The old man and the more
Toby E. Rodes is likely the longest-serving PR consultant in the German-speaking world. Born in 1919 as a German with partly Jewish roots, he has lived through and helped shape a turbulent era—as a soldier and a communications professional. Now nearly 91 years old, Rodes still works as a consultant at his Basel-based marketing and PR agency, which he founded in 1966. He also works as a journalist and an author.
There is not much that Toby E. Rodes has not been or is not: office worker, ski instructor, officer, company founder, company boss, diplomat, journalist, author, management consultant, PR expert, as well as founder and member of numerous national and international PR societies and institutions - to stay within the Swiss borders, for example, the BPRA, the SPRG, the NPRG and the SPRI. In addition, Rodes has been a speaker and examiner at SAWI and an expert for the Swiss Fairness Commission. But borders do not do justice to Rodes: during his long life he has worked in 30 countries in more than 45 cities with five languages. He has lived and worked out of Basel since 1956. Rodes has two "homes," New York and Basel. He sees himself as an American European, which he also accentuates with the subtitle of his autobiography published last year.
Rodes was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1919 to a German-English mother and an American-German father. At the age of eleven, he wanted to become a great conductor like Toscanini or Bruno Walter. "It was clear to me early on that I wanted to communicate - and communicating musically would have been my lifelong dream," Rodes says. The boy learns to play the violin, flute and saxophone and invests a large part of his sack money in attending classical concerts. In 1934, he is disappointed to discover that he does not have an absolute ear. "I realized that at best I would make it as a coffeehouse bandmaster, but not as a creative conductor," Rodes recalls. "That wasn't enough for me." The boy says goodbye to his dream. But his love of music continues to accompany Rodes: Later, he plays music with his wife and friends, and today there is a radio on his desk that he quickly switches on when he is overcome by the desire for music.
Gut feeling and independence
At the age of 14, Rodes goes to Switzerland alone because he is angry about an anti-Semitic lecture at his school. A feeling deep in his gut tells him that bad things are developing in his homeland. Rodes graduates from an English college on Lake Geneva, then studies international finance and law in London and New York. In 1937, Rodes, who at that time was still called Rosenthal, changed his last name. This was not only to get rid of his German past: "I wanted to live like an American without being handicapped by old Europe. And I wanted to exist for myself. My grandfather was a famous painter whose paintings hang in many important museums around the world. He painted a picture of Bach that everyone knows. My father was the head of the largest European construction company, Philipp Holzmann. My mother, Olivia Veit, was a celebrated actress before she married. I didn't feel pressured by my background, but I didn't want to remain the little grandson or son either." New name, new life.
Rodes gets his first job in America at the Bank of the Manhattan Company - as a bellhop in uniform. "I was quickly pulled off the elevator, though, and put in the foreign department when they realized I knew languages the bankers didn't," he recounts with a grin. "So I started doing French and German translations and communicating internationally."
String puller in the old homeland
Rodes is regarded worldwide as a professional for PR on the international stage. With his flair for people and his distinctive communication skills, he has helped shape many political and economic decisions at the international level. As an officer in the U.S. Army, he is assigned to the psychological warfare division, Psy War, in 1942. He receives training in psychological warfare and passes interpreting exams in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. As the only German-speaking officer with American ancestry, he has a key function in the American Psy War actions, for example in the production and distribution of leaflets. Furthermore, he is instructed by the commanding general to read everything his comrades write and to report if it does not conform to the given policy. An enormous trust in the competence of the only 23-year-old.
After the end of the war in 1945 and 1946, Rodes, as a U.S. major on the "Information Control" command staff, shares responsibility for establishing a democratic press in Germany, for example by censoring German media: "We wanted to ensure the separation of propaganda and information," Rodes reports. "Anyone who did not adhere to this separation had to expect sanctions." In 1946, Rodes returned to the New York export company American Near East Corp. for four years, where he had already worked from 1939 to 1942. In 1950, the U.S. occupation agency OMGUS hires him as press spokesman for the U.S. city commander in Berlin. The CIA tried to poach him from this post. Rodes declined with thanks: "In a secret conversation, they suggested that I sign a four-year contract - and then I would be told six months later whether I would be taken on," Rodes recalls. "I didn't like that style."
Reconstruction needs information
In the same year, Rodes was offered by the State Department to head the information department of the Marshall Plan in Germany, the U.S. program for the economic and cultural reconstruction of the completely destroyed country. Rodes is immediately on board. "We wanted to help Germany catch up quickly with the postwar era," he reports. "We saw a big task in informing the population about the economy and novelties in the rest of the world. Germany had been isolated for too long and deliberately disinformed by Goebbels."
