WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.159 --> 00:00:04.879 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today 2 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:08.480 I will be reading the Smithsonian magazine dated March twenty 3 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:12.039 twenty six. As a reminder, Radio Eye is a reading 4 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:14.960 service intended for people who are blind or have other 5 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:18.960 disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Please 6 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:22.280 join me now for part one of One of the 7 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:25.879 ally's secret weapons against the Nazis was a twenty one 8 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:28.960 year old woman armed with a microphone and a script 9 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:34.079 of flies as Vicki with three Kisses. She strategically sweet 10 00:00:34.119 --> 00:00:37.600 talked and sang to German troops over the airwaves of Europe. 11 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:42.439 But Agnes Bernauer didn't mean anything. She was saying, bye 12 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:50.159 April White. Her voice was low, sultry, Hallo Yung's hiberichvida 13 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:55.719 oi riviki mitrykusen. Hello boys, Here I am again your 14 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:59.920 Viki with three kisses. Even on nights when the radio 15 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:03.960 was filled with noise as Allied and Access forces attempted 16 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:08.400 to jam their enemy's broadcasts, the woman's meaning was unmistakable. 17 00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:11.799 She pursed her lips and sent a trio of smooches 18 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:16.400 across the airwaves. A German sailor listening to Vicki might 19 00:01:16.519 --> 00:01:19.840 imagine This was his girlfriend or wife, waiting at home, 20 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:23.120 as she had been for years while the war stretched 21 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.560 through the summer of nineteen forty four. For those with 22 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:29.640 no one to return to, The voice belonged to a 23 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:33.400 blond haired and blue eyed dream. Wouldn't it be nice 24 00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:35.719 if we could sit together now in a cozy little 25 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:39.040 cafe with a nice glass of rye wine, and we 26 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:42.840 gaze into each other's eyes so deep, so warm, she 27 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:47.280 cooed in an upper crust Berliner accent. She imagined a 28 00:01:47.400 --> 00:01:51.040 dance as a big band launched into I Love You Truly, 29 00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:56.760 the popular American song's lyrics song in German. Vicki was 30 00:01:56.840 --> 00:02:00.239 creating a fantasy world with her kisses while reminding the 31 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:03.760 men of the possibilities their real lives had held before 32 00:02:03.799 --> 00:02:08.000 they'd been ordered into cramped eue boats. Silently patrolling just 33 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:11.639 off the British coast line. Was the Nazi cause they 34 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:15.479 were fighting for Worth the sacrifices they had made? Was 35 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:18.520 it worth the sacrifice they might still be asked to make? 36 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:23.919 When the music faded, Vicki returned. Her words were sad, 37 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:27.759 Now we don't have much time left, and who knows 38 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:32.080 when and where we will see each other again. In 39 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:36.360 a radio studio forty miles north of London, the dark haired, 40 00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:39.960 dark eyed, half Jewish actress playing the role of VICKI 41 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:44.639 stepped away from the microphone. Although she had playfully asked 42 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:49.319 the question, Agnes Bernauer twenty one certainly hoped she would 43 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:52.719 never meet the likes of her listeners again. She had 44 00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:56.560 fled from the Nazis once before. Now she was fighting 45 00:02:56.599 --> 00:03:01.319 back with the war's newest weapon. Radio was still a 46 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:06.240 novel medium in the nineteen forties. Propagandists had plied their 47 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:11.039 trade during World War I through print. Now radio allowed 48 00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:15.039 them to reach deep into enemied territory, and since its start, 49 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:18.520 this new war had been a battle of the air waves. 