Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany (22 page)
Read Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany Online
Authors: Richard Lucas
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Bisac Code 1: BIO022000, #Biography, #History
Ely and McCrae asked about a play she recorded prior to the Allied invasion of France. Mildred was particularly proud of her performance in
Vision of Invasion
and even told her questioners that she hoped that there was a copy of the recording back in the United States. The original recording on a magnetic band was destroyed during the frantic retreat from Paris in August 1944 and she was concerned that her best acting had been lost to posterity. Never thinking that her participation as an actress in a dramatic work penned by another could be construed as an act of treason, she made it clear to the CIC that it was considered some of her best work—by herself and her Nazi masters. She told Ely and McCue that Radio Berlin paid the actors more for that play than for any other show of its kind.
The questioning turned to her motives. Her cooperation waned as the questions became accusatory and damning:
| | | Q | | All [programs] to the United States were aimed at making people dissatisfied with the war and an effort to make them think the United States was on the wrong side and to make the boys dissatisfied who were in the army. They all had that purpose in mind? 287 |
Fixing a stare on the interrogators, she fell silent. The interview was over.
Exhausted and her health failing, she was treated in the Camp Wannsee hospital for three weeks, including one week in the psychiatric ward. Her confinement was difficult, with inedible food and substandard living conditions. She recalled, “The bathroom door could not even be closed… with an armed guard outside.”
288
In July, she was transferred to the Oberursel Internment Camp near Frankfurt am Main. The conditions at Oberursel were not much better. During one meal, an inspection officer came to the table and asked the prisoners about the conditions. Mildred and Donald Day complained about the quality of the food in the mess hall. When the inspector left, they were rewarded for their cooperation with two weeks in solitary confinement.
Mildred and her mother, Mae Gillars, circa 1909.
Mildred as a teenager.
Young Mildred in her first communion dress.
All photos courtesy of the Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library
Mildred Gillars as an actress and showgirl.
Courtesy of the Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library
A young Mildred Gillars performs in Ohio Wesleyan University’s production of "Mrs. Dane’s Defense" in December 1920.
Ohio Wesleyan Historical Collection
Charles M. Newcomb was the Professor of Oratory at Ohio Wesleyan who encouraged young Mildred to pursue acting.
Le Bijou 1919, Courtesy: Ohio Wesleyan University Historical Collection, Ohio Wesleyan University Archives, Delaware, Ohio
Mildred at “the height of her theatrical career,” in the outfit worn in the Gertrude Vanderbilt show in Washington, a musical comedy which played at the old Belasco Theatre in the early 20’s.
Courtesy of the Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library
Calvin “Kelly” Elliott was engaged to Mildred Gillars while at Ohio Wesleyan University. He later became an interior decorator but never recovered from the loss of his college sweetheart.
Le Bijou 1919, Courtesy: Ohio Wesleyan University Historical Collection, Ohio Wesleyan University Archives, Delaware, Ohio
Mildred Gillars working as an “artist’s model” in New York, circa 1928.
Library of Congress
Mildred Gillars rides a tractor in Algiers, 1933. She first traveled to the country as the companion of an English-Jewish diplomat, though later claimed otherwise.
Courtesy of the Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library