Shortly after arriving in New York, he gained a reputation as a prolific writer and entertaining lecturer. In 1926, he married a Swissborn governess named Erna (Bea) Keller who would bear him three daughters. By the time he was appointed to a full-time position as an assistant professor in 1928, he was already one of Hunter’s most popular instructors. The couple resided in Sunnyside, Queens where Erna kept house and raised the children while Koischwitz wrote and taught. The young professor also had a reputation for pursuing the female students who frequently idolized him.
John Carver Edwards, in his book Berlin Calling, described the demise of Koischwitz’s academic career in the United States. Before 1933, he was known to be an enthusiastic mentor to Jewish students. He even unsuccessfully recommended one Jewish student for foreign study in Germany. When word of the persecution of Jews started to leak out of Germany shortly after Hitler became Chancellor, Koischwitz angrily denounced such repression to his class. Over the course of the next few years, however, he grew to support the new order ever more vocally.
According to Edwards, the theme of the preservation of German “blood and soil” was prevalent in Koischwitz’s writings long before the Nazi accession to power. Recurring trips back to his native land reinforced his deepening conversion to National Socialism. However, his changing political views did not interfere with his efforts to become a naturalized American citizen. In 1935, he took the oath to become a US citizen, effectively removing any danger of deportation for his increasingly unpopular political views.
The timing of his naturalization was fortuitous because it was in 1935 that he came to the attention of the popular newspaper columnist and radio personality Walter Winchell. Winchell, one of the most powerful journalists in the United States, and Jewish, did not hesitate to point to Koischwitz as an example of Nazi infiltration into higher learning. The professor strenuously denied Winchell’s accusations. Now a newly minted US citizen, Koischwitz returned to Germany in 1935 and again in 1937 for “study”—each time without Erna and the children, without fear of being denied re-entry.135
Mildred would later attribute his repeated trips to Germany to his “love for the land.”
He loved his country very, very much, with a depth that I have seldom seen in another human being, and the soil of Germany was precious to him. He loved the mountains with the intensity that a man may love a woman.… The German landscape pulled him back every year.136
Essentially an economic migrant to America, Koischwitz’s loyalty to the United States was virtually non-existent. It was at the time of his frequent trips to Germany that Koischwitz aroused the interest of anti-Fascist groups who took note of his use of the classroom as a platform for his political views. Koischwitz peppered his lectures with pro-Nazi rhetoric, much to the dismay of the Hunter student body, faculty and administration. By 1939, it had become increasingly difficult for the college administration to defend him and his views. Only the Chairman of the German Department, Adolphe Büsse, championed his cause in the name of “academic freedom.”
In the classroom, students who challenged his ideas were either harangued or ignored.137 Despite his naturalization and the administration’s repeated attempts to defend Koischwitz in the name of “academic liberty,” Hunter College did not grant him a full professorship. Instead, he was tenured as an Assistant Professor in 1938, the same year he was feted by the student body as the “Outstanding Professor of 1938.” Koischwitz saw the slight as an effort to stall his career prospects and to punish him for his unpopular political views. The tension between Hunter and Koischwitz came to a head a year later when the undergraduate newspaper condemned Fascism in its pages and challenged all members of the German Department to publicly do the same. Chairman Büsse and Koischwitz both refused. The anti-Fascist American Council against Nazi Propaganda wrote to Hunter College President George N. Shuster, warning that Koischwitz was a subversive and/or foreign agent, and that it had photo static copies of his activities. Shuster responded that Koischwitz was solely guilty of “Hitlerite sympathies” rather than outright subversion.138
The Anti-Nazi League also petitioned New York State’s Department of Education regarding the Professor, stating that “whether, under the circumstances, he is a fit person to remain a teacher of youth in the City of New York, is we believe, of major importance, particularly at this time when Nazi-inspired incitements of racial hatred and fratricidal strife are so much to the fore.”139
Hunter finally granted Koischwitz an unpaid six-month leave of absence to return again to Germany, effective as of September 1, 1939, the day that Hitler’s armies invaded Poland. Although he was scheduled to return on January 31, 1940, it was apparent from the farewell party given by friends and colleagues that the leave might well be permanent. Unlike his other journeys, his wife and three daughters joined him. His staunchest supporter at Hunter, Chairman Büsse, also fled the US for Germany to live with his daughter and her husband—a Nazi official.
