You Can't Do Business With Hitler

I have recently discovered an interesting sub-genre of WWII literature: Books about WWII published during WWII. The first I found was The Pocket Book of the War, edited by Quincy Howe, published in 1941 by Pocket Books. (It was published before WWII was even popularly known as WWII, that started in earnest a year later.) The second was another pocket book, pictured above, You Can't Do Business with Hitler, by Douglas Phillips Miller. Quickly I learned... it was also a radio program. Even some of the original scripts have survived, yellowed but intact. [LINK] [LINK]

The book was advertised heavily in both trade and popular periodicals, military and civilian publications: Life Magazine, the American Foreign Service Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, and many others. It was translated into French as Pas d'Affaires Avec Hitler and distributed in Canada, Europe, Asia and north Africa. One review of that edition notes "Since this edition takes cognizance of the events of 1941, the reader is impressed with a partial fulfillment of the author’s warning." In Spanish it was No Se Puede Comerciar Con Hitler and distributed to Argentina and Brazil. The OWI, Office of War Information, (a division of the Office for Emergency Management) had deep pockets.

The Daily Colonialist 01-26-1943

Douglas Miller had served as Commercial Attache to the American Embassy in Berlin for 15 years. He was a graduate of the University of Denver and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He worked in international trade and wrote dry market research which was published by the US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. His reports included barn burners like Budgets of Western European Countries, and Freight Forwarding in the United States and Abroad. But after his 1941 book Miller was no longer a random bureaucrat. He was the darling of the OWI and they helped promote his book and later produced his radio program. Miller was born in 1892, meaning he was 49 years old when his account of unethical Nazi business practices became a best seller. The book made the argument that the Nazis did not engage in fair trade, and would harm American business and our economy —and for that reason the US needed to abandon neutrality in WWII and fight Germany.  In retrospect it's a strange angle to convince Americans to go to war. But it was just one piece of the greater propaganda effort. More here.

The 15-minute programs were transcribed on 16-inch discs that ran at 33 ⅓ RPM and each record carried two programs. The FREC (Federal radio Education Committee) loaned these to radio stations for free.   the only caveats were that no station could have more than 4 discs at a time and keep them for no longer than 2 weeks. They were advertised in multiple FREC bulletins in 1942. According to the book This Fascinating Radio Business by Robert John Landry, the program was carried on 703 station at one point. [SOURCE] That claim was published in 1946 and is likely to be accurate as it is relatively contemporary.  One OWI source claimed 790. Issues of the Movie and Radio Guide list all sorts of US and Canadian stations broadcasting the program, literally dozens in any given single issue: WAIM, WJAX, WCKY, WHYA, WIOD, WSOC, WLAK, WAIR, WRTF, WFBC, WRBL, WBT, WWNC, WCSC, WPTF, WCOS, WNYC, WTRY, WHAM, WORC, WKNE, WSYB, WRDO, WGAX, WWSR... the list goes on.

Every episode closes with the statement that it was "brought to you by the Radio Section of the Office for Emergency Management in Washington." The credits usually stated that the program was prepared and directed by Frank Telford. Miller acted as the narrator for every episode. Some episodes specify that they were written by Elwood Hoffman and directed by Telford. Some of the later episodes credit writing to Ben Kagan. The Frank Telford Papers reside in a special collection at The University of California, Los Angeles. It includes documents relevant to the program but also Chips, and Hawaii Five-O which he also wrote for. 

Life Magazine January 26, 1942

Every episode of You Can't Do Business With Hitler opens with a German voice shouting the below dialog which fades in the last sentence and transitions with an ominous organ chord.

Meine Deutsche Volksgenossen-Maenner und Frauen. In diesen Schicksalsstunde zint wir von unbebeugsamen Sieges willen gefuellt. Der reichs adler flieght von Nordcap. Bis zim Griechenland und unseren Siegesreiche Truppen verfolgen

That translates to "My German compatriots—men and women. In this hour of destiny, we are filled with an unyielding will to win. The imperial eagle flies from the North Cape to Greece, and our victorious troops are pursuing the enemy."  It's far from the most offensive thing Hitler might have said. But there are standards in radio. But I think the key part is Nordcap and Griechenland. that's Norway to Greece. It speaks to imperial ambitions that are contrary to free trade.

While the writers of each program are documented, the supporting case is largely unknown. A few short biographies reveal a few names. Adam Grzegorzewski was in the cast according to a short biography in The Polish Biographical Dictionary by Stanley Sokol. A set of OWI photographs of the program includes Abrasha Robofsky as the voice of Hitler. [SOURCE] Other images include, Robert Pollard, Ilona Killian, Col. Charles Ferris, Sam Lauder, Marian Harvey, Doris McWhirt, John Flynn, Virginia Moore. According to The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia by Isaac Landman, the actor Mark Schweid performed as well. 

