OBITUARY

Hella Pick obituary: diplomatic editor who arrived on the Kindertransport

She became a close friend of the German chancellor Willy Brandt and covered the fall of Nixon and the Berlin Wall
The Times
The Times
One former Guardian colleague described Pick as “a remarkable woman: prickly, but also magnificent”
One former Guardian colleague described Pick as “a remarkable woman: prickly, but also magnificent”
DAVID LEVENE/EYEVINE
The Times
The Times

To be the diplomatic editor of a news organisation in the latter half of the 20th century was to be handed a place card at the top table of world events. You would travel the globe to meet the warmongers and the peace-makers and be guaranteed a ringside view of history in the making.

But the sailing was not always plain for Hella Pick when she was appointed to the role on The Guardian, the job she had always craved, in 1983. The routine of the day was to attend editorial conference; read; make phone calls. Then lunch with a contact — at the Gay Hussar in Soho, whenever possible — and head to the Foreign Office for a discreet 3pm briefing with a tight