only Australian journalist present at the Nuremberg war crimes trials 1945-1946, witnessing and recording the executions of the convicted.

If anyone knows where to find a photo of him, I would be very thankful.

KR

Karsten