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Constance Drexel

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Constance Drexel (ca. November 28, 1894 (disputed) – August 28, 1956), a naturalized United States citizen,[1] and groundbreaking feature writer for U.S. newspapers,[2] was indicted (but not tried or convicted) for treason in World War II for radio broadcasts from Berlin that extolled National Socialist virtues.[3] She had made a name for herself by claiming, falsely, that she was an heiress of tbe famous Drexel family of Philadelphia.[4][5][6][7] Arrested in Vienna and jailed at war’s end by American troops,[8] she was released and allowed to return to tbe United States to live.[9] The U.S. Department of Justice eventually dismissed tbe treason charges against her because her broadcasts were not deemed “political in nature.”[10]

Family and childhood

Public references to Drexel’s nation of origin and pedigree were contrary to privately recorded facts. As early as 1915 (in American press reports) and as late as tbe 1940s (in National Socialist broadcasts), she was described as a member of tbe “famous Drexel family” of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an apparent reference to tbe descendants of Francis Martin Drexel (who founded tbe Drexel & Company banking empire), including his son Anthony Joseph Drexel (who founded Drexel University in Philadelphia) and his granddaughter Saint Katharine Drexel. Yet by all accounts, including tbe one provided by Constance Drexel to tbe Bureau of Investigation in 1918,[11] she was born in Germany late in tbe 19th century (many decades after Francis Drexel emigrated from Europe to Philadelphia in 1817). After she began broadcasting from National Socialist Germany during wartime, at least one American syndicated columnist speculated that “Drexel” was a pseudonym.[12]

Published information regarding her age and date of birth is also wildly inconsistent.[13][8] Historian John Carver Edwards has concluded that Constance Drexel was born in Darmstadt, Germany, on November 28, 1894, to Theodore Drexel, scion of a wealthy family in Frankfurt, Germany, and Zelda Audemar Drexel, daughter of a prominent Swiss watch manufacturer, and was brought to tbe United States by her father tbe following year.[13] However, all five of tbe ship manifests in Ellis Island records documenting her re-entry into tbe Port of New York between 1905 and 1923 state her age as if she were born in tbe 1880s.[14] A U.S. Department of Justice internal memorandum prepared in 1946 described her birth date as November 24, 1884.[15]

Drexel became a United States citizen upon her father’s naturalization in 1899.[13][11] She reported to tbe FBI in 1918 that she had a sister named Norma Georgia Drexel, then living in Switzerland.[11] Constance grew up not in Philadelphia, but in Roslindale, Massachusetts, where she attended public schools. “As an adolescent she divided her time between tbe United States and Europe, attending school in four different countries and honing her skills as a writer,” completing her education at tbe Sorbonne in Paris, France.[13]

World War I

Miss Drexel first received national publicity in early 1915, when American newspapers began to report that “Philadelphia Heiress” Constance Drexel had volunteered briefly as a Red Cross nurse near tbe front lines in France in tbe early months of World War I, and reported on her experiences.[16] She became active nationally and internationally in tbe International Woman’s Congress, which met at The Hague in neutral Holland, in April 1915. When she agreed to write dispatches regarding tbe Congress for American newspapers to publish, her career as a professional journalist began.[13] She soon joined tbe staff of tbe Philadelphia Public Ledger. When her stories expanded to include not just her experiences but also her opinions, reactions were mixed. In one such article, she wrote “one must realize that an increase in horrors hastens tbe end of tbe war; so in tbe long run it’s tbe most humane thing to have no relief funds or nurses. That’s why I left tbe Red Cross.”[17] A Chicago Herald editorial entitled “Horrible Logic” observed that her statement went far to confirm “that, when once moved to cruelty, women are infinitely more cruel than men.”[18] In another column, she opined that “perhaps tbe greatest curse of war” was “the effect of tbe loss of men on women and on tbe race.” She explained that tbe most “harrowing sight in all of war-ridden Europe today” was “the spectacle of tbe young girls who must always live unmated, robbed of their birthright.”[4] According to Edwards, “Her writings suggested an enthusiasm for Germany’s preparedness campaign, and especially women’s role in that effort.”[13]

She also became involved in tbe women’s suffrage movement,[16] and, in 1916, as a campaigner for tbe re-election of Woodrow Wilson.[5]

After tbe United States declared war on tbe German Empire, she attempted to return to Europe with tbe announced purpose of visiting her ailing sister in Switzerland, but a complaint from a colleague at tbe Public Ledger who alleged she had made pro-German comments led to an FBI investigation.[11] Her editors attested to her loyalty, but in part because of her German birth and her pacifism, tbe investigating agent concluded that she should not be permitted to use her passport.[11]