Within months, Koischwitz was reported to be living in Denmark on the German border awaiting the opportunity to re-enter the United States (Erna and the children remained in Germany). When the Professor returned to Berlin, he was hired almost immediately by the Foreign Office to work for the English service of the German Overseas Radio. The Hour, a newsletter devoted to identifying Fascist and Nazi fifth-columnists in the United States, speculated that the Professor feared American justice:
The proper authorities in the United States were preparing to take action with regard to his Nazi propagandistic activities if and when he returned. Photo static evidence of his activities, collected by The Hour, was kept ready for such action. Perhaps learning of the impending action, and needed by Hitler in the Scandinavian countries and the Nazi Reich, Assistant Professor Otto Koischwitz chose not to return.140
Three days before his official resignation from Hunter took effect, Koischwitz made his debut broadcast as Reichsradio’s newest acquisition, “Mr. O.K.” (A.k.a. Dr. Anders).141 By June 1940 he was the host of The College Hour, O.K. Speaks and other “educational” programs.142 The educational series was aimed at young people of college age and mixed the Professor’s extensive knowledge of German literature and history with a healthy dose of National Socialist opinion.
As Koischwitz’s career blossomed as a radio personality, and eventually into a position as the Foreign Office’s chief liaison to Reichsradio, Mildred’s responsibilities increased. In 1941 she became the host of Club of Notions, a music and variety program produced by the Overseas Service that was heard frequently in the US.
Supported by the Lutz Templin Orchestra and other combos, she introduced big band hits and standards played live in the studio. After years of working to survive and pursue her career as an actress, she was employed in a position where she was well liked and respected for her work. As her duties increased, she emerged from the poverty that characterized most of her adult life into a comfortable financial existence.
While walking through the halls of the Big House on her way to the Sender Bremen studios in late 1940, she encountered Professor Koischwitz for the first time since their radio plays. Stopping the shapely American woman he teased, “It’s not very nice of you to never have any time for my fireside chats.”
Replying that she was unaware of his talks, she responded in kind: “[I] thanked him for his interest, and told him he’d never asked me.”
“I’d like to go on record now as having asked,” Koischwitz flirtatiously responded.143 Although she was attracted to the scholar, whom she described as “gallant” and “charming,” Mildred did not see him again socially until December 1942.
Without a Country
As the United States became more deeply involved in aiding Britain in its war effort, Mildred’s position in Germany became increasingly precarious. She was walking a tightrope between her status as citizen of a “neutral” nation and German government employee. Throughout 1940, she had kept her US papers in order, applying for permission to stay in Ger
many five days after being hired. Failing to state that she was an employee of the German government, she instead swore that she was still Brigitte Horney’s personal assistant.
In the spring of 1941, she brought her passport to be renewed by the United States consulate in Berlin. She approached a consular secretary and mentioned in an offhand manner that she was working for the German Radio. “I didn’t see anything wrong with it,” she claimed.144 The secretary asked her to return the following day. It was there that Mildred encountered a vice consul named Vaughn who brusquely “snatched” the passport out of her hand. Angered by her reluctance to be repatriated to America in the face of the coming war, she claimed the official took the passport, threw it into his desk drawer and refused to return it to her.
“He just snatched it from me so violently that I knew there was something wrong,” she remembered in 1949. “I even wanted to get it back, and he opened a drawer in a great hurry, and the passport just disappeared in the drawer, and the drawer was shut and that was that.”145 The vice consul had been tipped off by the secretary about the true nature of her work and reclaimed the passport. Mildred was nonplussed. “He offered no explanation. That’s why I couldn’t understand his very gruff and uncivil manner,” she recalled.146 With only a receipt for the passport, she walked out of the consulate with little proof of her American citizenship.
Embassy personnel in Berlin were inundated by American citizens attempting to leave Germany at the outbreak of war, as well as droves of Jewish refugees seeking asylum from their Nazi tormentors. William Russell, in his 1941 memoir of his experiences at the American Embassy in Berlin, described the animus felt by the consul personnel for the Nazi regime:
I think there is no decent American living who could have worked in our Berlin immigration section without acquiring a deep hatred for the government which drove these people like cattle from unfriendly consulate to unfriendly consulate, from blocked border to blocked border. Nothing was too petty for the mighty German government so long as it could do some harm to a harried Jew.147
The Vice Consul was revolted by the sight of an American citizen requesting an extension to her passport in order to further aid that detested government. The level of repression against Jews had increased exponentially since the beginning of the war, and was common knowledge among Berliners. Dr. Goebbels, in his role as Gauleiter (regional party leader) of the capital city, demanded draconian measures against the remaining 70,000 Jews still in Berlin as of 1940 (19,000 of which still had some kind of employment).148 Ostensibly angered by the fact that returning front-line soldiers could witness Jews freely roaming the streets of the Reich, he beseeched Hitler to order their immediate deportation to the East. However, a lack of transport and the need for Jewish labor in war-related industries postponed such an effort.
Goebbels was undaunted in his effort to show the remaining Jews no mercy. On September 1, 1941, the decree was issued that the yellow Star of David be worn in public at all times throughout the Greater Reich. By October, Jews were required to have special permission to ride public transportation. On December 21, 1941, a further decree forbade Jews from using public telephones. Early 1942 brought the expropriation of Jewish private property designated by the state as “luxury goods,” and in April they were forbidden to ride subways and buses altogether. The average Berliner could not help but notice the stage being set for the complete removal of Jews from their midst.
