Counter Intelligence Corps Arrests Axis Sally, 14 March 1946

By Lori S. TaggMarch 13, 2015

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(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

Fort Huachuca, Arizona - As early as June 1945, she was one of many American citizens living abroad wanted for questioning by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) for treasonous radio broadcasts originating from Germany. Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) agents diligently searched for her, using only a physical description. Tips came in. A young girl had seen a woman fitting the description riding the subway. An antiques dealer said he bought her coffee table.

On March 14, 1946, agents of the 970th Counter Intelligence Corps finally located and arrested "Axis Sally." She had managed to evade authorities for nearly a year by living under a false name and purchasing food and supplies on the black market. When told that she would face a treason trial in the US, she reportedly replied, "My conscience is clear and I don't have anything to hide."

Axis Sally's actual name was Mildred Elizabeth Gillars. Born in 1900, she attended Ohio Wesleyan University and majored in theater, dreaming of becoming a stage actress. In 1935, Gillars moved to Berlin, Germany, and took a job as an English teacher at the Berlitz School of Languages. Soon thereafter, she accepted a job as an announcer with Radio Berlin and signed an oath of allegiance to Nazi Germany.

During the war, Radio Berlin broadcast her program "Home Sweet Home" throughout the European theater and the United States. Midge, as she called herself, interspersed popular American music with Nazi propaganda to undermine the morale of American Soldiers and "to depict the horrors of war to her listeners." She teased Soldiers about their concern for the families they left at home and also incited fear in the US by announcing the names, serial numbers, and hometowns of captured or wounded Soldiers.

On May 11, 1944, Gillars broadcast a play titled "Vision of Invasion." Playing the role of an American mother, Gillars dreamed that her son, part of the Allied invasion force, died when the ship carrying him across the English Channel burned and sank. The play included realistic sound effects of gunfire and the cries of the wounded and the pronouncement that D in D-Day stood for doom and death.

Little did Gillars know, the US Federal Communications Commission in Maryland had been monitoring and recording her broadcasts, and the FBI and US Department of Justice had classified them as psychological warfare. They began building their case, but could not apprehend Gillars until the war ended. By then, locating her was problematic. The Department of Justice asked the CIC to assist.

The CIC's official history gave an account of their investigation. Agents determined that she was in the Berlin area; she had been seen in restaurants, beauty shops, and other stores. To make money, she was selling her property, which she had scattered in the homes of her friends living throughout the city. To catch her, the CIC requested German police station themselves inside the homes of all her friends. They concentrated on the Kurfurstendamm area, in particular, where sightings of her were most common. "With thoroughness, agents combed the commercial shops until an antique store was located which contained a piece of furniture believed to belong to Gillars." CIC agents were able to coax the address of the seller from the store owner. They waiting three hours at her apartment for her return, at which time she was placed under arrest.

Axis Sally was held by Army authorities in Germany until December 1946. She was then released pending the outcomes of trials of two other American citizens with similar counts of treason. Justice Department officials felt they needed more time to properly develop a case against her. Just one month later, the Justice Department requested that the Army again take her into custody and, in November 1947, asked the CIC to further assist in the investigation by finding witnesses against her. The Army retained her in custody until August 20, 1948, when she was flown to the United States to stand trial.

When she went to trial in early 1949, recordings of her broadcasts became the most damning evidence against her. Additionally, a number of Soldiers testified that she had impersonated a Red Cross worker in Paris hospitals and German prisoner of war camps and convinced them to record messages to their families. She then altered the messages with pro-Nazi sentiments before broadcasting them.

After a six-week trial, a jury convicted Gillars of treason primarily because of her "Vision of Invasion" play. She was sentenced to 10-30 years in the Federal Women's Reformatory in West Virginia and fined $10,000. After 12 years, she was paroled. Mildred Gillars passed away in 1988.

Gillars was not the only "Axis Sally." Rita Zucca, an Italian-American, conducted similar broadcasts from various locations in Italy, targeting Allied troops in Italy and North Africa. American Soldiers referred to both women as "Axis Sally". Because Zucca had renounced her American citizenship upon moving to Italy, attempts to convict her of treason were unsuccessful, but she was banned from returning to the US. Iva Toguri D'Aquino, or Tokyo Rose, served more than six years of her 10-year sentence for treason, but was pardoned by President Gerald Ford in 1977 because of inconsistencies during her trial.