AXIS SALLY: TRUE STORY OF AN ALL-AMERICAN TRAITOR

A troubled child, failed Broadway actress, impressionable lover and Nazi propagandist, Mildred Gillars' life is an American tale that descends into the darkest depths of betrayal

-  ALEX BOWERS

Mildred Gillars is a name synonymous with treason in the United States. During the Second World War the American became a broadcaster in Nazi Germany, tasked with devastating the morale of US troops. Yet despite her minimal impact on America's fighting spirit, Gillars dubbed Axis Sally by her listeners - today boasts a legacy comparable to defector Benedict Arnold, spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and double-agent Robert Hanssen.

However, exactly how and why the failed actress descended from the Broadway stage and onto the fascist airwaves of the Third Reich, still largely remains a unexplained. "Even now, mystery and ambiguity shroud her troubled life. Many, many questions surrounding her choices remain unanswered and, frankly, probably unanswerable," Professor Michael Flamm, a scholar of modern American political history at Ohio Wesleyan University (where Gillars studied before the war), told History of War.

A troubled childhood

Born on 29 November, 1900, Mildred Elizabeth Sisk was the daughter of Canadian parents Mary (Mae), a seamstress, and Vincent, an alcoholic blacksmith. Her early years were spent across the border in Portland, Maine, where she bore witness to her father's drunken tirades and abusive behaviour. Eventually, her mother divorced Vincent and remarried dentist Robert Bruce Gillars, also an alcoholic, whose surname Mildred took. After the birth of her half-sister Edna in 1909, the family moved to settle in Ohio.