Mildred Gillars: Treason

[September 13, 2024]  She was one of the most famous people coming out of the tragedy of WWII.  But you probably never heard of her except by her radio name, “Axis Sally.”  Mildred was one of several Americans who were involved in disseminating German propaganda. For her role, she was eventually captured, found guilty on eight counts of treason, and imprisoned.

Apparently, her decision to become a Nazi propagandist, beginning in the early stages of the war, came as a shock to her family and friends.  From 1940 until two days before Germany’s surrender, she ran three programs.

1. Home Sweet Home Hour: designed to discourage homesick Americans from fighting against Germany via implied unfaithfulness of their wives and girlfriends stateside, as well as disparaging the war’s purpose and the Allies’ ability to win it.
2. GI’s Letter-Fox and Medical Reports: which had at its core the actual names, individual service numbers, and current prisoner of war status of wounded American soldiers. The relatives of captured soldiers listened to the program regularly.
3. Midge at the Mike: filled with anti-Semitic talk, criticisms of US President Roosevelt, and spreading defeatist messages.

Interestingly, there was a listening post at a monitoring station in Silver Hill, Maryland, where as much as possible was recorded for expected postwar prosecutions when the Germans lost.

“Sal is a dandy,” wrote U.S. Army Air Corps weatherman Corporal Edward Van Dyne, in a January 1944 article, “No Other Gal but Sal,” in The Saturday Evening Post.  “[She is] the sweetheart of the American Expeditionary Force!  She plays nothing but swing—and good swing!  She has a voice that oozes like honey out of a big wooden spoon.  ‘Homesick, soldier?  Throw down your gun and go back to the good old USA.’ Dr. Goebbels no doubt believed that Sally is rapidly undermining the morale of the American doughboy.  I think the effect is directly opposite.  We get an enormous bang out of her.  We love her.  Well, Sally, we’ll be in Berlin soon, with a great big hug for you, if you have any kisses left!” – Warfare History Network, Blaine Taylor, May 2016

When Berlin fell to the Soviet Army, Mildred literally exited the backdoor of the studio as soldiers were entering the front.  After going underground, she was arrested by an American agent in March 1946.  The arrest was when her real name emerged.

For her criminal trial as an accused traitor in 1948, she showed up with her long, silver hair with her clothes accented by a bouquet of bright red roses, as if at a Hollywood movie premiere rather than a criminal arraignment for treason.

“Gillars might be considered a mixture of several types, including an overly emotional drama queen, a hysterical would-be actress, and a “stupid woman who sold out,” to borrow the words of a U.S. prosecutor.  But she was not boring on the stand.  The most tedious part of the trial for the jurors was listening to excerpts of her radio programs.” – Warfare History Network, Blaine Taylor, May 2016

Mildred never retracted what she said on her radio programs.  Instead, she insisted that she was a paid informer, not a traitor.  She was convicted and sentenced to 10 to  30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.  But she never asked for nor received a pardon.  She feared that if freed, she would be harmed in America or deported back to West Germany, where she could also stand trial.

She was paroled in 1961 and began a new, simple life where she gave piano lessons to inner-city children and taught music to novice nuns.

“In her final role, she was respected, needed, valued, [and] even beloved.” –  biographer Richard Lucas

When she died in 1988, Mildred was buried without any public funeral and rests in a still unmarked grave in Lockbourne, Ohio.

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