Robert Henry Best: The Path to Treason,1921–1945

Abstract

South Carolina native Robert Henry Best, son of a Protestant minister, obtained journalism credentials at the Columbia University School of Journalism and ended up in Vienna, as did others such as William L. Shirer and Dorothy Thompson in the years between the wars. Working as a stringer, Best became captivated by Vienna, although he never achieved the same fame as a reporter as did others. When World War II broke out, he decided to remain, by then engaged to an Austrian journalist whom he later married. He volunteered to broadcast for the German government, and did, although he denied ever being a Nazi. By shortwave, his broadcasts reached perhaps 150,000 Americans during twice-an-evening broadcasts. Best coined such phrases as “Jewnited States,” and even the Nazis found him extreme. Convicted in the United States of treason after the war, Best died in prison in 1952.