From the deserts of North Africa to the Normandy beaches, GIs listened to the traitorous Axis Sally broadcasting over the radio for Nazi Germany.
&#;Well, kids, you know I’d like to say to you, &#;Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag,&#; but I know that that little old kit bag is much too small to hold all the trouble you kids have got.&#; —Axis Sally
From the deserts of North Africa to the Normandy beaches, GIs listened to the sensual voice of an American woman broadcasting over the radio for Nazi Germany. The voice, alternately seductive and condemning, wondered aloud if their wives and girlfriends were “running around” with the 4-Fs (men not qualified for military service) back home, and gently pointed out the benefits of surrender. As the men tried to imagine the mysterious beauty behind the microphone, the swing music she played kept them tuning in. She cultivated a persona of worldly allure, ready to welcome the boys and understand their troubles.
The reality behind the voice was less glamorous. Two American women competed for the soldiers’ fantasies: Mildred Gillars, a middle-aged former showgirl from Ohio, broadcast from Berlin; the other, a cross-
Mildred Gillars (a.k.a. &#;Axis Sally&#;) in WWII
&#;This is Berlin calling the American mothers, wives and sweethearts. And I’d just like to say, girls, when Berlin calls it pays to listen.”
So began a typical address by Nazi propaganda radio broadcaster Mildred Gillars, known as Axis Sally, during World War II. Her program was filled with hateful rhetoric directed against U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the Jewish people. Her radio broadcasts were heard not only by U.S. soldiers fighting Nazi Germany, but also by Americans in the States.
“A defeat for Germany would mean a defeat for America,” she said. “I say damn Roosevelt and Churchill, and all of their Jews who have made this war possible. I, as an American girl, will stay over here on this side of the fence because it’s the right side. Girls, watch out! Don’t forget the beautiful things we have at home which are now in danger.” Gillars’ theme song was the German hit “Lili Marlene,” which became a favorite with soldiers of all the fighting armies of both sides.
Her Start at German State Radio
Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen in North Africa, the Mediterran
Voices of the Axis: The Radio Personalities of Fascist Propaganda
By Chuck Lyons
Mildred “Midge” Gillars was born in Portland, Maine, took drama lessons in New York City, appeared in vaudeville, worked as an artist’s model in Paris and a dressmaker’s assistant in Algiers, and taught English at the Berlitz School in Berlin before—motivated by love and fear—she became the notorious “Axis Sally,” one of the Nazis’ leading radio propagandists.
The most prominent of the World War II broadcasters—and the most remembered today—were Gillars, William Joyce, who became known as “Lord Haw-Haw” and targeted the United Kingdom with Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda, and Iva Ikuko Toguri, a first-generation Japanese American who was nicknamed “Tokyo Rose” by U.S. servicemen in the Pacific.
These three took up the cause of enemy propaganda for very different reasons, but those reasons were typical of the forces that motivated all these “turncoat” broadcasters.
“Vision of Invasion”: Axis Sally&#;s Radio Shows
Gillars began her broadcasts after the war broke out and she was trapped in Nazi Germany. While teaching English at the Berlitz School in Berlin, she became engaged to a German c
She was named Mildred Elizabeth Sisk when she was born in Portland, Maine, on November 29, Her parents, Vincent Sisk and Mae Hewitson Sisk, were divorced in , and a few years later Mildred&#;s mother married a dentist, Dr. Robert Bruce Gillars. From that time on the child was known as Mildred Gillars.
The family moved around a great deal during her early years, but Mildred Gillars eventually graduated from high school in Conneaut, Ohio, in Then it was on to Ohio Wesleyan University in the small town of Delaware, where, hoping to pursue a stage career, she majored in dramatic arts. Gillars did well in speech, languages and dramatics but did not graduate because of her failure to meet all university requirements and standards.
According to her half-sister, Gillars worked at a variety of jobs after leaving college&#;clerk, salesgirl, cashier and waitress&#;all to further her ambition to become an actress. In she went to Europe with her mother and spent six months studying in France before returning to the United States.
Eventually, Gillars went to New York, where she worked in stock companies, musical comedies and vaudeville, but never made enough impact to gain any real recogni
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