Berlin Calling: American Broadcasters in Service to the Third Reich

by John Carver Edwards

Expatriates posing as detached yet patriotic American commentators, & using the news-of-the-day voice of the stereotypical radio announcer, sought to turn U.S. opinion against the British & achieve the political objectives of their media-savvy employer--master propagandist Paul Josef Goebbels. Biographies in "Berlin Calling" put real names & faces behind the voices of The Georgia Peach, Mr OK, Paul Revere etc. Were they motivated by antipathy towards New Deal programs or were they simply hucksters in search of a payroll check? Ten years of historical research have culminated in a landmark book with intriguing answers to these puzzling questions.
Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of America's entry into WWII, this volume chronicles the careers of eight USA Zone commentators who worked for Nazi propagandist Goebbels. Drawing upon a variety of documentary sources--letters written by the subjects to family, friends & colleagues; treason trial transcripts; the contents of the BBC's wartime monitoring service; & FBI case files on the broadcasters--the author explores each broadcaster's political & personal motivations, & the influence of their broadcasts.

Genres: History

251 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 1991

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

“The marginal man… lives on the margin of two cultures— that of the country of his parents and that of the country of his adoption, in neither of which he is quite at home.” - Robert E Park

So -- Germany instituted a short-wave radio service aimed at Americans, the North American Service, as early as 1933. Who knew? Not me. This book contains a good overview of the North American Service, but the bulk of the work is made up of a series of essays chronicling the individual lives of some of the Americans who were employed as broadcasters for this service, both before and during the Second World War. For the most part, as can be expected, their life stories end “raggedly” (I think that was the word the author used).

In fact this book was recommended to me as a way of refining a fictional character of my own creation, and otherwise I might have never heard of this curious bunch of people. But that painful description of “the marginal man” does apply to me as well as an ex-pat -- something I notice every time I go “home” -- that there is no longer any place on the planet where I am not a foreigner. My children have citizenship of two countries and can legally find work pretty much anywhere on three continents. But none of us obviously belongs anywhere, with our muddled accents and outsiders’ attitudes.

I can’t endorse the beliefs of the peculiar group of Americans described in this book, but I can certainly relate to their sense of displacement. I was particularly fascinated by the stories of Constance Drexel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constanc... ) and Jane Anderson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_And... ). The treason charge against Drexel was ultimately dropped; Anderson’s positive take on Facism was formulated by a month of imprisonment, torture and a death sentence visited on her by the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. Interesting and brave people, if delusional.

[RYD · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a history of the American broadcasters who took to the radio waves on behalf of Nazi Germany during World War II. It is a fascinating subject, but this book is pretty dry and doesn't offer a lot of insight into the motivations and pathos of those who betrayed their country.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The definitive book. Great reading.....

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is basically a series of biographies of US citizens who served in the German shortwave radio service during the Nazi era, beaming English-language propaganda broadcasts overseas in order to serve German interests. Apparently they had little influence, but the focus here is on their life stories, their diverse motives and their ultimate fates, not of the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda.

[Steven Spector · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed look at the US-born Nazi broadcasters of yesterday. Most interesting is the period leading up to the broadcasts of each subject and the fact that not all broadcasters were dyed-in-the-wool Nazis. Some were opportunists hoping to catch on with an up-and-coming ideology. A very interesting read, although the author's need to opine on the subjects' mental state, foolishness, and general lack of intelligence was superfluous thanks to conclusions easily drawn by the reader.