20. Frederick Kaltenbach was indicted by the Americans for treason, but died in Soviet custody
Frederick Wilhelm Kaltenbach was an Iowa-born son of a naturalized German, raised in Waterloo (coincidentally the home of the five Sullivan brothers of World War II fame). In 1933 the graduate of Iowa State Teacher’s College and the University of Chicago won a scholarship at the University of Berlin, and became a devoted adherent of Nazism. When he returned to Iowa in 1935 he started a boy’s club modeled on the Hitler Youth, with similar uniforms. The support of Nazism led to him losing his teaching certificate in 1936 and he returned to Germany and in 1939 began broadcasting German propaganda to the United States via short-wave radio, long before the United States formally entered the war.
Kaltenbach harangued against Franklin Roosevelt and Lend-lease attempted to prevent FDR’s election to a third term, and referred to himself whimsically as Lord Hee-Haw. After the United States entered the war he attacked the morale of troops and citizens at home. As the war went on and it became evident how it would end, he shifted to covering his tracks as an ardent Nazi by attempting to align himself with anti-Nazi elements, though he continued to broadcast Nazi propaganda as late as the spring of 1945. He was indicted for treason in the United States in 1943 and was arrested at his home by the Soviets in Berlin in 1945. The Soviets sent him to their Special Camp Two in Buchenwald and when the American authorities requested he be surrendered for trial the Soviets refused. They later informed the State Department that he had died of natural causes, and in 1948 the indictment was dismissed.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising”. Leland D. Baldwin. 1968
“Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts that Built America”. Charles Adams. 1998
“The Trial of John Brown”. Thomas Fleming, American Heritage Magazine. August, 1967
“Thomas Wilson Dorr”. Biographic entry at the Dorr Rebellion Museum website. Online
“He Was Hanged For Helping Slaves Rebel. Now Norwich Officials Are Asking Virginia For A Pardon”. Alison Kuznitz, Hartford Courant. August 3, 2018
“Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant”. Ulysses S. Grant. 1885 (2006)
“Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart”. Felicity Allen. 1999
“Mountaintop Rescue”. Samir S. Patel, Archaeology Magazine. January/February 2012
“Ex-Flier Confesses 21 Acts of Treason”. The New York Times, January 18, 1949
“POW Camp Atrocities Led to Treason Trial”. David Rosenzweig, Los Angeles Times. September 20, 2002
“The Nazi Who Infiltrated National Geographic”. Nina Strochlic, National Geographic. April 27, 2017
“George John Dasch and the Nazi Saboteurs”. Naval History and Heritage Command
“Carthage Conspiracy Reconsidered: A Second Look at the Murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith”. Marvin S. Hill, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Summer, 2004
“Goebbels’ Iowan: Frederick W. Kaltenbach and Nazi Short-Wave Radio Broadcasts to America, 1939-1945”. Clayton D. Laurie, Annals of Iowa. Summer, 1994