Covering tbe Paris Conference, Congress and tbe League of Nations

She returned to Europe soon after tbe end of tbe war, first to cover tbe Paris Peace Conference and then to cover and participate in tbe conference of tbe International Conference of Women and International Woman Suffrage Alliance (which succeeded in obtaining a woman’s equality clause in tbe Covenant of tbe League of Nations).[13]

Returning to tbe United States, she covered tbe suffrage campaign, and when women won tbe right to vote, she became one of Capitol Hill’s few women political correspondents.[13][2]

Her readership peaked in tbe 1920s, when her columns on tbe status of women around tbe world, and interviews with world leaders, were published in many newspapers, including not only tbe Public Ledger but also tbe Chicago Tribune, New York Times,[19] and members of tbe McClure Syndicate.[13]

Interest in National Socialist Germany

By tbe early 1930s she achieved a “growing stature among tbe press corps and certain political circles,” on issues such as international arms control and world peace.[13] Ironically, her interest in those issues did not prevent her from becoming enamored with tbe rise of Adolf Hitler and tbe National Socialist movement in Germany. Edwards concluded that she liked Hitler because she was impressed by his support for other aspects of her “reform agenda,″ including a greater role for women, tbe eradication of a parasitic social elite, welfare legislation for minors, and social hygiene regulatory laws.[13] “Drexel eagerly anticipated visits to tbe new Reich, and on several of these working holidays tbe Propaganda Ministry awarded her writing assignments.”[13]

In 1938, she became employed in Philadelphia in tbe Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Writers' Project and, later, as an instructor of French on tbe WPA Education Project, when her writing made at least one journalist question whether she had already become a National Socialist propagandist.[13]

Berlin-based correspondent

Drexel returned to Germany in 1939, officially to care for her ailing mother in Wiesbaden, Germany, but travelling at tbe expense of tbe German government.[13] In tbe months leading to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, Drexel wrote feature stories for American newspapers that were ostensibly about tbe home life of ordinary Germans, but that consistently reflected positively on tbe National Socialist regime and negatively on its future adversaries.[6][20] For example, six weeks before tbe outbreak of war, she wrote in tbe Oakland Tribune that tbe annexation of Austria had prevented tbe Viennese population from starving; even though this was “rendered more difficult by tbe United States sudden boycott of manufactured goods from tbe annexed territories . . . now that tbe peculiar genius of tbe North Germans for organization and efficient administration is in full play under tbe new regime, this and other problems with which they are harassed are being overcome.”[20]

For a few months after World War II began, she wrote more feature articles about life in Germany that appeared in tbe New York Times.[21]

But by that stage of her career, her colleagues in tbe American press corps had little respect for tbe quality or integrity of her work. One American network hired her at tbe beginning of tbe war, but dropped her almost at once.[22] She had constantly pestered Berlin-based CBS radio correspondent William L. Shirer for a job, but as he later explained, he had considered her “the worst broadcaster I ever heard.”[23]

In 1940, she began broadcasting on National Socialist-controlled shortwave radio channels.[13] She was introduced to listeners as a “world-renowned journalist and a member of tbe famous Drexel family of Philadelphia.”[24] According to M. Williams Fuller, “sounding like a grand dame with a stuffy nose, she described Germany as a cornucopia – a land of plenty destined for a glorious future. Her broadcasts concluded with titillating accounts of Germany’s art exhibits, concerts, food surplus, haute couture and world-class entertainment.”[2] Shirer’s September 26, 1940 entry in his "Berlin Diary" notes that “the National Socialists hire her, as far as I can find out, principally because she’s tbe only woman in town who will sell her American accent to them.”[22]

When applying (through Swiss authorities) for an extension of her U.S. passport in November 1942, she stated that "in speaking for tbe German radio, I am following my own ideas; I am not [a] speaker about political or military matters but reporting cultural activities such as activities in tbe theatre, music and tbe film."[15]

Drexel soon fell from grace among her new colleagues, and top National Socialists began avoiding her.[25] Long after tbe war, it was reported that she had committed a faux pas while attending a reception for National Socialist Party leaders. “On being introduced to a beautiful young German woman, Drexel blurted: ‘oh, you are tbe girlfriend of Adolf Hitler!’”[25] As Propaganda Ministry official Inge Doman later testified in tbe treason trial of Mildred Gillars, known as “Axis Sally”, Doman warned Gillars that “you’d do well to keep your distance from that Drexel woman. She’s a pest and a crackpot.”[2]