Rodes' employees dub about 200 American films about new technologies, provide film projection equipment, organize educational events and exhibitions. In 1950, Rodes is instrumental in planning the "Berlinale" international film festival. His greatest coup came when, after the suppression of the June 17 Uprising in 1953, a special issue of the weekly supplement of the newspaper "Neues Deutschland" was smuggled into East Berlin and circulated there: Photos of the uprising are printed in the magazine. The Russians search for the enemy of the state. To no avail. For Rodes, this action is still his most exciting communications project today.
Design all along the line
In addition to communication and music, Rodes had a third great passion: furniture and design. As a member of the board of the design furniture manufacturer Knoll Ass. and head of Knoll International, he helped shape the furniture taste of the 1950s and 1960s. He also appears as a juror in design competitions and publishes as a trade journalist in relevant magazines and daily newspapers - incidentally, to this day. In 1955, Rodes changed careers again: He became a member of the supervisory board of the famous American PR agency JKPR Julius Klein. JKPR is known for handling explosive international PR assignments in business and politics. Among other things, the agency was involved in the talks between Ben Gurion and Konrad Adenauer and worked for the German government. Parallel to his involvement with JKPR, Rodes founded his own agency, Toby E. Rodes International Communications & Marketing Consultancy, or Terag. Rodes specializes in international marketing and communications consulting as well as project planning and execution. His first client is Vitra-Hermann-Miller, at the time one of the leading representatives of modern design in the U.S. - and Rodes' most important ex-competitor.
Terag develops brilliantly: Rodes looks after a number of illustrious names in the furniture and design industry all over the world, for example De Sede, Mobilier International, Erpo, Flötotto, the Finnish Furniture Export Association or Elan, but also clients such as Rado, Glas-Trösch, the international lottery organization, Feldschlösschen, the Rietberg Museum or the Scottish Earl of Bute, who accompanied the expansion of his weaving mill with PR. Between 1967 and 1988, the number of agency employees increased to six, after which Rodes worked with up to twelve employees in the meantime. "I've often thought about quitting," Rodes admits. "But so far it hasn't worked out." Since 2005, however, he has shared his office with Patricia D. Trenkler, who worked closely with him as an intern for Feldschlösschen. She is to be Rode's successor. The beginning of quitting. But: "As long as something is stirring in my head, I don't want to sit at home or lie in bed, twiddling my thumbs and playing the pensioner," Rodes makes clear. His wife, the physiotherapist Dr. Waltraud Elisabeth Rodes-Bauer, inventor of the combination therapy laser acupuncture and physiotherapy, is also still fully engaged in her profession at the age of almost 70. So it may be a while yet before Rodes finally takes her leave of the PR stage.
No life without communication
"Communication among living beings is at the heart of our world. Without communication, there is no life," Rodes writes in his autobiography. From a person who places such a high priority on exchanges with one another, one would like to know how he sees the future of marketing and PR. "I don't know," is the simple answer. "PR has the task of building mutual trust. That also means behaving accordingly. But the new means of communication don't necessarily make it easier to exchange ideas with one another in a spirit of trust. The quality of communication has declined. Because everything is faster. And because we have too few communicators who are not just the long arm of their bosses. We have to counteract this with sound training."
Rodes is open to new communication possibilities: In 1966, he bought the IBM ballpoint typewriter that had just come onto the market, later a telex, then a fax. He also familiarized himself with PCs and cell phones, and considers the Internet to be the most important development in the communications industry. Nevertheless: "The fatal consequences of inadequate communication in the electronic age are much more serious than in earlier eras. The globalization of electronics has meant that it is no longer possible to communicate in a targeted manner. This means that you have to be prepared for information aimed at target group A to be received by target group B, to be knowingly distorted, and to be communicated incorrectly," warns Rodes. "Genuine communication, however, presupposes a dialogue based on understanding. And the will to compromise." This more in communication often does not succeed, because time pressure and purposeful talking past each other characterize today's communication. Most e-mails bear witness to such haste and inattention to the communication partner.
If communication is to work, it is important that people approach each other with respect, take time for each other and allow their counterpart's opinion to be valid. Anyone who wants a dialogue must not only speak, but also be able to take himself and his feelings back and listen. That's one of many things you can learn from Rodes. Rodes communicated fully in this way throughout his life. It allowed him to be true to his resolution, "You have to be able to look in the mirror in the morning without throwing up."
