5. Marlene Dietrich offered to spy for the US government during World War II
Marlene Dietrich was an actress of renown in Europe, achieving acclaim on the stages of Berlin in the 1920s. She performed in several Hollywood films in the 1930s, both silent and talkies. By the mid-1930s she was considered to be toxic at the box office and she returned to Europe. While in London in 1936 Nazi agents asked her to return to Germany. They guaranteed she would be the biggest female film star in Europe. She refused, returned to the United States, and applied for American citizenship. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover considered her a subversive and opened a lengthy investigation of her. In 1942 Dietrich turned the tables on the FBI, offering to use her extensive contacts in Europe to gain information on resistance activities.
Before 1944 she toured the United States extensively on war bonds drives. In 1944 she made the first of several USO tours of soldiers at the front, performing before live audiences, and informing the OSS of activities in recently liberated sections of France and Italy. She also made recordings in German for the OSS to be played on European radio, to demoralize the German troops. While the FBI was investigating her as a possible enemy agent, she was providing clandestine information to the OSS. In 1947 she was presented the Medal of Freedom by President Truman for her work for the OSS over the course of the war. A large portion of her FBI file was destroyed in 1980, long before the rest of it was released.
Also Read: Unexplained Phenomenon Files from the FBI’s Vault.