50 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:21.960 The world was already familiar with what had become known 51 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:28.080 as white propaganda. Government information campaigns waged openly to energize 52 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:31.759 the home front and vilify the enemy. But World War 53 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:35.840 II saw the advent of the more insidious gray propaganda, 54 00:03:36.280 --> 00:03:39.520 efforts that disguised the source of the message but did 55 00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:45.039 not hide its insurgent intentions. It also birthed something darker still, 56 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:50.360 black propaganda, which deceived its audiences about its origins and 57 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:53.960 confused them. So thoroughly that they could not tell fact 58 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:59.599 from fiction. The Allies had not started this psychological warfare. 59 00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:03.919 Propaganda of any color was an uncomfortable tool for a 60 00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:08.719 democratic country, and for years Germany's Ministry of Public Enlightenment 61 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:13.919 and Propaganda, the mouthpiece of the Nazis chief propagandist Joseph Gibbles, 62 00:04:14.759 --> 00:04:19.920 controlled the information battlefield. As early as nineteen thirty three, 63 00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:23.800 the Nazis had ordered the production of the Folksimfanga, the 64 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:27.560 People's Receiver, a low cost radio set that was key 65 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:32.279 to the nazis domestic propaganda plans. The British government, meanwhile, 66 00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:37.160 publicly dedicated itself to truth, depending on the BBC's European 67 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:41.160 service to spread news to information deprived listeners in Germany 68 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:45.759 and its occupied territories. In a world of poison, said 69 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:49.360 one French politician, who spent much of the war imprisoned 70 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:53.120 by Nazis, the b b C became the great antiseptic. 71 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:55.639 He would not have been aware of the b b 72 00:04:55.759 --> 00:05:00.920 c's shadowy counterpart, the collection of radio stations m from 73 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:04.040 an old English estate in the village of Milton Bryan. 74 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:10.120 German Grand Admiral Karl Dunitz referred to this rural site 75 00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:14.839 of Britain's clandestine Political Warfare Executive p w E as 76 00:05:15.319 --> 00:05:20.839 gift Kuke a poison kitchen. Through the early nineteen forties, 77 00:05:20.959 --> 00:05:24.720 the p w E had quietly launched dozens of gray 78 00:05:24.839 --> 00:05:28.800 and black radio stations in an effort to influence listeners 79 00:05:28.839 --> 00:05:32.639 behind enemy lines. The best remembered of these was a 80 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:39.360 nightly broadcast seemingly helmed by Derschef, a fictional foulmouthed disgruntled 81 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:44.920 Nazi officer who spread fabricated pornographic rumors about German officials. 82 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:49.879 But in nineteen forty three der Chef was quote murdered 83 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:53.480 end quote on the air. To free up resources for 84 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:59.879 a more ambitious undertaking, Deutscher Kurtzvealensandr Atlantique a short wave 85 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:04.920 station known to listeners as Atlantic Sender Radio Atlantic and 86 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:10.680 Sola Dottensender khalis Soldier's Radio Khali, which purported to be 87 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:14.680 broadcast from the occupied French city but was really sent 88 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:18.560 out from southern England on the world's most powerful medium 89 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:24.680 wave transmitter. The stations, which often shared content, were designed 90 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:28.720 to be indistinguishable from official Nazi radio and to subtly 91 00:06:28.759 --> 00:06:33.839 demoralize German troops and civilians with strategic fictions buried beneath 92 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:37.560 truth and entertainment. This was the war as seen through 93 00:06:37.639 --> 00:06:41.279 a fun house mirror. Allied troops moved a little faster, 94 00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:45.920 German casualty estimates were a little higher, food shortages on 95 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.839 the home front were suddenly a little more severe, and 96 00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:52.879 the big band music was much better. Cover dirt, cover, 97 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:58.160 cover dirt, cover dirt. Britain's top propagandist, Selton Delmer directed 98 