Alvin J. Steinkopf was born on a farm in Sibley County, Minnesota, on March 27, 1897. He graduated as valedictorian from his high school in Hutchinson, Minnesota, and went on to Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During 1916 Steinkopf was the editor of both the school newspaper, the Marquette Campaigner, and the school journal, the Intercollegian. In April 1917, he graduated early with majors in economics and business administration so that he could enlist in the Army. Steinkopf served for two years during World War I and was honorably discharged as a corporal in July 1919.
In the early 1920s, Steinkopf joined the staff of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, working as a rewrite man, reporter, city editor, and Sunday feature editor. In 1924 he moved to Milwaukee as a member of the Milwaukee Sentinel staff. In 1925 he became that paper's night city editor. While working in Milwaukee, Steinkopf met and married Irene Norman, the newspaper's movie editor. He joined the Associated Press (AP) in 1931, the news organization with which he was to be associated for the rest of his career.
In 1934 the AP sent Steinkopf to Europe, where he reported from Vienna, Budapest, and Central and Eastern Europe. During 1938 and 1939 Steinkopf headed the AP bureau in Budapest. Later in 1939 the AP assigned him to its Berlin bureau. In this capacity Steinkopf covered the German campaigns in Poland and Russia. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, Steinkopf, along with the American press corps and many diplomats, were interned at Bad Nauheim, Germany until May 1942, when they were repatriated.
After returning to the United States, the Associated Press loaned Steinkopf to WBBM in Chicago, where he worked as a CBS news broadcaster for two years. During this period Steinkopf was also a frequent public speaker about his experiences and knowledge of war-time Europe. In 1945, Steinkopf returned to Europe to cover the end of the war, and his subsequent career was chiefly based in Prague and London. In London Steinkopf worked primarily as a feature writer, and he covered the British royal family including the coronation of Elizabeth II and her trip to Nigeria in 1956. Steinkopf retired in 1962 and settled in San Francisco. He died on June 27, 1981, and was buried in Luck, Wisconsin, where his parents had owned a farm.
Irene Elvira Norman, his wife who was also a journalist, was born in Massachusetts on December 14, 1901. As a child, her family moved to Milwaukee, where, upon the death of her father and her mother's serious illness she was placed in an orphanage. Irene attended the University of Wisconsin and graduated with a journalism degree in 1923. She met Alvin Steinkopf while employed as the motion picture editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel, and they were married in 1927. The Steinkopfs lived in Europe during the 1930s, although because of health reasons Irene lived alone in Copenhagen and Rome and eventually moved back to the United States alone in 1941 as wartime conditions worsened in Berlin. During World War II she did radio broadcasts for WJJD in Chicago, as well as delivering many public lectures, chiefly about women's role in the war effort. After Alvin's death in 1981, Irene moved to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to live with her friend Evelyn Loebel. She died on June 2, 2004.
