ABSTRACT
The modern usage of the word “interview”—and it has been taken over as a Fremdwort in German, French and most other European languages—derives from the English or, rather, an original American coinage. As such, it is just a little more than a century old. Montaigne refers to ceremonies in the “interview of Kings.” For the breakthrough of the interview form in modern journalism was widely considered an infernal new device. In 1869 the New York Nation observed, the “interview,” is generally the joint production of some humbug of a hack politician and another humbug of a newspaper reporter. The most memorable was in the year 1878 with Prince Bismarck who, during the Berlin Congress of that summer, invited “the prince of journalists” to a private dinner at his apartment in the Wilhelmstrasse. The most memorable was in the year 1878 with Prince Bismarck who invited “the prince of journalists” to a private dinner at his apartment in the Wilhelmstrasse.
