Constance Drexel

Constance Drexel (c. November 24, 1884 or c. November 28, 1894 (possible; disputed) – August 28, 1956) was a naturalized United States citizen, and groundbreaking feature writer for U.S. newspapers. She was indicted (but not tried or convicted) for treason in World War II for radio broadcasts from Berlin that extolled Nazi virtues.

She became famous falsely claiming to be an heiress of the famous Drexel family of Philadelphia. Arrested in Vienna and jailed at war's end by American troops, she was released and allowed to return to the United States to live. The U.S. Department of Justice eventually dismissed the treason charges against Drexel after her broadcasts were not deemed "political in nature."

Family and childhood Public references to Drexel's nation of origin and pedigree were contrary to privately recorded facts. As early as 1915 (in American press reports) and as late as the 1940s (in Nazi broadcasts), she was described as a member of the "famous Drexel family" of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an apparent reference to the descendants of Francis Martin Drexel (who founded the Drexel & Company banking empire), including his son Anthony Joseph Drexel (who founded Drexel University in Philadelphia) and his granddaughter Saint Katharine Drexel.

By all accounts, including the one provided by Constance Drexel to the Bureau of Investigation in 1918, she was born in Germany, apparently in the 1880s, many decades after Francis Drexel emigrated from Europe to Philadelphia in 1817. After she began broadcasting from Nazi Germany during wartime, at least one American syndicated columnist speculated that "Drexel" was a pseudonym.

Published information regarding her age and date of birth is also wildly inconsistent.

A U.S. Department of Justice internal memorandum prepared in 1946 described her birth date as November 24, 1884.

Drexel became a United States citizen upon her father's naturalization in 1899.

Drexel became active nationally and internationally in the International Congress of Women, which met at The Hague in the neutral Netherlands, in April 1915. When she agreed to write dispatches regarding the Congress for American newspapers to publish, her career as a professional journalist began.

A Chicago Herald editorial entitled "Horrible Logic" observed that her statement went far to confirm "that, when once moved to cruelty, women are infinitely more cruel than men." In another column, she opined that "perhaps the greatest curse of war" was "the effect of the loss of men on women and on the race". She explained that the most "harrowing sight in all of war-ridden Europe today" was "the spectacle of the young girls who must always live unmated, robbed of their birthright". and members of the McClure Syndicate.

For example, six weeks before the outbreak of war, she wrote in the Oakland Tribune that the annexation of Austria had prevented the Viennese population from starving; even though this was "endered more difficult by the United States sudden boycott of manufactured goods from the annexed territories ... now that the peculiar genius of the North Germans for organization and efficient administration is in full play under the new regime, this and other problems with which they are harassed are being overcome." But at that stage of her career, her colleagues in the American press corps had minimal respect for the quality or integrity of her work. One American network hired her at the beginning of the war, but dropped her almost at once.

Drexel had constantly pestered Berlin-based CBS radio correspondent William L. Shirer for a job, but as he later explained, he had considered her "the worst broadcaster I ever heard". In 1940, she began broadcasting on Nazi-controlled shortwave radio channels.

According to M. Williams Fuller, "ounding like a grand dame with a stuffy nose, she described Germany as a cornucopia – a land of plenty destined for a glorious future. Her broadcasts concluded with titillating accounts of Germany's art exhibits, concerts, food surplus, haute couture and world-class entertainment."

Long after the war, it was reported that she had committed a faux pas while attending a reception for Nazi Party leaders. "On being introduced to a beautiful young German woman, Drexel blurted: 'oh, you are the girlfriend of Adolf Hitler!'"

A Federal Bureau of Investigation review of excerpts of such broadcasts stated that Drexel was attempting to show that the war had not lowered the morale of the German people in an effort to discourage the American people from continuing with the war effort. Wearing an American flag lapel pin, she claimed she had always been a loyal citizen, and had only broadcast on cultural questions. On October 3, 1946, the board decided that she had not forfeited her citizenship, and allowed her to re-enter the country. When the charges were formally dropped on April 14, 1948, the investigators explained that none of Drexel's broadcasts was "political in nature".

Death Drexel died in Waterbury, Connecticut, on August 28, 1956. She collapsed at the home of a cousin before leaving on the first leg of a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, where she intended to move. The obituaries listed her age as 68.