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Authors: Richard Lucas
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military intelligence over the air, she would shoulder the blame for both women. When an American soldier heard Axis Sally broadcast their supposedly secret location at Anzio, Como and a score of other places on the Italian peninsula, he likely heard Rita Zucca rather than Mildred Gillars. Mildred was remarkably prescient when she threatened resignation in 1944 because of Rita Zucca’s use of her moniker. The victorious Americans would not care which Axis Sally or Tokyo Rose actually made the most vicious or treasonous statements. The women who “played the Axis game” would have to pay for their crimes. It would prove to be uneven, inexact justice all around.
With one Axis Sally evading American law, the Justice Department was doubly determined to locate other employees of Reichsradio. The CIC dispatched Special Agent Hans Wintzen to Berlin to search for the woman who would replace Rita Zucca as the embodiment of Axis Sally in the minds of the American public. Wintzen knew that the shrewd, self-assured mother in the custody of the IV Army Corps was not the only female voice that FCC radio monitors at Silver Hill had intercepted night after night.
In August 1945, the search was on but the CIC had only one lead. Raymond Kurtz, a B-17 pilot who had been shot down and captured by the Germans recalled that he was told that the woman who had visited his prison camp was Midge of Midge at the Mike . Kurtz remembered that the woman used an alias: Barbara Mome. 272 A “Wanted” poster went up in all occupied sectors of Berlin.
On March 4, 1946, CIC received a tip that she had been seen in the British Sector. Wintzen had a plan: the fugitive had distributed her property among friends across the city. As a person without identification papers, she would have to purchase food through the black market. Barbara Mome was selling her property at various antique shops on consignment to obtain hard currency. Wintzen decided to keep an eye on those shops. Certain that she would eventually emerge from hiding to collect her money or reclaim the property, he believed it was only a matter of time before she would be caught.
After weeks of waiting and watching, Wintzen received a tip from a former neighbor that “Barbara” had left some belongings in a basement storeroom adjacent to her former apartment at 7 Bonnerstrasse. Agent Wintzen questioned the building superintendent and was told that the American had asked for her possessions to be stored away in a safe place when she left the apartment for the last time. Wintzen and the superintendent walked into the storeroom to find seven acetate records containing full programs featuring the voice of Axis Sally. 273 The discovery, if admissible in court, would prove to be a treasure trove of evidence against her. The storeroom also contained an expired US passport—showing her real name—that had been in the possession of her Nazi Party block leader.
Wintzen interviewed her neighbors, friends and colleagues and asked about her “habits, behavior and other little peculiarities.” He reported:
Gillars had actually visited some of these people subsequent to May 1945 and had picked up or deposited some of her property with various ones among them.… [She] revealed absolutely nothing to them concerning her present address, her present activities, where she was going to or coming from, or exactly what other people she was in the habit of visiting. 274
The CIC compiled a list of addresses visited by Mildred since May 1945 and set up twenty-four-hour surveillance on those places. When agents were not available, German police were used to stake out the homes. CIC received tips that she had been seen at “different restaurants, beauty shops and other business establishments” in the Kurfurstendamm section of Berlin. The tips helped to narrow down the search to a small section of the city.
The investigation hit pay dirt when the agents found a small table that had belonged to Mildred in an
With one Axis Sally evading American law, the Justice Department was doubly determined to locate other employees of Reichsradio. The CIC dispatched Special Agent Hans Wintzen to Berlin to search for the woman who would replace Rita Zucca as the embodiment of Axis Sally in the minds of the American public. Wintzen knew that the shrewd, self-assured mother in the custody of the IV Army Corps was not the only female voice that FCC radio monitors at Silver Hill had intercepted night after night.
In August 1945, the search was on but the CIC had only one lead. Raymond Kurtz, a B-17 pilot who had been shot down and captured by the Germans recalled that he was told that the woman who had visited his prison camp was Midge of Midge at the Mike . Kurtz remembered that the woman used an alias: Barbara Mome. 272 A “Wanted” poster went up in all occupied sectors of Berlin.
On March 4, 1946, CIC received a tip that she had been seen in the British Sector. Wintzen had a plan: the fugitive had distributed her property among friends across the city. As a person without identification papers, she would have to purchase food through the black market. Barbara Mome was selling her property at various antique shops on consignment to obtain hard currency. Wintzen decided to keep an eye on those shops. Certain that she would eventually emerge from hiding to collect her money or reclaim the property, he believed it was only a matter of time before she would be caught.
After weeks of waiting and watching, Wintzen received a tip from a former neighbor that “Barbara” had left some belongings in a basement storeroom adjacent to her former apartment at 7 Bonnerstrasse. Agent Wintzen questioned the building superintendent and was told that the American had asked for her possessions to be stored away in a safe place when she left the apartment for the last time. Wintzen and the superintendent walked into the storeroom to find seven acetate records containing full programs featuring the voice of Axis Sally. 273 The discovery, if admissible in court, would prove to be a treasure trove of evidence against her. The storeroom also contained an expired US passport—showing her real name—that had been in the possession of her Nazi Party block leader.
Wintzen interviewed her neighbors, friends and colleagues and asked about her “habits, behavior and other little peculiarities.” He reported:
Gillars had actually visited some of these people subsequent to May 1945 and had picked up or deposited some of her property with various ones among them.… [She] revealed absolutely nothing to them concerning her present address, her present activities, where she was going to or coming from, or exactly what other people she was in the habit of visiting. 274
The CIC compiled a list of addresses visited by Mildred since May 1945 and set up twenty-four-hour surveillance on those places. When agents were not available, German police were used to stake out the homes. CIC received tips that she had been seen at “different restaurants, beauty shops and other business establishments” in the Kurfurstendamm section of Berlin. The tips helped to narrow down the search to a small section of the city.
The investigation hit pay dirt when the agents found a small table that had belonged to Mildred in an
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