Edward Vieth Sittler
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Edward Vieth Sittler (1916–1975) was an American musician and educator who renounced his United States citizenship before World War II in order to take German citizenship, and (similarly to the fictional Howard W. Campbell Jr. in the Kurt Vonnegut 1962 novel Mother Night and its film adaptation) worked for the Nazis as a broadcaster during World War II.
Sittler was born in Illinois (though some records give his birthplace as Delaware, Ohio), in 1916, a child of The Reverend Doctor Joseph Andrew Sittler (1876–1961) and Minnie Lillian Vieth Sittler (1874–1963). Both of his parents were born in the United States, though his paternal grandmother, Eva Großhans Sittler, and his paternal grandfather's father were Alsatian, and his maternal grandfather was German. His siblings included William Walter Sittler, Joseph Andrew Sittler Jr., Louis Vieth Sittler, Loring Vieth Sittler, and Charles Vieth Sittler, and sisters Mary Josephine Sittler and Margaret L. Sittler. The family had moved to Ohio after Sittler's birth. His father, a United Lutheran Church minister, was to become head of the Lutheran synod of Ohio in 1939, and Professor of Theology on the Federated Theological Faculty at the University of Chicago in the 1950s.[1][2]
Second World War in Germany
Sittler studied for three years at Ohio State University and Bard College before travelling to Germany in 1937 to learn the German language before studying at a German university. Shortly after Germany's September 1, 1939, invasion of Poland, Sittler applied for naturalisation as a German citizen, renouncing United States Citizenship. Following his naturalisation in 1940, he worked for the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, including as an English-language commentator broadcasting propaganda intended to weaken the morale of allied personnel between 1943 and 1945.[3]
Sittler had also joined the Nazi Party in 1942. In November 1944, Sittler was sent to interview American defector Martin James Monti. After Sittler deemed him suspect, Monti was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. Monti was later released from the prison camp after convincing the Germans of his sincerity. Monti (who used the name Martin Weithaupt in Germany), who was also employed in the production of propaganda, became a regular visitor to Sittler's home. Both would later join SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers. Monti was commissioned but Sittler was enlisted as a Private. Ordered to Kampfsender Viktoria in the Italian Alps in April 1945, the two parted company when Monti was able to board a crowded train in Berlin due to his officer's uniform while Sittler was forced to wait for a later train. Sittler would be interrogated by American investigator Anthony Cuomo, and asked Cuomo whether he knew a P-38 pilot named Martin Weithaupt. Cuomo had in fact interrogated Monti, who had been captured in Italy where his explanation (that he had stolen his SS uniform and was escaping the German-occupied area with the help of the Italian resistance) was doubted, but had avoided prosecution due to the influence of his father. On May 22, 1946, Special Attorney Clyde E. Gooch in Frankfurt, Germany, wrote to Assistant Attorney General Theron L. Caudle in Washington, D.C., calling for Monti's prosecution.
