Oh What A Time... - #147 Traitors (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!Everyone is talking about Traitors (the TV show) but this week we’re talking traitors (of the disloyal kind). We have a range of World War 2 turncoats to discuss for you: Lord Haw Haw, Axis Sally and how about.. accidental traitor, P G Wodehouse?And this episode we’re discussing how a single google of ‘sheds’ can result in you being shown sheds for the rest of your life. If you’ve got anything to add on this or anything else, you know what to do: [e-mail] in huge news, Oh What A Time is now on Patreon! From content you’ve never heard before to the incredible Oh What A Time chat group, there’s so much more OWAT to be enjoyed!On our Patreon you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O-Water Time. All right, this is part two of traitors. Let's get on with the show. Right, we were discussing, obviously, in part one, that Lord Hawhor, William Joyce, is still a byword for a traitor, especially a British traitor. But he was, of course, not the only traitor propagandist employed by the Nazis during the Second World War, at least, I didn't know as this many, at least

half a dozen people, if not more, delivered broadcasts to British, Commonwealth and American listeners all with the same purpose of demoralisation, because war is, you know, war is hard enough as it is. So you don't want misinformation piped into your radios, and in the 40s, the radio was so important. Yes. Yeah, yeah, of course. So following the Allied invasion of Italy, there was to be an additional voice, of Rita Zooka. Zucker, Jane Anderson, and Mildred Gillars, came to be known as the Axis Sallies. So all of them were born in the US. Zucca came from New York and was born into an Italian-American family in 1912.

Her father ran a successful restaurant in West 49th Street. And so she was sent to Florence for an Italian education before coming back to work for her father. So this transatlantic back and forth held until 1939 when war broke out and she remained in Italy. She took Italian citizenship in 1941 planning to protect her family's property from the government So Mildred Gillars Gillars was the name of her stepfather So Cisque was her sort of original name

By contrast came from Portland in Maine And she was born in November 1900 She grew up in Ohio And they moved to New York With a view to becoming an actor And a vaudeville performer But she failed to make it And so left America and went to live in France

I love those people who's thinking Oh fuck this And they can have a complete change Yeah yeah You're like All right I'll go and live in France then if I'm not going to make it in bloody

Hollywood. And I'll get there on a boat and it will take me four weeks. Yeah, yeah, seven weeks and I won't speak the language and it's the pre-duolingo age. Fine. All right, I'll go. So her own transatlantic back and forth ended up with her moving to Germany, 1944, where she studied music in Dresden,

taught English in Berlin. Now, it was Gillars who entered the propaganda line first. From the 6th of May, 1940, she took a job on German radio as an announcer and part-time actress and would eventually establish herself as their best paid employee.

Now, what worries me about this is that, you know how actors are willing to do like shit adverts because they're like, a job's a job? Yeah. She's like, what, a propagandist against my own country in the Second World War. Well, it is acting work, you know, and it's what I want to do.

Her agents sort of reminded her that it could lead to other staff as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's basically, it's great for my voice over show real being anti-American propagandist. It's just acting. You're putting on the persona of someone who supports the third right. Listen, I don't bloody think this.

You know, I've got no idea of Ed Gamble actually uses Kazoo. You know, he's just doing the voice of it. Now, when America entered the war, her programmes focus on the American troops and were laced with anti-Semitic and defeatist propaganda. And the GIs reacted by calling a variously Axis Sally or the bitch of Berlin. Rita Zooka joined Italian radio

only in the summer of 1943 when Mussolini's government decided that it was a good idea to have their own axis Sally. So Zucka jumped at the chance and lent into her image by signing off with a sweet kiss from Sally though this really

made me laugh, though that was quite in contrast to her opening gambit which was hello suckers. This is my problem with this propaganda. It's just not nuanced enough. Do you mean? You You want to ease people in, make them think, oh, this is like balance, this is balance radio. It's part of the issue that it's being written by German writers, maybe second language,

and possibly some of the nuance and softness as being lost? Is there a chance? They needed you and Matthew Crosby into punch it up a little bit, didn't they? She got the last leg team on it. Yeah, I'll tell you what, you know, bloody done it, I don't it, I know, if the rate was right. No, the difference between Gillars and Zucker was that the latter was no longer an American citizen. when she began her broadcasting in Korea in 1943.

Indeed, no less in Jade Gah Hoover, director of the FBI, ensured that Zucka would not face any American charges after the war because of this detail. So different

to William Joyce, Lord Hoho, of course. So no treason case was brought, although she was barred from ever returning to the United States. The Italians, for their part, sentenced her to prison for collaboration. She served nine months. Is that all?

Why had she done it? Well, her father reason that maybe she was flattered into it, perhaps she died in Italy in 1998. Some of those who remembered her broadcast still recalled her words. Hello boys. How are you tonight? A lousy night, it sure is.

Axis Sally is talking to you. You poor silly dumb lamb. That's well on your way to be slaughtered. Oh, wow. It's quite dark, isn't it? Yeah, you... Imagine that. A job's a job.

Yeah, well, it's voiceover work and, you know, it's actually quite lucrative. I think I'd be turning to Claire and saying, Should we put six music? This is really, really affecting my enjoyment of my scrambled eggs. She would listen to cloudbusting with Grimmie. Yeah. Could we put music for airports on by the point?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A bit more chilled, yeah. So something similar happened to Jane Anderson, the least famous and least effective of the Axis Sally. She was also the oldest. So born Foster Anderson in Atlanta, Georgia, in 88, where her father was a friend and associate of Buffalo Bill, amazingly. Oh, wow. Anderson eventually moved to New York and became a short storywriter.

In 1915, she relocated to Europe, became a lover of the novelist Joseph Conrad. Bloody hell. And was employed as a journalist by the Daily Mail during the First World War. In the 1930s, the same newspaper re-employed Antsend under cover the Spanish Civil War. So she was captured by the Republican forces and tortured as a spy for Franco's nationalists. The Daily Mail was supportive of Franco. Classic, it is worth adding. On her release, she became a vocal proponent of Franco and his reactionary forces.

And so it was only a matter of time that she'd then come to the attention of the Nazis. They offered her a job on the radio in 1940s quite early in the war. So committed to the job was she that she remained even after America entered the war in December 1941. Because she'd been given a job, she was going to finish it. Going to see it through. Really? This was despite the offer of repatriation. She was virulently anti-communist and willingly interviewed her fellow collaborators on radio programs.

Because she cared about her listeners, Elle, and that isn't something you can overlook. Nowadays, she'd have a Patreon, and she'd say, listen, I'm creating a community here, for God's sake. Get involved in the group chat. She was violently an anti-communist and willingly interviewed her fellow collaborators and radio programmes, including William Joyce. But in 1942, she made the mistake of telling listeners that wealthy Nazis were able still to enjoy fine dining, while much of the ordinary population lived on war rations, and for this, she was sidelined quietly. Ah. So she was indicted on treason charges in the US in 1944 in absentee, but the case was eventually dropped, albeit only after arrest in Austria in 1947, because it was realised that she held Spanish citizenship since her marriage to a Spanish aristocrat in 34. In the end, she settled in Franco, Spain, never returned to America and she died in Madrid in 1972. Gillas, by contrast, these other two women, knew she'd not only collaborated, but had betrayed her country. She went to. into hiding after the war, evaded capture for almost a year.

Like that woman who knocked over the Tour de France rider with a sign and went on the run. I don't know if you saw that, doing a Tour de France two years ago. Yeah. She had a big sign that said, hello, grandma, hello, grandpa. And she was holding it up because she wanted to do, she wanted to be able to telly. She smashed up the Palaton. She went on the run. She went on the run.

She went on the run for days. Yeah, yeah. Really? With the sign? Is that the giveaway? Her grandparents spotted. They fingerprint the sign. That is definitely early, is it?

I think, I don't know what? I think she might have ditched the sign in a field. Right. But she did go on the run. I think she eventually handed herself in. But she went to hiding after the war. Veda captured for almost a year. Arrest came only in March, 1946.

Ten counts of treason were listed against it. You know it's bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a manned city of traitors. One of them's going to stick, sure. Yeah. Eight went forward to a trial in the US in 19th. But only one was used for conviction, her involvement in a radio play,

Vision of Invasion, mocking the anticipated D-Day landings in 1944. For that conviction, the first for treason of any woman in American history, she was sent to prison for up to 30 years and fined $10,000. In the end, she was incarcerated until 1961 at a women's prison in West Virginia. I think if you've been sent to jail for 30 years, kind of 10 grand just doesn't really matter. That really is neither here nor there, isn't it. That is a life-altering amount of money, though, is it not in life?

No, of course, but is you 30 years in prison? You know, how are you expected to pay it? Exactly. Yeah, that's a good point, yeah. I'm selling cigarettes in prison. I'll have to pay you off at a penny a week for the next. I don't know what. It's like, it's like, yeah, whatever.

Yeah, fine. I can't wrap my head around it, yeah. In the end, she was incarcerated until 19601, so she'd led out for the swinging 60s, at a women's prison in West Virginia, by the time of her death in 1988, she'd never announced her belief in Nazism. She was a traitor and a collaborator

until the bitter end. So as with William Joyce, these women believed in what they were doing, they perceived the world through a far-right lens and were willing to set aside any loyalty to their home country, in this case the US, let alone democracy to serve that other cause.

Gillers did try to recover something of her reputation by insisting that when she learnt of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she expressed great hostility to the Japanese and warned her German colleagues that they were in for. it now. But if you believe that, you will believe anything.

1984. Isn't that mad? Struggle to wrap my head around that. Yeah. It's too recent, isn't it? Yeah, it's so recent. You know, Barnes, Aldridge and Beardsley at the front of the Liverpool. So to round off today's episode about wartime traitors,

I'm going to talk to you about two of the most famous collaborators come traitors of the Second World War, the poet Ezra Pound, and first of all, the best-selling novelist P.G. Woodhouse. Are you a fan of Woodhouse? Are you familiar with his work? I went through a big woodhouse phase, actually. What about you, Skull? I haven't entered my PG-Woodhouse phase. Okay, let's see how this affects things. The fact that he was a traitor and worked alongside the Nazis.

Did he? Wow. Well, it's a complicated one, should we say? It's a complicated one. Fuck. You'll find out now, yeah. Oh, no, I'm actually looking at one of his books right now. Wait, don't grab it down, don't burn it just yet.

What other Nazi books do you love, Elle? Oh, save it for the end. So, Woodhouse, best known as the author of Jeeves and Worcester, as how most people know his work it's an unusual case okay he was something of an accidental traitor if you can kind of imagine such a thing at least if you believe

the sort of smoothing out of his reputation after the war so Woodhouse had been living as a tax exile in France for most of the 30s and then was captured there apparently on his way to the United States by the German army in the summer of 1940 which I can say safely

is the least heroic way you can be called in France by the Nazis. Were you storming the beaches in Normandy? No, I was there. I was trying to avoid paying tax in Britain. The optics are horrendous. Yeah, exactly.

It's the least impressive reason. As a tax ex-out, he's basically a double traitor. That's such a good point. Exactly. Double traitor. That's time when the British Treasury really needed the cash. he's sort of like the Lewis Hamilton of the 30s

so he's captured by the Gestapo in France as he's trying to avoid his tax he's then taken to an internment camp where he finishes off eventually in Torchek which is in Poland and upon his release he's then taken somewhere unexpected

by the Gestapo which I would suggest and others might as well that their relationship had changed somewhat, okay? Would you like to guess whether the Gestapo took him from the internment camp? And this probably suggests Waterstones.

Not waterstones. Any guesses Chris? It's not an internment camp anymore. It suggests that maybe their relationship has shifted a little bit. Sports direct. They took him to a luxury hotel, okay, from the internment camp, where he had his royalties unfrozen, and he was able to pay for whatever he wanted

while he was there. And in exchange, He was invited to give a short series of radio broadcasts about his experiences in the internment camp with the intention of broadcasting them for American market via CBS as America wasn't yet in the war. Posh people just get away with it. Yeah. They just get away with it.

If he hadn't been privately educated, something really... He'd have been in that POW camp for six years and he wouldn't have survived. Yes. But he's a... Bloody hell. Rather being driven to the...

Ritz, or wherever it is. I'm actually getting, I'm actually getting angry now about PG Woodhouse. So you've got one eye on his book on the shelf now. Yeah, yeah, that's straight in a bin. We may hear ripping in about five minutes time. So he's taken his luxury hotel and he's invited to give a short series of radio broadcasts, as I say, to be broadcast in America and do you know what? He bites their hand off. It's a stupid thing to do. And in fact, a lot of stupidity kind of comes across in the transcript of what Woodhouse says in these broadcast. Asked, for example, whether he minded being a prisoner in the internment camp, he replied, not in the least, as long as I have a typewriter and

plenty of paper. And of the Gestapo, he said this. A couple of chaps, I think that's a worrying word early on, isn't it? When you're discussing the Gestapo? Really humanises them, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. A couple of chaps brought me here from the camp, and they took me and showed me around Berlin. We went to the Olympic Stadium and down to Potsdam. It made me feel like I was back in the USA. It's like a stag. It really is. Yeah, absolutely. He did Dortmund away. So he was in the yellow wall.

That's six beers and a beer keller. We had one of those lovely sausages with a sauerkraut. Great day. Generally, though, he gives these sort of whimsical descriptions of his time in Germany and in the internment camp as well. He just basically makes it sound like it wasn't that bad. And the British security services, understandably, open up a file in Woodhouse immediately.

And then when the Germans broadcast the recordings in Britain, it properly kicks off. Okay, because a British well-known author basically saying the Gestapo were treating it really well and he had a great time in Berlin with them. The matter was then raised in the House of Commons and the backlash truly began in Britain. Woodhouse's books were pulled off the shelves of public libraries across the country. In Sheffield Library, they imposed a ban on buying any more Woodhouse books from that point on. In Porterdown in Northern Ireland, the library committee pulled the books off the shelves, as did the libraries of Southport near Liverpool. And other libraries went even further. They took the trouble of destroying Woodhouse's work and the paper

was then sent on for repurposing. What are your thoughts at this point as a Woodhouse Fanel and as someone who is aware of him, Skull? What are you feeling at this point? Well, let me just say, he was cancelled. We have this sense that being cancelled as a modern invention. Here we are. This is clearly an attempt to cancel P.G. Woodhouse. Unlike all cancellations, He hung around for a bit and then came back, which is what happens to people who are cancelled. Luis C.K. Great example. Back doing massive gigs.

His agent said, just keep on the down low. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Just keep quiet for a couple of months and he'll be alright. Something else will take it out of the news. So, I mean, you're right, El. He does return. And before that, there were people who saw... Well, I mean, I read his books years ago.

Jews and Worcester was a massive TV program when I was a kid. With Stephen Frein-Hulner. I had no idea of this. Well, there were people who saw his broadcast as merely an innocent mistake. And this is where it's kind of an interesting one, including George Orwell, who really defended him in no uncertain terms. Really? And meanwhile, the security services continue to compile their dossier. And even after the liberation of Paris in 1944, Woodhouse is watched by intelligent officers

and he's interviewed. And during these interviews, he insists that I never offered my services. And although in the end, it was concluded that no. prosecution of aiding and abetting the enemy would succeed. Woodhouse never visited Britain ever again and in fact he remained in exile until his death in 1975. Wow what? No. Yeah, never returned to Britain after the war. So where did he live? He lived in America. Did he? Yeah, he never returned, remained in exile until 1975 all that time after the war. But as I say, there are some people who believe it was a clumsy mistake. I'll leave you to decide

what you feel after hearing about that. In fairness, if the Nazis offered you that, doing the war, you would think, yeah, fuck it, yeah. I mean, well, it's a luxury hotel is that? It's a very difficult thing to turn down. When the other option is more than likely getting shot in the head, you'd take the luxury hotel. Yeah.

Well, the case of Ezra pound, However, he's far more cut and dry. Two months later, Owell wrote the essay in defence of P.G. Woodhouse restated, it is important to realise that the events of 1941 do not convict Woodhouse of anything worse than stupidity. Orwell's rationale was that Woodhouse's moral outlook has remained that of a public school boy. And according to the public school code, treachery in time of war is the most unforgivable of all the sins, which was compounded by his complete lack, so far as one can judge from his printed works of political awareness. So I'm almost like the guy's too thick to be a traitor.

That's so funny. But then he's, many people's opinions, one of our greatest ever authors. Certainly comic authors, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So whether he was stupid enough to not realize that the Gestapo were actually not a great bunch is questionable. But I will let you decide yourself. The case of Ezra Pound, though, however, I think there's no decision to be had over this one. This one is far more cut and dry.

Ezra Pound was a vile anti-Semite who actively collaborated with Mussolini, came to believe the English was secretly ruled by Lord Rothschild, who was Jewish. And Ezra Pound readily supplied information to the British Union of Fascists in the 30s, and was among the most high-profile contributors to their magazines and newspapers, an association that would continue throughout the Second World War. And for this and for other reasons, British intelligence had him under their surveillance since 1918. his radio work began in 41 and lasted until 1945 where his focus was,

and this doesn't sound like a particularly fun show, not the sort of thing I'm going to have in the background when I'm having my breakfast, his focus was whipping up anti-Jewish hatred and providing active support for the Nazi Italian alliance. That's not really, yeah, I don't know, who's got that? Who's got that on? Wow, okay.

I didn't know about this, because I knew that he was friends with T.S. Eliot, and he gave T.S. Eliot notes on the wasteland, I think. But I didn't know he was an anti-Semite. Well, in the end, it was the Americans who finally arrested him, charged him with treason because he was American by birth, having been born in Idaho in 1885, before moving to continental Europe in the 20s, first to Paris and then to Italy.

He was then held in a metal cage in an American military training centre near Pisa and returned to the United States in the autumn of 1945 where he would face trial for treason. and then he was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital and spent nearly 13 years in that hospital and do you think he emerged a changed man? What's your guess? Do you think he emerged a changed man after all of that?

I'd love to say yes. Chris, any guesses? Got to be no. On his release in 1958, he went into exile in Italy and his first act on his arrival was to give a fascist salute. Oh, good. Oh, my God. So I wouldn't say he would have to be massively rehabilitated

during that 13 years. Yeah. And indeed, he was completely unrepentant. But then so were Pound's detractors in wartime and afterwards. Photographs in the press ran with captions such as traitor Ezra Pound, his hobbies, fascism. And while Pound's friends, including Ernest Hemingway, as you mentioned, L, tried to understand the man to find compassion. And many of them attributed Pound's behaviour to his mental illness, something akin to some bipolar effective disorder, people think, possibly. But their efforts were unconvincing as Pound had acted. to his beliefs, not against them, if that makes sense.

So it was completely in keeping with his opinions he'd held in many, many years. And while the playwright Arthur Miller, who's played a crucible examined accusation and counter-accusation during the witch trials of the 17th century in one of his key plays, he went on to say this about the dilemma for his rehabilitation.

He said, A greater calamity cannot befall the art of writing than that Ezra Pound, the Mussolini mouthpiece, should be welcomed back as an arbiter of American letters. So once again, he was accepted back by some circles despite his viciously anti-Semitic opinions.

So far less complicated that one than P.G. Woodhouse. But there you are. That is two of the most famous examples of traitors during World War II who slipped across to the Nazi side and supported their cause. I didn't know anything about that. Yeah. I didn't know what Azrapan was in 97.

And I didn't know about PG Woodhouse either. Wow. There you go. So that concludes our episode on traitors. I really enjoyed that. Kind of fascinating. So much I did not know. Yeah, totally. And we've spoken a lot about this within this episode of traitors on the British side.

I've been reading and watching a lot of stuff recently. I've gone a bit conspiratorial on one aspect of the Second World War. Bear with me. So we've talked about British traitors. But on the Nazi side, of course, by the end of the war, Adolf Hitler describes Heinrich Himmler all the big dogs basically are tarred as traitors

and what I've been reading is that there's this new emerging theory that we don't actually know what happened in the death of Heimrich Himmler so the common stories that he died in British captivity but there's lots of conspiracy theories that are backed up by the fact

the British aren't releasing classified documents as to what exactly happened and there's various inconsistencies And there's some great historical work that's being done now to unpick what may or may not have happened to Heinrich Himmler. But there's now this great mystery that is emerging as to what the ultimate fate was of Himmler. And there is suspicions, and they're just suspicions, that Himmler was known to be negotiating with, like the Swedes for an end to the Second World, on favourable terms to some Nazis.

And it is suspected that he may have been negotiating with the British. and the British ended him to cover this all up. Because they thought he took cyanide, didn't they? That was the... Yeah, that was... They thought he took cyanide. But there's loads of... His body was left in an unmarked location.

When they dug it up years later, all the teeth had been removed. So you couldn't identify the body exactly. That was one thing I read. Can I just check if you read this on a forum? Or did you read it somewhere more official? Do you read this on a West Ham phone? It's an intriguing aspect of history.

There you go. Maybe we should do traitors on the other side of the Second World War. Yeah. Well, you never hear about those ones. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that would be really interesting, actually. That's a fascinating area.

It's just like on the bonus content we do for the Patrons. Tom did all quite on the Western Front. Before I read that, I'd never seen anything from the, German perspective of the First World War. So yeah, it's really interesting stuff. I've got a recommendation on the on the Hierick Himmler stuff. If you're interested, there's a guy called Mark Felton. He does great YouTube videos. The one on the death of Himmler is it's an hour and a half on YouTube. It's called 2.9 million views, only a year old. It's, if you want to go deep on the Hierich Himmler mystery, I recommend it to you.

Ellen, I are not quite sure how to respond to that suggestion. Not wanting to tiptoe into something we shouldn't. Also, I've got some really brilliant YouTube videos on 5G. You couldn't just hear that. Well, thank you so much for listening. As we've mentioned earlier in the show, we do have a new patron. This is the restart of the new show since we've left Wondry. If you want to join, then that would be fantastic.

the top level gets to suggest what our subjects will be. In fact, we've just recorded an episode on Jester's which is about to come out and that was suggested by a patron subscriber so that's one of the benefits. Once a month, we will choose one of your episodes and we will do them amongst many other benefits.

You can find out more on patreon.com for what a time. That was absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much for downloading. We'll be back with you very soon. Goodbye. Bye! I'm going to be able to be. Oh, Whatter Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else.

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