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:05.839 his staff Atlantic Sender and Soldotnzender. Calis would become in 99 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:10.680 limited and sometimes contentious partnership with United States Young Intelligence branch, 100 00:07:11.079 --> 00:07:15.199 the Office of Strategic Services o S S the culmination 101 00:07:15.439 --> 00:07:19.600 of years of experimentation in radio propaganda on both sides 102 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:23.639 of the war. At the station's peak, the falsified narratives 103 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:28.879 they broadcast reached listeners from the American Midwest to Southeast Asia. 104 00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:32.319 But much of what we now know about the Allies 105 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:36.480 Black propaganda efforts to day comes from the pulpy stories 106 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:41.560 Delmer later told of his wartime exploits, perhaps fittingly, a 107 00:07:41.639 --> 00:07:46.199 confusing mix of fact and fiction, full of aegliases and allegians, 108 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:52.319 self serving misdirection and personal propaganda. The real story beneath 109 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:55.959 those lies can be pieced together from first person accounts 110 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:58.959 of those who worked at Milton Bryan to day, spread 111 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:02.959 across archive in Europe and North America, and in scores 112 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:07.600 of contemporary diaries and decades old memoirs penned by soldiers 113 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:11.480 and civilians who listened to the stations. It could be 114 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:16.519 reconstructed from thousands of previously unexamined pages of transcriptions of 115 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:21.639 the broadcasts collected by various governments and media listening stations, 116 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:25.759 and in daily logs from the radio studios themselves. The 117 00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:29.399 truth is startling. In the final years of World War II, 118 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:33.960 as the scientists of the Manhattan Project raced to weaponize 119 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:37.919 the atom, the broadcasters in Milton Bryan were doing the 120 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:43.080 same with the lie. Today the world knows this as disinformation. 121 00:08:44.919 --> 00:08:49.039 Agnes Bernauer knew nothing of these secret radio stations when 122 00:08:49.080 --> 00:08:52.279 she arrived at the Savoy Hotel on the Thames on 123 00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:56.480 the afternoon of Monday, June twelfth, nineteen forty four, a 124 00:08:56.559 --> 00:09:00.600 week after the Allies landed in Normandy. She was a 125 00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:03.240 little known singer and actress on the verge of a 126 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:08.120 big break an audition with Carol Gibbons, leader of one 127 00:09:08.159 --> 00:09:12.840 of wartime London's hottest dance pans, the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, 128 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:18.559 The young German refugee, known as Aggie to her family 129 00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:22.519 and as Agnes Burnell to her few fans, had been 130 00:09:22.519 --> 00:09:25.399 planning for a career on the stage since the age 131 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:29.440 of five. Her father, Rudolph, had been a theater in 132 00:09:29.559 --> 00:09:33.799 Presario and playwright in Berlin until he became a target 133 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:39.080 of the insurgent National Socialists. In December nineteen thirty, when 134 00:09:39.080 --> 00:09:43.919 Bernauer was seven, Gebbels and his fellow brown Shirts, emboldened 135 00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:47.960 by their electoral victories in the Reichstag that fall, launched 136 00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:51.320 an attack on her father's theater Empire in Berlin for 137 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:54.720 the offense of screening All Quiet on the Western Front, 138 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:59.279 a film the Nazis loathed for its supposedly anti German 139 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:05.320 critique of nationalist militarism out Jews. Gebels had yelled from 140 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:09.000 the theater balcony, queuing a mob to release mice into 141 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:13.559 the audience, set off stink bombs, and beat patrons. For 142 00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:18.000 days they marched with torches. The theater was forced to close. 