Robert Henry Best

Robert Henry Best (April 16, 1896 – December 16, 1952) was an American foreign correspondent who covered events in Europe for American media outlets during the interwar period. He later became a supporter of the Nazis and a well-known broadcaster of Nazi propaganda during World War II. After the war, Best was arrested and returned to the United States to stand trial for collaboration. In 1948, Best was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison in 1952.

Biography Best was born in Sumter, South Carolina, a son of Rev. Albert Hartwell Best, a Methodist minister. After graduating from Wofford College in 1916, he joined the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps in October 1917. He was commissioned in 1918 and stayed in the U.S. Army until 1920. Then he went to the School of Journalism at Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1922.

With the money from a $1,500 Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship, "He was, in a way, a Vienna institution."

Dan Durning summarizes the Vienna milieu in which Best played a leading role: Best cut a flamboyant figure at his reserved table in the Café Louvre. A broad-brimmed Stetson capped his 220-pound frame, and his high-laced shoes and wretched German were familiar to other habitués of Ringstrasse.. . .

Scheu, recalling the evenings at Café Louvre, wrote: "Best...sat in a padded loge, with a view of Renngasse, that was reserved for him." In addition to the foreign journalists in Vienna around him, Best also "assembled a large number of refugees, hangers on, news tipsters, spies -- serious, but questionable people, who sat at his table and populated the surrounding tables at Café Louvre....People who came from abroad were astounded by what they saw at Café Louvre."

Best gradually fell under Nazi influence following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, the Anschluss, on March 12, 1938.

In July 1941, United Press fired him for 'nonperformance', thus putting him in financial difficulties. There he decided to withdraw from the group of exchangeable Americans whom he married on September 2, 1942.

Best then received permission to travel to Berlin unaccompanied where he met Werner Plack, a member of the Radio Division of the Foreign Office, who recruited him as a commentator for German State Radio. In "one of the most astounding Benedict Arnold cases of modern times,"

On April 13, 1945, Best's program was not broadcast as scheduled. Instead, Best fled his Vienna apartment, according to Edwards, but he forgot a cache of personal papers that would later help to convict him.

Recordings of some of Best's broadcasts are located in Record Group 60 General Records of the Department of Justice—Sound Recordings at the National Archives, Washington, DC.

Best was notable for continuously making suggestions to his superiors of ways to heighten the effectiveness of German psychological warfare.

Arrest and trial

On July 26, 1943, Best along with Fred W. Kaltenbach, Douglas Chandler, Edward Delaney, Constance Drexel, Jane Anderson, Max Otto Koischwitz and Ezra Pound had been indicted in absentia by a District of Columbia grand jury on charges of treason. Best was arrested on January 29, 1946, by British forces in Carinthia, Austria and handed over to the U.S. Army. He was then flown to the United States to stand trial, arriving in Massachusetts on December 14, 1946.

Best was arraigned on January 20, 1947, and stood trial at the Boston Federal District Court on March 29, 1948. He acted as his own lawyer before U.S. District Judge Francis Ford. The witnesses at his trial included Princess Sofia zur Lippe-Weissenfeld of Austria and fellow American-born Nazi propagandist Edward Vieth Sittler. On April 16, 1948, Best was convicted of 12 counts of treason, with the jury's special finding that he actually gave "aid and comfort to the enemy". He had admitted in court the authorship of his broadcasts. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined $10,000.

Best appealed his conviction in 1950 (Best v. United States., 184 F.2d 131 (1st Cir. 1950)).

Death Best served his sentence at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. On August 12, 1951, he was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. Best died there of a brain hemorrhage on December 16, 1952, and was buried at the Pacolet Methodist Church Cemetery, Pacolet, South Carolina, on December 21, 1952. Fellow Nazi propagandist Herbert John Burgman, another American who created broadcasts in support of the Nazi regime, died at the same prison as Best on the first anniversary of Best's death.

Literature reference Journalist William L. Shirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, in 1942 broke the story of Best's propaganda work for the Nazi regime and in 1948 testified at Best's trial for treason. Soon afterward, Shirer released a novel The Traitor (1950) in which "the main characters were journalists resembling Shirer and Best."