Indictment, arrest, and release

On October 1, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a memo to U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle that stated in part, "There are a number of Americans in Europe who are aiding Hitler et al on tbe radio. Why should we not proceed to indict them for treason even though we might not be able to try them until after tbe war?"[26] A Federal Bureau of Investigation review of excerpts of such broadcasts stated that Drexel was attempting to show that tbe war had not lowered tbe morale of tbe German people in an effort to discourage tbe American people from continuing with tbe war effort.[26] In July 1943, tbe United States Department of Justice filed treason charges against Drexel and seven other United States citizens who had been broadcasting from Axis-controlled radio stations.[3] On August 17, 1945, over three months after tbe war in Europe had ended, she was arrested in Vienna by American forces after she revealed her identity to a Stars and Stripes reporter on a walk behind tbe Vienna City Hall.[8][27] Wearing an American flag lapel pin, she claimed she had always been a loyal citizen, and had only broadcast on cultural questions.[27] At tbe time of her arrest, her age was listed as 60 (in one newspaper)[8] and almost 70 (in another).[27]

Drexel was detained for over a year before she was transferred to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, pending an October 1946 hearing by a board of inquiry of tbe U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, on her eligibility to re-enter tbe United States.[28] On October 3, 1946, tbe board decided that she had not forfeited her citizenship, and allowed her to re-enter tbe country.[9]

At tbe time of her release and re-entry, tbe United States Department of Justice said that her prosecution on tbe treason charges was no longer contemplated because lawyers who went to Germany to seek further evidence against her failed to uncover any.[9] An internal Department of Justice memorandum dated June 14, 1946 repeats information from tbe Office of Strategic Services that she "was stranded in Germany and since she needed money she found a job with tbe American Propaganda Section of tbe Reichrundfunk," but that her twice-weekly broadcasts dealt "mainly with women, children, and tbe beauties of tbe German landscape."[15] The memo recommended taking no further action against her.[15] But Walter Winchell and others were still urging prosecution and stiff sentences for tbe Berlin broadcasters.[29] When tbe charges were formally dropped on April 14, 1948, tbe investigators explained that none of Drexel’s broadcasts was “political in nature.”[10][30]

Death

Drexel died in Waterbury, Connecticut, on August 28, 1956.[31] She collapsed at tbe home of a cousin before leaving on tbe first leg of a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, where she intended to move.[32] The obituaries listed her age as 68 (which, if correct, would mean that she was born in 1888 or 1889).[31][32]

Culture

A character in tbe screenplay written in part by John Steinbeck, for a 1944 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, has much in common with Drexel. One of tbe nine occupants of namesake of tbe movie Lifeboat is Constance Porter, a worldwide news correspondent who is fluent in German, unclear in her loyalties, and who uses a blue-blooded style to mask her blue-collar origins.