143 00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:23.039 As a child, Bernauer was unable to fight back. She 144 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:27.399 hadn't even dared join her classmates in throwing snowballs at 145 00:10:27.399 --> 00:10:31.320 a billboard of Adolf Hitler. Her father's side of the 146 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:35.519 family was Jewish, and schoolyard taunts warned her that she 147 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:39.600 should not draw attention. Her mother's side of the family 148 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:44.559 served in Nazi uniforms. In November nineteen thirty three, after 149 00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:48.879 Hitler rose to power, Bernauer's father tried to flee Germany, 150 00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:53.039 but he was arrested at the border. He eventually secured 151 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:56.720 Hungarian passports for the family and left the country for 152 00:10:56.840 --> 00:11:00.720 England in late nineteen thirty five. Burnhou Or followed a 153 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:05.639 year later. Her mother, Emma, whose Protestant upbringing offered a 154 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:09.759 measure of protection, stayed in Berlin for another three years 155 00:11:10.120 --> 00:11:13.559 to manage what was left of the family business, collecting 156 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:17.639 royalties on the popular operettas Rudolph had written earlier in 157 00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:22.399 his career. She almost waited too long. Just before the 158 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:26.200 United Kingdom declared war on Germany in nineteen thirty nine, 159 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:32.159 the Gestapo attempted to coerce Emma into informing on London's 160 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:37.639 Jewish refugee community. She fled Berlin hours later escaping the 161 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:41.720 horrors that Rudolph's sister Gizella and her daughter Ilma would 162 00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:47.639 face in German concentration camps as refugees in London, the 163 00:11:47.720 --> 00:11:52.279 Bernours were considered enemy aliens, forbidden by the British from 164 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:55.279 aiding the Allied cause in the army or in the 165 00:11:55.320 --> 00:11:59.919 Saint John Ambulance Service. Teenage Bernauer had to settle for 166 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:03.440 contributing to the war effort as a civil defense air 167 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:08.879 raid warden. In her nineteen ninety six autobiography The Fun Palace, 168 00:12:09.279 --> 00:12:13.200 Bernauer wrote about patrolling the North London neighborhood where she 169 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:15.960 lived with her parents, through the Blitz with a water 170 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:20.240 pump in hand, feeling slightly foolish at the inadequacy of 171 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:24.960 the gesture. She felt a little foolish almost everywhere. She 172 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:28.360 had dedicated herself to learning English at her British boarding 173 00:12:28.399 --> 00:12:32.919 school and had practiced hiding her accent and her continental ways, 174 00:12:33.399 --> 00:12:37.000 a conversational frankness and body sense of humor that would 175 00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:39.879 have been right at home in the artistic cavins of Berlin, 176 00:12:40.519 --> 00:12:44.200 but she struggled to find her place in London, with 177 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:47.240 most of the West End theaters shuddered as the war 178 00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:52.000 dragged on. Bernauer's biggest opportunity as a performer had been 179 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:56.320 at Klina Buna the Little Theater, a Hampstead venue run 180 00:12:56.399 --> 00:13:01.039 by the Jewish refugee community, but rush off her first 181 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:04.639 leading role at a theater in Birmingham, where she garnered 182 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:08.320 goodenough reviews and with an appointment to sing for Gibbons, 183 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:13.279 her luck finally seemed to be changing. In a private 184 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:18.080 suite outfitted with the piano, Gibbons played as Bernour cruded 185 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:21.440 a selection of English hits. But it was not the 186 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:24.519 band leader who was looking for a new star. The 187 00:13:24.679 --> 00:13:27.320 role would be at the direction of the slight, anxious 188 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:30.039 man who picked up the dinner check at the Savoy 189 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:34.879 Grill that evening. Ira Ashley, an American radio producer turned 190 00:13:34.919 --> 00:13:38.879 O S S agent the U S Intelligence Agency, had 191 00:13:38.919 --> 00:13:43.559 first contacted Bernauer's father about script writing and translation work. 192 00:13:44.279 --> 00:13:47.279 Rudolph suggested there might be a place for his daughter 193 00:13:47.720 --> 00:13:53.080 on their mysterious government project. After auditioning her, Ashley concurred 194 00:13:53.679 --> 00:13:58.559 her blonde voice, as Bernauer recalled Ashleigh describing it was 195 00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:03.000 just what he needed. Soon dispatched to m b as 196 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:07.080 