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
Rodes was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1919 to a German-English mother and an American-German father. At the age of eleven, he wanted to become a great conductor like Toscanini or Bruno Walter. "It was clear to me early on that I wanted to communicate - and communicating musically would have been my lifelong dream," Rodes says. The boy learns to play the violin, flute and saxophone and invests a large part of his sack money in attending classical concerts. In 1934, he is disappointed to discover that he does not have an absolute ear. "I realized that at best I would make it as a coffeehouse bandmaster, but not as a creative conductor," Rodes recalls. "That wasn't enough for me." The boy says goodbye to his dream. But his love of music continues to accompany Rodes: Later, he plays music with his wife and friends, and today there is a radio on his desk that he quickly switches on when he is overcome by the desire for music.
Gut feeling and independence
At the age of 14, Rodes goes to Switzerland alone because he is angry about an anti-Semitic lecture at his school. A feeling deep in his gut tells him that bad things are developing in his homeland. Rodes graduates from an English college on Lake Geneva, then studies international finance and law in London and New York. In 1937, Rodes, who at that time was still called Rosenthal, changed his last name. This was not only to get rid of his German past: "I wanted to live like an American without being handicapped by old Europe. And I wanted to exist for myself. My grandfather was a famous painter whose paintings hang in many important museums around the world. He painted a picture of Bach that everyone knows. My father was the head of the largest European construction company, Philipp Holzmann. My mother, Olivia Veit, was a celebrated actress before she married. I didn't feel pressured by my background, but I didn't want to remain the little grandson or son either." New name, new life.
Rodes gets his first job in America at the Bank of the Manhattan Company - as a bellhop in uniform. "I was quickly pulled off the elevator, though, and put in the foreign department when they realized I knew languages the bankers didn't," he recounts with a grin. "So I started doing French and German translations and communicating internationally."
String puller in the old homeland
Rodes is regarded worldwide as a professional for PR on the international stage. With his flair for people and his distinctive communication skills, he has helped shape many political and economic decisions at the international level. As an officer in the U.S. Army, he is assigned to the psychological warfare division, Psy War, in 1942. He receives training in psychological warfare and passes interpreting exams in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. As the only German-speaking officer with American ancestry, he has a key function in the American Psy War actions, for example in the production and distribution of leaflets. Furthermore, he is instructed by the commanding general to read everything his comrades write and to report if it does not conform to the given policy. An enormous trust in the competence of the only 23-year-old.
After the end of the war in 1945 and 1946, Rodes, as a U.S. major on the "Information Control" command staff, shares responsibility for establishing a democratic press in Germany, for example by censoring German media: "We wanted to ensure the separation of propaganda and information," Rodes reports. "Anyone who did not adhere to this separation had to expect sanctions." In 1946, Rodes returned to the New York export company American Near East Corp. for four years, where he had already worked from 1939 to 1942. In 1950, the U.S. occupation agency OMGUS hires him as press spokesman for the U.S. city commander in Berlin. The CIA tried to poach him from this post. Rodes declined with thanks: "In a secret conversation, they suggested that I sign a four-year contract - and then I would be told six months later whether I would be taken on," Rodes recalls. "I didn't like that style."
Reconstruction needs information
In the same year, Rodes was offered by the State Department to head the information department of the Marshall Plan in Germany, the U.S. program for the economic and cultural reconstruction of the completely destroyed country. Rodes is immediately on board. "We wanted to help Germany catch up quickly with the postwar era," he reports. "We saw a big task in informing the population about the economy and novelties in the rest of the world. Germany had been isolated for too long and deliberately disinformed by Goebbels."
Rodes' employees dub about 200 American films about new technologies, provide film projection equipment, organize educational events and exhibitions. In 1950, Rodes is instrumental in planning the "Berlinale" international film festival. His greatest coup came when, after the suppression of the June 17 Uprising in 1953, a special issue of the weekly supplement of the newspaper "Neues Deutschland" was smuggled into East Berlin and circulated there: Photos of the uprising are printed in the magazine. The Russians search for the enemy of the state. To no avail. For Rodes, this action is still his most exciting communications project today.
Design all along the line
In addition to communication and music, Rodes had a third great passion: furniture and design. As a member of the board of the design furniture manufacturer Knoll Ass. and head of Knoll International, he helped shape the furniture taste of the 1950s and 1960s. He also appears as a juror in design competitions and publishes as a trade journalist in relevant magazines and daily newspapers - incidentally, to this day. In 1955, Rodes changed careers again: He became a member of the supervisory board of the famous American PR agency JKPR Julius Klein. JKPR is known for handling explosive international PR assignments in business and politics. Among other things, the agency was involved in the talks between Ben Gurion and Konrad Adenauer and worked for the German government. Parallel to his involvement with JKPR, Rodes founded his own agency, Toby E. Rodes International Communications & Marketing Consultancy, or Terag. Rodes specializes in international marketing and communications consulting as well as project planning and execution. His first client is Vitra-Hermann-Miller, at the time one of the leading representatives of modern design in the U.S. - and Rodes' most important ex-competitor.
