Jane Anderson (January 6, 1888 – May 5, 1972) was an American-Spanish war reporter journalist who broadcast Nazi propaganda in Germany during World War II. She was indicted on charges of treason in 1943, but charges were dropped after the war for lack of evidence.

Early life and career

Born Foster Anderson, her father, Robert M. "Red" Anderson was a close friend of the showman

Buffalo Bill William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846January 10, 1917), known as "Buffalo Bill", was an American soldier, Bison hunting, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa, Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but ...

. Her mother, Ellen Luckie Anderson, came from a wealthy and prominent Atlanta family. She attended Piedmont College, Georgia, but was expelled in 1904. She then attended Kidd-Key Women's School, a finishing school in Dallas. She moved to New York City in 1909, where she lived until 1915. There she married Deems Taylor, the composer, in 1910. The marriage ended in divorce in 1918. There, she became a successful writer of short stories, which were published in national magazines from 1910 to 1913. She then traveled to Europe in September 1915 where she remained until 1918, writing articles and reports for the London ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

''. As a war correspondent, she suffered shell shock from a visit to the British trenches in France in 1916. She was a lover of the novelist

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...

, who used her as the model for his heroine, Doña Rita, in ''

The Arrow of Gold ''The Arrow of Gold'' is a novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1919. It was originally titled "The Laugh" and published serially in ''Lloyd's Magazine'' from December 1918 to February 1920. The story is set in Marseille in the 1870s during th ...

'' in 1919. In 1922, she returned to Europe as a correspondent for the International News Service and Hearst Newspapers. In October 1934, she married a Spanish nobleman in Seville, Count Eduardo Alvarez de Cienfuegos, and settled with him in Spain.

Falangist supporter

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) broke out on July 18, 1936, and Anderson covered the struggle for the London ''Daily Mail'', reporting from the Nationalist side. On September 13, 1936, she was captured and imprisoned by the Republican side, held as a fascist spy, tortured, and sentenced to death. However, in October 1936 her release was secured by the intervention of US Secretary of State

Cordell Hull Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871July 23, 1955) was an American politician from Tennessee and the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years (1933–1944) in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ...

and the US State Department assisted her return to the United States. Her experiences in Spain moved her political allegiance to the far right. She wrote and lectured on the Spanish Civil War to promote the Nationalist cause of

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...

, who eventually won the war with German and Italian military assistance. She returned to Spain in 1938, worked for the Falangist Spanish Ministry of Propaganda, and came to the attention of the '' Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft'', the German state radio, which offered her a post in Berlin in 1940.

Propaganda for Nazi Germany

Anderson began broadcasts from Berlin on April 14, 1941, and when Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, American citizens were repatriated from Germany although Anderson chose to stay there. Until March 6, 1942, she broadcast Nazi propaganda via short wave radio for the German State Radio's U.S. Zone, the Germans giving her the name "The Georgia Peach." Her radio program was broadcast two or four times weekly and each broadcast began and ended with the slogan "Always remember progressive Americans eat Kellogg's Corn Flakes and listen to both sides of the story" while a band played ''Scatterbrain''. In her programs, she heaped praise on Adolf Hitler and ran "exposés" of the "communist domination" of the Roosevelt and Churchill governments. She specialized in interviews, one being with her co-worker, the British traitor William Joyce. She was removed from her position as a commentator when material in her March 6, 1942 broadcast was successfully used by U.S. counterpropaganda. She then appears to have been inactive until her return to her propaganda work in 1944, when she made a few broadcasts reporting the brutality of the Red Army on the Eastern Front.

Arrest

When Germany surrendered in May 1945, Anderson hid out in various locations in Germany and Austria. Finally, on April 2, 1947, she was arrested in Salzburg, Austria and placed in U.S. military custody.

Charges of treason

On July 26, 1943, Anderson was indicted '' in absentia'' by a District of Columbia grand jury on charges of treason, along with

Fred W. Kaltenbach Frederick Wilhelm Kaltenbach (March 29, 1895 – October 1945) was an American of German ancestry who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Germany during World War II. Early life Kaltenbach was born in Dubuque, Iowa, Dubuque, Iowa, and was raised ...

, Douglas Chandler, Edward Delaney, Constance Drexel,

Robert Henry Best Robert Henry Best (April 16, 1896 – December 16, 1952) was an American foreign correspondent who covered events in Europe for American media outlets during the Interwar period. Later he became a Nazi supporter and well known broadcaster of Na ...

, Max Otto Koischwitz and

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

. However, on October 27, 1947, the US Department of Justice dropped all charges for lack of evidence. From a United States Government Office memorandum dated June 14, 1946:

It is true that she could be classified as a political commentator, although not a very effective one, but as she apparently stopped her broadcasting activities shortly after our entry into the war it does not appear worthwhile that further efforts be made to develop our case against her, notwithstanding the fact that she was indicted for treason in 1943.

A further factor was that Anderson had been a Spanish citizen by marriage since 1934.

Later life

Anderson was released from custody in Salzburg in early December 1947. She then went to live with her husband at

Almoharín Almoharín () is a municipality located in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain. According to the 2005 census (INE), the municipality has a population of 2050 inhabitants. The village's economy is primarily agricultural, with many inhab ...

in the postwar world of

Falangist Spain Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...

. In the early 1960s, they moved to Cáceres, where she gave private lessons in English and German. After her husband's death, she moved to Madrid where she died in 1972.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Jane 1888 births 1972 deaths American expatriates in Germany American expatriates in Spain American fascists American collaborators with Nazi Germany American prisoners sentenced to death American radio DJs American women radio presenters American torture victims German radio personalities Nazi propagandists Nazi propaganda radio Nazis from outside Germany People from Atlanta Prisoners sentenced to death by Spain Radio during World War II American women civilians in World War II World War II propaganda American women journalists Women in Nazi Germany American anti-communists 20th-century American people Prisoners and detainees of the United States military