the compound in Milton Bryan was known, Bernauer found a 197 00:14:07.120 --> 00:14:11.639 recording studio unlike any she had ever seen. There was 198 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:15.679 a guard house, tall fences topped with barbed wire, and 199 00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:20.000 German shepherds on patrol. The order to report to Milton 200 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:26.000 Bryan was not widely considered a plumb assignment. Black procpaganda 201 00:14:26.279 --> 00:14:29.639 was an untested strategy, and those who found their way 202 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:33.840 to the estate were misfits whose particular talents, biographies and 203 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:38.159 peculiarities had no other place in the war effort. A 204 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:41.320 collection of cranks and characters, in the words of one 205 00:14:41.679 --> 00:14:48.279 dismissive British Foreign Office official, Delmer, a former journalist and 206 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:52.159 his wife isabel A Painter, had attracted a motley crew 207 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:56.519 of reporters, artists and academics to the effort. They were 208 00:14:56.559 --> 00:15:00.320 teamed up with the staff of political refugees, monarch kist 209 00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:04.919 communists and social democrats, as well as prisoners of war 210 00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:10.080 who now pledged allegiance to the Allied cause, and unexpected defectors, 211 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:14.399 including a former German diplomat, a turncoat s S officer, 212 00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:18.679 and three Lufwaffe pilots who landed in the UK in 213 00:15:18.759 --> 00:15:22.840 their night Fighter. Most of these emigres from the Third 214 00:15:22.879 --> 00:15:26.519 Reich were added to the ranks only by reluctant necessity. 215 00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:31.200 Their loyalty was considered suspect, but their deep knowledge of 216 00:15:31.240 --> 00:15:35.559 German culture and pitch perfect accents were essential to disguising 217 00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:41.440 Atlantic sender and Zoldatan sender Calais. As one PWE official 218 00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:45.919 put it, effective propaganda cannot be undertaken except by people 219 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:50.279 who are half in love with the enemy. To produce 220 00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:55.519 believable fake broadcasts, the PWE had built a journalistic organization 221 00:15:55.639 --> 00:15:59.799 to rival the BBC. The propagandists held the truth in 222 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:05.360 unexpectedly high esteem, guided by an unofficial motto never lie 223 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:10.879 by accident or through slovenliness, only deliberately. They made good 224 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.480 use of an abandoned Hellschreiber, a still working German printing 225 00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:19.960 telegraph that related news directly from the Nazis, and aerial 226 00:16:20.039 --> 00:16:24.600 photographs taken from Allied bombers. But the station's most valued 227 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:29.120 information was not the stuff of international headlines. We are 228 00:16:29.159 --> 00:16:31.759 not interested at this stage in the war in German 229 00:16:31.799 --> 00:16:35.559 atrocities or the shootings of Jews in Poland and Hungary, 230 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:39.840 advised the intelligence officers who helped Graft the strategy of 231 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:43.559 how and when to lie. Rather, they were interested in 232 00:16:43.639 --> 00:16:47.960 stories of everyday hardship in Germany, small breakdowns of authority 233 00:16:48.039 --> 00:16:53.320 in the occupied countries, and petty infighting within Hitler's top ranks, 234 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:57.919 anything that would dishearten listeners. The belief was that downtrodden 235 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:02.120 workers slowed the production of war or necessities, and discouraged 236 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:05.039 troops did not fight as well, and both were a 237 00:17:05.079 --> 00:17:10.200 distraction to the enemy. The officers also coveted small details 238 00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:14.519 like the latest Blotilla soccer matches, which solidified the station's 239 00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:20.839 cover story as a German broadcast. These seemingly inconsequential tidbits 240 00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:26.000 arrived daily from PWE and OSS agents behind enemy lines, 241 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:33.079 through POW interrogations and in smuggled newspapers. By mid nineteen 242 00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:36.000 forty four, there was just one thing missing from this 243 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:40.960 elaborate ruse. The greatest, single thing that may be said 244 00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:45.400 against the present Zodatan Zender program is that its entertainment 245 