Terag develops brilliantly: Rodes looks after a number of illustrious names in the furniture and design industry all over the world, for example De Sede, Mobilier International, Erpo, Flötotto, the Finnish Furniture Export Association or Elan, but also clients such as Rado, Glas-Trösch, the international lottery organization, Feldschlösschen, the Rietberg Museum or the Scottish Earl of Bute, who accompanied the expansion of his weaving mill with PR. Between 1967 and 1988, the number of agency employees increased to six, after which Rodes worked with up to twelve employees in the meantime. "I've often thought about quitting," Rodes admits. "But so far it hasn't worked out." Since 2005, however, he has shared his office with Patricia D. Trenkler, who worked closely with him as an intern for Feldschlösschen. She is to be Rode's successor. The beginning of quitting. But: "As long as something is stirring in my head, I don't want to sit at home or lie in bed, twiddling my thumbs and playing the pensioner," Rodes makes clear. His wife, the physiotherapist Dr. Waltraud Elisabeth Rodes-Bauer, inventor of the combination therapy laser acupuncture and physiotherapy, is also still fully engaged in her profession at the age of almost 70. So it may be a while yet before Rodes finally takes her leave of the PR stage.
No life without communication
"Communication among living beings is at the heart of our world. Without communication, there is no life," Rodes writes in his autobiography. From a person who places such a high priority on exchanges with one another, one would like to know how he sees the future of marketing and PR. "I don't know," is the simple answer. "PR has the task of building mutual trust. That also means behaving accordingly. But the new means of communication don't necessarily make it easier to exchange ideas with one another in a spirit of trust. The quality of communication has declined. Because everything is faster. And because we have too few communicators who are not just the long arm of their bosses. We have to counteract this with sound training."
Rodes is open to new communication possibilities: In 1966, he bought the IBM ballpoint typewriter that had just come onto the market, later a telex, then a fax. He also familiarized himself with PCs and cell phones, and considers the Internet to be the most important development in the communications industry. Nevertheless: "The fatal consequences of inadequate communication in the electronic age are much more serious than in earlier eras. The globalization of electronics has meant that it is no longer possible to communicate in a targeted manner. This means that you have to be prepared for information aimed at target group A to be received by target group B, to be knowingly distorted, and to be communicated incorrectly," warns Rodes. "Genuine communication, however, presupposes a dialogue based on understanding. And the will to compromise." This more in communication often does not succeed, because time pressure and purposeful talking past each other characterize today's communication. Most e-mails bear witness to such haste and inattention to the communication partner.
If communication is to work, it is important that people approach each other with respect, take time for each other and allow their counterpart's opinion to be valid. Anyone who wants a dialogue must not only speak, but also be able to take himself and his feelings back and listen. That's one of many things you can learn from Rodes. Rodes communicated fully in this way throughout his life. It allowed him to be true to his resolution, "You have to be able to look in the mirror in the morning without throwing up."
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
> Pictures from the book "Once America and Back
In a nutshell
Toby E. Rodes
* 1919 as Toby E. Rosenthal in Frankfurt on the Main
1934 - 1936 Fisher Institute, Chateau d'Arvel, Territet Montreux
1936 London School of Economics, London
1937 Acquisition of American citizenship and change of last name
1938 - 1942 Studied International Finance and Law, New York
1938/39 Bank of the Manhattan Company, New York
1939 - 1942 American Near East Corporation, New York, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Casablanca, Oran
1942 - 1946 U.S. Military Service
1942 - 1945 Department of Psychological Warfare, Germany
1944 Radio Luxembourg, appearances as "Italian" major, secret station 1212
1945/46 U.S. Major on Allied Command Staff "Information Control".
1946 - 1950 second time American Near East Corp./Anec Trading Co.
1950 Press spokesman for the U.S. city commander, Berlin
1951 - 1955 Senior PR Officer of the Marshall Plan, Bonn
1956 - 1966 Knoll Ass. and Knoll International, New York, Basel, Frankfurt, Vaduz, Paris, London, Milan, Rome, Vienna
1955 -1975 JKPR Julius Klein, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles
since 1966 Terag, Basel
2005 Receipt of the Wilhelm Leuschner Medal, highest award of the German state of Hesse
Reading tips
Toby E. Rodes (2009): Once in America and back: memoirs of an American European. 230 pages. Verlag Huber Frauenfeld/Stuttgart/Vienna. 49.90 francs.
Toby E. Rodes (2005): 11 theses on communication. 175 pp. Author Publisher. 38 francs.