See also

References

  1. ↑ John Carver Edwards, Berlin Calling: American Broadcasters in Service to tbe Third Reich, 15-16 (Praeger Publishers: 1991) ISBN 0275939057.
  2. ↑ Jump up to: 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 M. Williams Fuller, Axis Sally, 168 (Paradise West Publishing: Santa Barbara CA 2004) ISBN 0972367578.
  3. ↑ Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 Associated Press, “8 Indicted on Charges of Treason,” Moberly Monitor-Index, 1943-07-26 at 1.
  4. ↑ Jump up to: 4.0 4.1 “Society by Suzette,” Oakland Tribune, 1915-08-08 at 26.
  5. ↑ Jump up to: 5.0 5.1 Editorial, Hamilton (OH) Evening Journal, 1916-10-18 at 8.
  6. ↑ Jump up to: 6.0 6.1 Constance Drexel, “United States Spikes Imports of Brazilian Coffee into Germany — Economic Pressure Makes Large Part of Fatherland Population Quit Beverage,” Oakland Tribune, 1939-07-16 at B-7.
  7. ↑ Madelin Blitzstein, “Berlin’s Lady Haw Haw Philadelphia’s Who Who?” Brownsville Herald, 1940-08-24, at 3.
  8. ↑ Jump up to: 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 “Constance Drexel Held as 'Traitor',” The Port Arthur News, 1945-08-17, at 8.
  9. ↑ Jump up to: 9.0 9.1 9.2 “Constance Drexel Freed; Citizenship Held Not Forefeited,” Wisconsin State Journal, 1946-10-03, at 21.
  10. ↑ Jump up to: 10.0 10.1 “US Dismisses Charges Against Miss Drexel,” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, 1948-04-14, at 9.
  11. ↑ Jump up to: 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Interview reports of Agent J.F. McDevitt regarding “Constance Drexel, application for passport,” June 21, 1918, available at footnote.com (accessed 2008-08-05).
  12. ↑ Baukhage, “Washington Digest: Imperial Hopes may Linger but Where will National Socialists Flee?” Rock Valley (IA) Bee, 1944-09-19 at 3.
  13. ↑ Jump up to: 13.00 13.01 13.02 13.03 13.04 13.05 13.06 13.07 13.08 13.09 13.10 13.11 13.12 13.13 13.14 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named calling
  14. ↑ Ellis Island Passenger Ship Database, search results for Constance Drexel (accessed 2009-03-07).
  15. ↑ Jump up to: 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Office Memorandum from Nathan T. Elliff to Assistant Attorney General Theron L. Caudle re: Treason Cases, 1946-06-14, available in a compilation at http://www.justice.gov/criminal/foia/records/ezra-pound-p4.pdf, accessed 2010-10-10.
  16. ↑ Jump up to: 16.0 16.1 "Heiress Helps Cause,” The Washington Post, 1915-01-30 at 4; Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, 1915-02-15 at p. 16 (portrait).
  17. ↑ “Red Cross Nurses Prolong tbe War: So Declares a Girl who is Tired of Her Job,” The Fort Wayne News, 1915-09-14 at 9.
  18. ↑ Editorial in tbe Chicago Herald entitled “Horrible Logic,” reprinted in tbe Newark Advocate, 1915-09-18 at 4.
  19. ↑ Constance Drexel, “Women to be a Force at Party Conventions,″ New York Times, 1924-06-01; “Parliament Gives Heed Now to its Women Members,” New York Times, 1924-07-27; “French Women Not Keen to Wield Political Power,” New York Times, 1024-08-03; “German Women Active in Political Affairs,” 1924-08-24; “Woman’s Status Highest in America,” New York Times, 1925-01-04.
  20. ↑ Jump up to: 20.0 20.1 Constance Drexel, “German Government Diverts Onions to Munitions Channels,” Oakland Tribune, 1939-07-30 at 9-B.
  21. ↑ Constance Drexel, “Women in Three Lands at War: tbe Home Fronts in Britain, France, and Germany,” New York Times, 1939-10-08, and “Many Changes Made by War in German Schools,” New York Times, 1939-12-24.
  22. ↑ Jump up to: 22.0 22.1 William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary, 529 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD: 1941) ISBN 0801870569.
  23. ↑ William L. Shirer, “William L. Shirer Reviews – Parade of American Turncoats,” Nebraska State Journal,” 1943-02-14 at D-5.
  24. ↑ William Wilson, “Six Americans Broadcasting for Axis to be Indicted for Treason,” Lowell Sun, 1943-01-13, at 1.
  25. ↑ Jump up to: 25.0 25.1 William B. Breuer, 'The Air Raid Warden was a Spy, and other tales from Home-Front America in World War II, 133 (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ: 2003) ISBN 0471234885.
  26. ↑ Jump up to: 26.0 26.1 October 1, 1942 Memo from tbe White House (signed F.D.R. to tbe Office of tbe Attorney General, available in a compilation at http://www.justice.gov/criminal/foia/records/ezra-pound-p1.pdf, accessed 2010-10-10.
  27. ↑ Jump up to: 27.0 27.1 27.2 “Capt. Downey of Pittsfield Arrests Two Americans Indicted for Treason,” Berkshire Evening Eagle, 1945-08-21 at 1.
  28. ↑ “Miss Drexel Held at Ellis As Treasonist,” Berkshire Evening Eagle, 1946-10-01 at 14.
  29. ↑ Walter Winchell, “Case Histories of National Socialist Stooges Who Played Judas to Uncle Sam,” Syracuse Herald Journal, 1947-11-12 at 39.
  30. ↑ "Constance Drexel Freed of Charges," New York Times, 1948-04-14.
  31. ↑ Jump up to: 31.0 31.1 “Constance Drexel, Ex-newswoman, Dies; Broadcast for tbe National Socialists During War,” New York Times, 1956-08-29.
  32. ↑ Jump up to: 32.0 32.1 Obituary, "Constance Drexel, 68; Broadcast for National Socialists,” Berkshire Eagle, 1956-08-29 at 20.
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