00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:50.079 is of very dubious quality. Ashley's boss, David Wenten wrote 246 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:54.799 in an OSS memo stamped secret. With any program of 247 00:17:54.839 --> 00:17:58.799 this nature, its entertainment side is by far its most important, 248 00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:02.160 For it is the entertainment side of the show which 249 00:18:02.200 --> 00:18:05.359 builds and holds the audience of German troops and not 250 00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:09.200 only secures their attention but places them in the proper 251 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:13.920 frame of mind for the subversive material that follows. To 252 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.279 when the Radio War, the Allies needed to win the 253 00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:22.039 ratings war, drawing in listeners with the hottest music, Bernouer 254 00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:26.759 would strike back against the Nazis with her voice. Bernauer 255 00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:30.039 stood in front of the microphone, scripped in hand, ready 256 00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:32.720 for the star turn for which she could never take credit. 257 00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:36.279 At one elbow, in a dark suit with the fashionable 258 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:40.359 pocket square was producer Charles Kebba, looking the part of 259 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:44.200 the Madison Avenue commercial maker he had been before enlisting 260 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:47.400 in the U. S. Army. He glanced at his watch, 261 00:18:47.759 --> 00:18:52.279 seemingly impatient to move the rehearsal along. At her other side, 262 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:56.599 offering notes on her performance, was her balding and bespectacled father. 263 00:18:57.400 --> 00:19:00.319 He and Bernauer's mother had joined their daughter in the 264 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:04.599 countryside in the summer of nineteen forty four. Rudolph was 265 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:08.519 employed as an actor, a scriptwriter, and a director. Emma, 266 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:11.240 who had once been a nanny, was something of a 267 00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:13.880 den mother for the cast and crew members of the 268 00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:17.920 O S S operation, who were mostly young and mostly single, 269 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:22.440 and billeted together in Newton, Longville, about ten miles from 270 00:19:22.440 --> 00:19:27.440 the m B studios. Among Emma's charges were Czechoslovakian singer 271 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:32.920 and beauty queen Trudy Binar, Elizabeth Karako, a willowy Austrian performer, 272 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:36.680 and Hilda Palmer, a German actress who had just finished 273 00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:41.039 a run in coal porters. Something for the Boys through 274 00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:45.319 July Boogie Woogie pianist Pat O'Neill hunched over the studio's 275 00:19:45.359 --> 00:19:48.480 grand piano with a cigarette between his teeth as the 276 00:19:48.519 --> 00:19:52.079 four singers recorded some of the biggest English language hits 277 00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:56.160 of the era in German. Access to popular big band 278 00:19:56.240 --> 00:19:59.839 tunes was rare in Germany, giving the propaganda stations in 279 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:03.920 edge over their German counterparts and the competition for listeners. 280 00:20:04.759 --> 00:20:08.200 Some were faithful covers, but others preyed on the war 281 00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:13.319 weary listener's feelings of loneliness, despair, and longing. Many were 282 00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:16.960 translated in London by Egan Larson, who had one of 283 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:20.559 the strangest and I admit cushiest war jobs. He would 284 00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:23.400 write in nineteen eighty five when he felt safe telling 285 00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:27.319 the story. Larson, who was Jewish, had been a journalist 286 00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:30.519 in Berlin before the Nazis assent, and he had taken 287 00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:33.559 a job with the BBC's German service when he made 288 00:20:33.559 --> 00:20:37.279 his way to England, but he had quickly grown disillusioned 289 00:20:37.319 --> 00:20:41.640 with the stated station. He believed, as the OS S did, 290 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:45.319 that the Allies could not convince German servicemen and civilians 291 00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:49.640 with facts, but they could influence them with emotion. His 292 00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:56.559 rewritten lyrics manipulated listeners through music, sentimentality, sex, dramatic episodes, 293 00:20:56.839 --> 00:21:01.319 and Maudlin verse, as OSS officials later wrote, between air 294 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:05.119 