American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally (2021)

 

            “American Traitor:  The Trial of Axis Sally” is the true story of Mildred Gillers.  She was one of the women who broadcast propaganda for Nazi Germany.  She became a favorite of GI’s who loved the music she played and found the propaganda to be entertaining.  If American soldiers had had their way, she probably would not have been put on trial after the war.  But politicians don’t like for America to be taunted, so she became the first American woman to be tried for treason.  The movie was directed by Michael Polish.  The film was based on the book “Axis Sally Confidential” by William Owen.

            The movie starts in Germany in 1945.  Gillers (Meadow Williams) is captured by American soldiers.  Queue the flashback.  Gillers is a singer, but not a good one.  She is recruited by Max Otto Koischwitz (Carsten Norgaard) to work in radio.  It will be her ticket to fame.  Boy, was he right about that.  Except it will be infamy instead of fame.  But first, she will have to pass an interview with Mr. Big Lie.  Goebbels (Thomas Kretschmann!) has an eye for the ladies, so she does fine and gets the job.  She starts by reading scripts that aim at keeping America from intervening.  Flash forward to 1948.  Gillers gets a lawyer named James Laughlin (Al Pacino).  She tells her that she is “the most hated person in America” (technically, she was tied with Tokyo Rose, Iva D’Aquino).  At first, their relationship is dysfunctional as he is planning on doing the bare minimum.  His rookie law partner Billy Owen (Swen Temmel) is more empathetic.  The movie bounces from past to present.  In the past, Goebbels makes her his sex slave.  You don’t want to go off script with this guy.  She does a play called “Visions of Invasion”.  It will be used against her in court.

            “Axis Sally” is nothing special.  It’s hard to see why Pacino accepted a part in it.  And you would think you would be getting the scene-chewing Pacino in a low budget film like this..  He’s actually under control throughout.  Even in the long closing argument!  Unfortunately, the rest of the cast balances it out by being mediocre.  However, they are actors and this is not a documentary, so if you want the goods on “the voice that killed 400,000 Americans”, this movie will inform and entertain.  The flashback format works well.  Not that it breaks new ground.  The trial with flashbacks to the crime is pretty common.  If you like the subgenre of military courtroom dramas, you’ll find this one to be average.  The war scenes concentrate on Gillers relationship with Goebbels.  This Goebbels is probably the best portrayal of his malevolence in cinema.  It is believable that he would take advantage of a beautiful woman like Gellers (although, as you can see below, it probably did not happen).  The movie makes him the villain instead of Gillers.  In fact, the film gives the impression that she was innocent.  Was she? See the historical accuracy section below.

GRADE  =  C

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  Mildred Gillers was a failed actress when she moved to Germany to study music.  She then taught English. In 1940, she went to work at German State Radio as an announcer.  Despite State Department warnings to leave Germany, she refused because her fiancé threatened to break it off if she moved back to America.  Ironically, her fiancé died fighting on the Eastern Front.  Her broadcasts were apolitical until she was “discovered” by Max Otto Koischwitz.  He was the programming director and became her Svengali.  Although a married man, it seems obvious the two were intimate.  She certainly fell in love with him.  On Dec. 9, 1941, she took an oath of allegiance to Hitler.  I found no evidence that she had a relationship with Goebbels.  She hosted several radio programs during the war.  “Home Sweet Home” combined swing music played live by an orchestra with scripts that aimed at making GI’s homesick.  The program also worked hard to make the soldiers think their wives and girlfriends were not being faithful.  She denigrated the Allied leaders and the Jews in general.  Listeners were supposed to question the war effort.  Another program involved her interviewing prisoners of war.  These would be edited to make the prisoners sound happy, disillusioned with the war, and sympathetic towards Nazism.  None of this worked.  She was very popular with the GI’s because of her sultry voice and her music.  Plus, the propaganda was amusing.  She acquired the nickname Axis Sally after she described herself as “the Irish type…a real Sally”.  Although most GI’s wanted to meet and kiss her, which might have happened if she had stayed in Paris before it fell.  But instead of waiting to be “rescued”, she went back to her job in Germany.  In 1945,  she literally (according to her own account) fled through the back door of the radio station as Soviet troops entered through the front.  She was one of the most wanted war criminals after the war.  She was living incognito in Berlin when she was arrested.  She was put on trial for eight counts of treason.  The trial lasted 192 days and it was sensationalized.  She treated it as a chance to show off her acting ability and her fashion sense.  Her lawyers were James Laughlin and Bill Owen, but I doubt the dynamics portrayed in the film were accurate.  She was found guilty of only one count -  the making of a radio play called “Vision of Invasion”.  In it she played an American mother lamenting the death of her son in an invasion of France.  She was sentenced to 10-30 years in a women’s reformatory (another inmate was Tokyo Rose).  She developed several talents there and refused to apply for parole for two years.  She was released after 12 years.  She became a teacher in a convent.