It's unusual in radio but most episodes also cite sources for some of their more scandalous claims. Those includes: France on Berlin Time by Thomas Kernan,The Spoil of Europe  by Thomas Reveille, The Voice of Destruction by Hermann Rauschning, The Economic Consequences of the Second World War, by Lewis Lorwin, Inside Latin America by John Gunther, People Under Hitler by Wallace Dueul, Skeleton of Justice by Edith Roper, The New Order in Poland by Simon Segal and many magazines and federal reports. It makes for an unusual anti-fascist reading list.

According to the book Radio Goes to War by Gerd Horten, there were a total of 56 Episodes. I have not been able to corroborate that, nor does he cite a source. Despite the wealth of militaria in media, WWII propaganda radio programs are poorly documented. Today you can find scans of the original scripts for at least 34 episodes and audio for more than a dozen! At least 30 of those were further translated for use by the Foreign Language Division.Despite that I've only seen one transcription disc ever for sale.

Using the recordings and scripts online I collated a list of episodes by name, though some only from the front-sell or back-sell of an adjacent episode. Per the Jerome Cox Official War Publications list the first 16 episodes were all in circulation by June of 1942. The rest of the data is piecemeal and less certain. I also found a few titles in secondary sources but I could not confirm or sequence for these: The Nazi State of Matrimony, Education in the New Order and Origin of the Nazi Species. I've marked the "Drama" episodes with an asterisk because they appear multiple times with different episode numbers in odd sources; including this unattributed list which only partially matches the known scripts. 

Episode #	Name
1	Heads They Win Tails We Lose
2	Broken Promises
3	No American Goods Wanted
4	Two For Me and One For You
5	Mass Murder
6	The Spoils of Europe
7	The Thousand Year Reich
8	The Living Dead
9	The Anti-Christ
10	The Pagan Gods
11	Swastikas Over Equator
12	Money Talks With A German Accent
13	Work or Die
14	The New Slavery
15	Women Versus Hitlerism
16	The German Mother
17	???
18	Attack From Within
19	The Sixth Column
20	Made In Berlin
21	Trial By Terror
22	The Case of Martin Neimoeller
23	Barbarians: Made to Order
24	They Sleep For Hitler
25	Suffer The Little Children
26	Hitler is My Conscience
27	No God For Poland
28	From The Cradle To The Grave
29	The Bloodbath of Europe
30	The Strategy of Starvation
31	The Beast of Burden
32	The Sell Out
??	Legalized Murder
??	Gestapo
??	The Enemy Within Our Shores
??	A Drama In German*
35	The Seeds of Destruction
36	Health by Decree
37	Herr Doktor is a Quack
??	A Drama in Italian*
??	A Drama in German*
43	Origin of the Nazi Species
44	Gestapo in Sheep's Clothing
47	The Third Horseman
48	Nazis in False Face

In June of 1942 the OWI expanded on the program and reworked the format to cover all Axis powers. That program "This is Your Enemy" ran until September 1943. It was more polished but merely expounded on the topics of  You Can't Do Business With Hitler, though the latter ran concurrently for a year. Miller wrong another book Via Diplomatic Pouch published in 1944. It served as a more broad indictment of Hitlerism and fascism. None other than William L. Shirer wrote the introduction. But without the OWI, the book did not circulate as widely. He died in 1970. 

Frank Telford produced the programs "Dear Adolf" with Elwood Hoffman writing, and "This Is Our Enemy" for the OWI. Both men had some success in the TV and radio after the war. Ben Kagan was hired away from the OWI in 1944 by NBC as a script writer. He later worked on "These Are Our Men", and published one script in The Jewish Veteran magazine. He also worked on a V-E day documentary in 1956. He later was involved in managing the Radio Writers Guild (RWG). The overwhelming take away is that none of these people, save perhaps Miller, was a spook. They just segued into normal broadcasting careers after the war.

The top of each script reads "Radio Bureau, Editorial Division, Office of War Information. It's was government funded propaganda. But looking back now, 83 years later it's easy to look past it. Every episode closing explained that it was "based on the experiences of Douglas Miller who was for fifteen years commercial attache to the American Embassy in Berlin." Then that it was "brought to you by the Radio Section of the Office for Emergency management in Washington." Modern propaganda is wildly more deceptive both in it's intent and its origin. This wartime program seems almost quaint by comparison.  

As a propaganda piece, the efficacy of "You Can't Do Business With Hitler" remains mixed. While the public was ultimately swayed, big business took the Reichsmarks. There were many big corporations who very problematically did business with Hitler; notably Fred C. Koch through Winkler-Koch Engineering, Alcoa, Chase Bank, Dow Chemical, Ford, Prescott Bush through Union Banking Corporation (UBC), but also General Motors, IBM, and Standard Oil to name a few. [SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE].