Robert Best

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Robert Henry Best (born April 16, 1896 in Sumter , South Carolina , † December 16, 1952 in Springfield, Missouri ) was an American journalist and radio propagandist for Großdeutscher Rundfunk .

Best was the son of a Methodist traveling preacher . After graduating from high school and college , he entered the United States Army during World War I and later studied journalism at Columbia University .

In Europe

When he graduated in 1922, he went on a trip to Europe on a Pulitzer Research Fellowship of US $ 1,500. At the end of 1922 he reached Vienna , settled in the city and occasionally worked as a journalist for American and English daily newspapers. He was a freelance correspondent for United Press .

After the United States entered World War II , Best was interned with other US journalists in Bad Nauheim , but refused to be repatriated on the grounds that he wanted to marry an Austrian. As a further reason for Best's lag, it was later stated that he wanted to act as a mediator as soon as Adolf Hitler had won the war.

From Nazism increasingly convinced he asked in 1941, the Berlin Ministry of Propaganda , on German radio stations in the United States send to what it shortly afterwards at the side of William Joyce was possible. In April 1942 he started broadcasting on the radio. The South Carolina accent of "Mr. Guess-Who ”was recorded in 300 radio broadcasts by the Allies . Best did not skimp on drastic formulations. He spoke of the "paranoids in the White House ", the "Clown Churchill ", the " Bolshevik beast" and, alluding to Roosevelt's New Deal, of the " Jew Deal".

post war period

The British Army captured Best in Austria on January 29, 1946, and handed him over to the US Army . On December 14, 1946, he was taken to the United States, where he had been accused of treason in absentia in 1943 . In the trial, which ended in Boston in 1948 , Best waived a defense attorney and admitted the authorship of the radio recordings played there. The US Army found texts and recordings of his radio broadcasts for the Nazi regime in his apartment in Vienna. Best, who denied intent to commit treason, was sentenced to life imprisonment and a US $ 10,000 fine.

In July 1950 there was an appeal, in which the judgment of the district court was confirmed. The Supreme Court declined to hear the Best case in late February 1951. Best died the following year from a cerebral hemorrhage at a Medical Detention Center in Springfield, Missouri.

See also

literature

  • John Carver Edwards: Berlin Calling: American Broadcasters in Service to the Third Reich . Praeger, New York 1991, ISBN 0-275-93905-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Press: Worst Best . In: Time , February 15, 1943.
  2. ↑ a b c Treason: None Too Good . In: Time , April 26, 1948.
  3. ↑ a b c d Best v. United States. 184 F.2d 131 (1st Cir. 1950) . No. 4363, United States Court of Appeals First Circuit, July 6, 1950. In: vlex.com , accessed January 10, 2011.
  4. ↑ a b United States v. Order 76 F. Supp. 138 857 . In: The American Journal of International Law 42, No. 3, July 1948, pp. 727-729.
  5. ↑ Americans indicted as traitors . In: Sarasota Herald Tribune , July 28, 1943, p. 1.
  6. ^ The Reno Evening Gazette , February 28, 1951.
personal data
SURNAME Best, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Best, Robert Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and radio propagandist for Großdeutscher Rundfunk
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Sumter , South Carolina
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1952
Place of death Springfield, Missouri