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The story of
a woman’s shame and atonement and her choice
to live out the rest of her days in the very
country she betrayed
Havertown PA, February 8, 2011 - Axis
Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany
(Casemate Publishers ISBN:
978-1-935149-43-9) by Richard Lucas
is the true story of Mildred Gillars,
the Maine-born, Ohio-bred woman who went to
Hitler’s Germany in 1934 to study music and
fell in love with a German citizen. At the
outbreak of war in 1939, while the last
Americans returned home, Gillars elected to
stay in Germany hoping for marriage.
Although her fiancée died during the war, a
charming former Hunter College Professor
stepped into the breach. However, Max Otto
Koischwicz already had a wife and much
bigger plans for Gillars. He enlisted her in
the German overseas radio in Berlin where,
under his leadership, her position as a
simple announcer escalated into master
propagandist—becoming the messenger of Nazi
propaganda and doom to the American GI.
Gillars, a failed Broadway actress, learned
fast and used her sexy, soothing voice to
taunt troops about the supposed infidelities
of their wives and girlfriends back home, as
well as describing the horrible deaths they
were about to meet on the battlefield.
Backed by German military intelligence,
“Axis Sally” was able to convey personal
greetings to individual US units that
naturally caused anxiety among the troops
who felt the Germans knew exactly who and
where they were.
At the end of the war Gillars was captured
by the Americans after a failed attempt to
pose as a refugee. She was returned to the
U.S. to stand trial for the crime of
treason. Her 1949 trial captured the
attention of a nation whose memory of the
horrors of war was still fresh. After a
three-month trial, she was found guilty and
sentenced to 10–30 years. Paroled in 1961
after serving just 12 years, she quietly
spent the remainder of her life as a music
instructor in a Catholic Girl’s school in
Columbus, Ohio until her death in 1988.
Richard Lucas leaves no stone
unturned in telling this rich and compelling
story of Axis Sally—a woman who attempted to
rebuild her life in the country she
betrayed, after she had become one of the
most notorious Americans of the 20th
century!
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TIP SHEET:
• The first-ever non-fiction biography of
this famous yet little understood figure.
• 16 pages of photos cover Axis Sally’s life
from her childhood confirmation through her
days as a showgirl, to Germany, and finally
her prison in the US.
• An appendix with actual transcripts of
Axis Sally’s broadcasts.
• A selection of the Military and History
Book Clubs: “… Mildred Gillars was one of
the most notorious Americans of the 20th
century. With Axis Sally, Richard Lucas has
written a fascinating biography of this
reviled disseminator of Nazi
propaganda.…Axis Sally is a detail-rich,
compellingly readable look at this
mythologized figure of World War II.“
For more information please contact Tara
Lichterman at Casemate Publishing (610)
853-9131 Email: tara.lichterman@casematepublishing.com.
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