raid warnings and damage reports, purported news from the German 295 00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:08.480 home front and the front lines, and speeches from Nazi 296 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:14.880 officials rebroadcast from other radio stations. The first time Bernauer's 297 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.319 voice was heard on Atlantic sender or Zoldatan Center Gallie 298 00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:22.960 just after nine pm local time on July third, nineteen 299 00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:27.640 forty four. She was singing Larsen's words. The cheerful tune 300 00:21:27.720 --> 00:21:30.599 was that of the wartime hit paper Doll, but the 301 00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:34.680 translated lyrics gave the song about loyalty and jealousy a 302 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:39.079 much darker tone. In the original Mills Brothers version, the 303 00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:41.599 singer was gonna buy a paper doll that I can 304 00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:45.039 call my own, a doll that other fellows cannot steal. 305 00:21:45.720 --> 00:21:49.160 But in Larsen's version, Bernauer wanted to be a faithful 306 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:52.279 doll while her man was off to war. But as 307 00:21:52.319 --> 00:21:56.599 she sang in German, unfortunately, I'm not a porcelain figurine, 308 00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:00.680 a reference to Meissen Porcelain, the Pride of Saxony and 309 00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:04.720 need a real man. In spring and now, Bernauer was 310 00:22:04.799 --> 00:22:08.720 preparing for a bigger role. Three times a week she 311 00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:12.880 would transform into Vicky with three Kisses, a temptress dreamed 312 00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:17.000 up by Kebby as a pure sex act. This is 313 00:22:17.079 --> 00:22:21.160 Vicky speaking saying hello to all her friends in the Wehrmacht. 314 00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:25.039 Bernauer purred in German on radio sets across Europe on 315 00:22:25.079 --> 00:22:28.759 the evening of August thirteenth, nineteen forty four, as Benny 316 00:22:28.839 --> 00:22:33.279 Goodman's Gentle Smooth One faded. It was her third appearance 317 00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:36.440 on the stations they say the first hundred times of 318 00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:40.200 the hardest Still, it shouldn't take us long to get acquainted, ay, 319 00:22:40.440 --> 00:22:44.559 not if we take it easy. As Vicky Bernauer promised 320 00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:48.400 her listeners a seductive slow dance and a night of romance, 321 00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:52.119 even as she segued into a rendition of where or when, 322 00:22:52.599 --> 00:22:55.799 the original lyrics of which subtly winked at her deception 323 00:22:56.599 --> 00:22:59.480 thought as wings and lots of things are seldom what 324 00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:03.400 they see. It's been fun, right, she asked her listeners. 325 00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:07.480 It's been fun for me dreaming here by the microphone. 326 00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:11.799 Finally a part of the war, Bernauer relished her position 327 00:23:11.880 --> 00:23:15.039 in what she would call the Dirty Tricks Department, which 328 00:23:15.079 --> 00:23:20.920 offered endless possibilities to bamboozle and confuse the Nazis. Are 329 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:23.640 you as sweet as your voice? A German Man wrote 330 00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:26.279 to the woman he knew only as Vicki, in a 331 00:23:26.359 --> 00:23:29.640 letter that found its way to Milton Bryan in February 332 00:23:29.720 --> 00:23:33.559 nineteen forty five. The fan, who had by then deserted 333 00:23:33.559 --> 00:23:37.559 the German war effort, expressed some doubts about the authenticity 334 00:23:37.640 --> 00:23:41.480 of the station broadcasting the Youngest Star, but that did 335 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:44.720 not seem to concern him. The chief thing is that 336 00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:47.279 you are there and that you don't forget your good 337 00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:51.960 night kisses. The letter and other such comebacks mentions of 338 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.039 the stations from p o W interviews and intelligence intercepts 339 00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:00.960 reassured the propagandists that people were tuning in the Germans 340 00:24:01.039 --> 00:24:04.880 knew it too. According to a memo Allied forces discovered 341 00:24:05.200 --> 00:24:10.880 as they advanced through Europe dangerous enemy propaganda warning against 342 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:15.400 the so called Zodotenzender Calais it began. The memo showed 343 00:24:15.440 --> 00:24:18.960 that the Germans had little idea how to combat the disinformation, 344 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:24.640 even mentioning the stations seemed perilous. In discussing the radio, 345 00:24:25.119 --> 00:24:29.480 care must be taken not to popularize the name Sodotenzender Calais. 