Mildred elizabeth gillars

Nicknamed "Axis Sally" by her American soldier listeners, she was found guilty of treason in a United States court after the war and spent twelve years in prison. Gillars was born on November 29, She was born as Mildred Elizabeth Sisk in Portland, Maine, to Mae Hewitson Sisk, a painter, and Vincent Sisk, an indifferent husband and father who didn't cherish the idea of mildred elizabeth gillars children. When Gillars was seven years old, mildred elizabeth gillars, her father abandoned the small family.

Her lawyer, James J. Laughlin, tells the judge that he wants to call President Harry S. When Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, and began the war, Gillars, an Ohio native, had been living in Germany for five years, and she chose to remain even after the last Americans departed the Nazi-run country. In , the German state radio network hired Gillars, who started as a disc jockey and became a master propagandist for the Nazis while her lover, Max Otto Koischwitz , protected her. Gillars became the personification of Nazi propaganda to American soldiers, who called her Axis Sally.

Mildred elizabeth gillars

It was and Axis Sally was, once again, on the air. Shortwave radio enthusiast Richard Lucas, doing promotional work for his new book on the infamous American broadcaster employed by the Nazis, did a double take when he saw her name surface, via Google Alert, on a neo-Nazi website. So it started to worry me quite a bit. Years earlier, Lucas had come across an online trove of the real broadcasts hosted by Axis Sally, whose messages were scripted by her married German lover to sow discord in the American armed forces and the homefront during the war. A freelance writer, Lucas used the recordings as an opportunity to dive into the true story of the woman behind the name, one Mildred Gillars. He combed through declassified federal documents and newspaper archives to write the first full-length biography on Axis Sally and her Reich Radio broadcasts—programs that ultimately made Gillars one of the few people ever convicted for treason in the United States. People are not black and white; there are all kinds of tradeoffs that lead them to become who they are. Lucas is currently working on his next book about journalist and broadcaster Dorothy Thompson. For her part, Gillars vacillated easily between playing hot swing-era, big-band hits and denouncing the Jews, Franklin Roosevelt and the British on air. Growing up, she had dreams of becoming an actress. Success never came. By the age of 31, disillusioned by her lack of theatrical success in New York, she followed a British-born man Jewish, as it happened to his posting in Algiers, where it appears that they were lovers, says Lucas. After mother and daughter met up in Budapest, the women traveled on, fatefully, to Berlin.

Retrieved October 20,

Following her capture in post-war Berlin , Gillars became the first woman to be convicted of treason against the United States. Along with Rita Zucca she was nicknamed " Axis Sally ". At 16, she moved to Conneaut, Ohio with her family. Gillars then moved to Greenwich Village , New York City, where she worked in various low-skilled jobs to finance drama lessons. She toured with stock companies and appeared in vaudeville but she was unable to establish a theatrical career.

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. 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. One was the willing mouthpiece of her mentor and lover, while the other collaborated with the Nazis for financial gain. But both women became enmeshed in the collective memory of American soldiers and sailors as one indelible figure: Axis Sally. They, like the women who broadcast for Japan under the name Tokyo Rose in the Pacific theater, entertained their audience despite ham-handed attempts to break the morale of Allied soldiers. I think the effect is directly opposite. We get an enormous bang out of her. We love her.

Mildred elizabeth gillars

Nicknamed "Axis Sally" by her American soldier listeners, she was found guilty of treason in a United States court after the war and spent twelve years in prison. Gillars was born on November 29, She was born as Mildred Elizabeth Sisk in Portland, Maine, to Mae Hewitson Sisk, a painter, and Vincent Sisk, an indifferent husband and father who didn't cherish the idea of having children. When Gillars was seven years old, her father abandoned the small family. When she was eleven, her name was changed to Mildred Gillars, after her mother officially divorced Vincent Sisk and married Dr. Robert Bruce Gillars, a dentist. The family eventually moved to Ohio. As a child, Gillars displayed exceptional talent as a pianist. She was capable of memorizing compositions by the time she was five years old.

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When Gillars was seven years old, her father abandoned the small family. She took time in to attend the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Essentially, that translated into providing listeners with news and views slanted toward the Nazi Party line, as her material was in part prepared by Josef Goebbels and other high-ranking German officials. Gill, Zillah Smith — Retrieved February 29, Still, Gillars demonstrated a resourceful deviousness that greatly offended the stateside audience and the U. Six other World War II radio broadcasters tried for treason had been sentenced to life in prison. ISSN X. American Antiquarian Society. March 7, She managed to obtain the names, serial numbers and hometown information of wounded and captured U.

Mildred 'Axis Sally' Gillars taunted U. Her program was filled with hateful rhetoric directed against U. President Franklin D.

Authorship was attributed to the late Koischewitz. Casemate Publishers. Accounts by U. Archived from the original on November 6, Love is indeed blind… I think she got caught in the mess and brainwashed. Gill, Mary Gabriel — Midge at the Mike Axis Sally. Archived from the original on February 25, Axis Sally, in custody at U. She threatened us! Later, with financial assistance from her grandmother, she enrolled at Hunter College in New York.