Despite her willingness to remain and witness the repression, Mildred was not immune from the suspicion of the German authorities. Shortly after the confiscation of her papers, an acquaintance mentioned that the Gestapo was investigating her presence in Berlin:
I was told by someone that I’d come to the attention of the secret service… this woman told me I must never breathe it to anyone… she told me to see a certain Major Denner at a certain address—that he would see me privately. [The woman] said that he would give any kind of passport if you will do espionage work.
When I met him he was very charming. He said, “What kind of papers have you?” I said, “Well, I have none.” He asked, “Don’t you think we’re rather generous to let you run around without papers?” I told him “yes.” He asked me if I didn’t realize the danger I was in. I said “yes.”
Denner made her an offer. She would be given a passport and funds if she would agree to participate in an effort to land German agents on American shores for the purpose of sabotage. Denner questioned her knowledge of American defense industries and, noting that she came from Ohio, wanted to know about the Wright Airplane Works in Dayton. She refused, telling Denner “I want you know that though I work for the German radio, I would not—even if it meant my death—do anything against my country.”149 Still under the delusion that her function as an announcer was not a compromising or disloyal act, she remained adamant that there was a distinct difference between being a performer and being a traitor.150
Although Mildred would later insist that she had no money at the time to return to the US, and claimed that she would face certain poverty in America, her friend Erwin Christiani told American interrogators of another reason for her stubborn insistence on remaining in Germany:
At the time, as the USA were going to come into the war, there was given occasion to all American citizens living in Berlin to leave Germany. Miss Gillars was, at that time, in full desperation because she wanted to return to her home country, and on the other hand, she could not. She had a big confidence in me, so she told me private things, which she will never tell to the Court.151
By late 1941, Mildred had become involved with Dr. Paul Karlson, an Estonia-born physicist and chemist:
The main reason was that she was in love [with] a certain German Natural Philosopher, who had declared that he wanted to marry her. This man told her that if she would return to America, he would never marry her.152
Karlson, who had become a German citizen, was not about to abandon his adopted home to go to America with the 39-year-old exactress. Christiani, a radio technician who befriended Mildred when she began working at Sender Bremen, was asked for his advice. He told US military interrogators, “I said to her that if she were really sure her friend would marry her, it would be better for her future if she would remain in Germany, as she had no relations in the USA.”153-4 Christiani pointed out that her advanced age and diminishing marriage prospects played a central role in her decision rather than political conviction.
As the final boats boarded to evacuate Americans from Nazi Germany, Mildred chose to remain in the hope of a marriage proposal that would never come. Karlson had reportedly been conscripted and sent to the Eastern Front, leaving without asking her to marry. She would become increasingly dependent on her employers at the broadcasting house and especially on Otto Koischwitz—a dependence that would become total on December 7, 1941.
Pearl Harbor
Mildred was working in the studio when the news was broadcast that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. America’s entry into the war was imminent. Stunned, she broke down in front of her colleagues. She loudly denounced the Japanese and became hysterical. “I told them what I thought about Japan and that the Germans would soon find out about them,” she recalled. “The shock was terrific. I lost all discretion and I went back to my apartment.”155 Angered by the turn of events and trapped in a situation that she could not escape, she committed an offense that could have resulted in immediate arrest and deportation to a concentration camp. Her situation had changed dramatically. She was no longer the representative of a neutral power whose sympathies were merely questionable, but an enemy national. At her apartment that evening, she received a phone call from a monitor at the station who told her not to report to work the next day and advised, “You had better stay in bed.”156
Her outburst did not go unnoticed by the management of Reichs radio. Johannes Schmidt-Hansen called her into his office to discipline her for her remarks about Germany’s ally in the Far East. What happened next would become an object of
controversy. According to Mildred, Schmidt-Hansen demanded that she sign an oath of allegiance to the German Reich. Faced with the prospect of joblessness or possible deportation to a prison camp, she felt that she had no choice but to produce an oath.
“I knew what the results would have to be,” she said later, “and I could see by the hardness in his flinty eyes at that moment that it would be best of all to leave and make my decision somewhere else, and I did leave his office.”157 It was clear from their conversation that she could not return to work without her signature on an oath of allegiance. She phoned Karlson and explained her plight:
I phoned him and went, having said I have something very serious to discuss with him, which I did not care to discuss on the phone, because you could not know if your phone was being watched. I talked to him and his mother and one of his sisters who was there, and then they retired after we had a cup of tea, and we went into the library, and he sat down at the typewriter and wrote in German what I submitted then the next day to Mr. Schmidt-Hansen… something to the effect that: I swear my allegiance to Germany, and signed Mildred Gillars.158
She dropped the document off at Schmidt-Hansen’s office on December 9 and returned to work. One day later, Hitler declared war on the United States.
Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany Page 8