346 00:24:30.079 --> 00:24:33.720 The Nazis, having promoted the widespread use of radio for 347 00:24:33.839 --> 00:24:38.279 their own domestic propaganda purposes, had unwittingly set the German 348 00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:42.599 people up for attack. By nineteen forty one, sixty five 349 00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:46.920 percent of German homes had a bosomfanger capable of receiving 350 00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:51.200 the powerful broadcasts of Sodotenzender Calais as readily as the 351 00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:56.359 official Nazi news outlet Deutsche Lanzender. Some who tuned into 352 00:24:56.480 --> 00:25:01.720 Atlantic Sender and Soodotenzender Calais later renamed soldotan Zender West 353 00:25:02.119 --> 00:25:06.000 after the Allies recaptured Calais in October nineteen forty four, 354 00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:10.640 making it an implausible headquarters for a purported German military 355 00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:15.519 radio station believed the stations to be authentic. Others saw 356 00:25:15.599 --> 00:25:19.440 through the ruse and, disgusted by the propaganda of the enemy, 357 00:25:19.640 --> 00:25:24.319 or fearful of Nazi reprisals for illegally listening to the broadcasts, 358 00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:28.240 changed the channel. But there was a third group, those 359 00:25:28.279 --> 00:25:31.960 who had suspicions about the station's origins and intentions, but 360 00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:35.880 tuned in any way. If listeners had convinced themselves there 361 00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:39.160 was no harm in hearing the enemy's news tidbits and 362 00:25:39.279 --> 00:25:44.440 enjoying lively music, they were making a dangerous gamble. Psychologists 363 00:25:44.599 --> 00:25:48.880 today know that many people struggle to determine truth from lies, 364 00:25:49.319 --> 00:25:55.799 especially when repeatedly exposed to disinformation. The PWE, recognizing the 365 00:25:55.839 --> 00:25:58.640 power of the weapon it was building, and fearful it 366 00:25:58.680 --> 00:26:03.079 would poison the British media environment, issued a defense notice 367 00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:07.119 advising Fleet Street journalists not to report news broadcast on 368 00:26:07.200 --> 00:26:13.279 the station, an unenforceable request that was widely honored. Nowhere else, however, 369 00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:17.519 seemed beyond the reach of the programs. In Paris, an 370 00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:21.279 exiled writer tuned his radio to the stations as German 371 00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:25.119 troops patrolled the streets in the months before the city's liberation. 372 00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:30.319 In still occupied Austria, a girl and her brother huddled 373 00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:34.240 around a battery powered radio each evening, the volume turned 374 00:26:34.279 --> 00:26:38.759 low and their windows shuttered. In Hamburg, a young German 375 00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:43.160 manning and achdact the feared anti aircraft gun, heard American 376 00:26:43.240 --> 00:26:46.359 style dance music for the first time. And in Berlin, 377 00:26:46.839 --> 00:26:50.839 Ingeborg von Cuso, an actress about Bernauer's age who had 378 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:55.720 become a favorite of Nazi's propaganda filmmakers, listened for the 379 00:26:55.720 --> 00:27:01.440 gossip necessary to navigate Hitler's inner circle. It was invariably right, 380 00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:05.039 she would write, using the surname Wells in her nineteen 381 00:27:05.079 --> 00:27:10.599 forty nine memoir. At least one teacher at Germany's National 382 00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:15.200 Political Institutes of Education, boarding schools established to groom the 383 00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:18.880 next generation of Nazi leaders, was known to play the 384 00:27:18.880 --> 00:27:22.359 stations for his students, and their big band music was 385 00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:26.519 popular in the officer's mess at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's 386 00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:30.759 military headquarters on the Eastern Front. The Furor himself was 387 00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:34.240 briefed on the broadcasts. For Hitler, the real threat was 388 00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:38.839 not the station's lies, but their truths. The Allied broadcasters 389 00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:42.640 had such accurate information that Nazi leaders feared there was 390 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:48.920 a mole among his closest advisers. Dispatches from the stations 391 00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:53.720 quoted as reliable news sources were also a regular fixture 392 00:27:54.079 --> 00:28:02.960 on the front pages of American newspapers. This concludes readings 393 00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:06.680 from the Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your reader has been 394 00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:10.200 Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have a great day.