Mildred elizabeth gillars

Mildred 'Axis Sally' Gillars taunted U. Her program was filled with hateful rhetoric directed against U. President Franklin D. Her radio broadcasts were heard not only by U.

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.

Mildred elizabeth gillars

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. Gillars was known for having a soothing voice in her broadcasts but saying cruel and menacing things, like taunting American GIs about whether their wives and girlfriends were cheating on them back at home, and about the horrible deaths the men were likely to meet on the battlefield. She also made hateful comments about President Franklin D. Girls, watch out! After the fall of Berlin and the end of the war, Gillars pretended to be a refugee but was captured by American authorities. At her trial, Gillars stood by everything she did. She insisted she was a paid performer and not a traitor, and that she remained a patriotic American. Yet on March 10, , a jury convicted Gillars on only one of eight counts of treason and sentenced her to 10 to 30 years in prison. In January of , Gillars, who had converted to Catholicism while in prison, was paroled.

Goebbels no doubt believed that Sally is rapidly undermining the morale of the American doughboy.

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.

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.

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.

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Gillars was known for having a soothing voice in her broadcasts but saying cruel and menacing things, like taunting American GIs about whether their wives and girlfriends were cheating on them back at home, and about the horrible deaths the men were likely to meet on the battlefield. Love is indeed blind… I think she got caught in the mess and brainwashed. Gilland, Steve n E. Axis Sally Gillars guilty of treason today Most of the people who knew how to do radio, the dramatists, they left Germany by and went into exile. Gill, Nancy E. To earn extra money, Gillars tutored students at a nearby high school where her new superiors credited her teaching with raising former D grades to A status. Remarkably, Gillars survived the brutal Battle of Berlin from April 16 to May 2, , but remained silent until her death as to possibly being raped by Red Army soldiers. I think the effect is directly opposite. Later, she found work tutoring local high school students and finally graduated from Ohio Wesleyan, fittingly with a degree in speech. Among other things, Zucca had discussed military intelligence on her programs in an attempt to confuse the advancing Allied troops. She showed up at her trial with her long, silver hair tied back with a black bow and the color of her clothes accented by a bouquet of bright red roses, as if at a Hollywood movie premiere rather than a criminal arraignment for treason. In , Koischwitz cast Gillars in a new show called Home Sweet Home and included her in his political broadcasts. It was even beamed into the United States. Robert Bruce Gillars, a dentist.

It was and Axis Sally was, once again, on the air.

American Antiquarian Society. Archived from the original on October 26, Congress in prewar America, even as her radio predictions started coming true. The show was specifically aimed at American troops stationed in England who would take part in the large-scale military operation. Sent to the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia, Gillars quickly settled into prison life again, but because of her superior airs she was generally disliked by her fellow inmates. Counter-intelligence headquarters in Berlin, Germany, March 21, Gillespie, Angus Kress. She was a lifelong citizen of the United States despite having sworn in writing an oath to German leader Adolf Hitler on December 9, , under later alleged duress, just two days before Nazi Germany declared war on America. They also argued that she was under the hypnotic influence of Koischwitz and therefore not fully responsible for her actions until after his death. Jacqueline Mansky is a freelance writer and editor living in Los Angeles.