The Paris Showgirl Who Fought The Nazis

Josephine Baker went from poverty and segregation in St. Louis to becoming Paris’s most sensational showgirl, captivating Europe with her dancing, sexuality and scandalous performances. But behind her outrageous persona was an extraordinary woman who became a spy in World War Two, civil rights activist and French national hero. Joining Kate today is author and Second World War French historian, Professor Amerita Hanna Diamond. This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Subscribe to the new Betwixt The Sheets YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@BetwixtTheSheetsPodcast Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX74ZgzrlyH29 Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

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• 0:38Speaker 01

  Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

• 1:38Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back once again to Betwixter Sheets. How fabulous to see you here. Thank you for dropping by once again. I will put the kettle on. But before we can go any further, I do have to tell you, and I will keep telling you this, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults, about adulty things and adulty way, covering a range of subjects, and you should be an adult too. And now, we can have a cup of tea and crack on together.

• 2:03Kate Lister?

  Take a seat. We are in Gay Paris, 1925, and about to take in a show at the Theatre de Champs-Elysées. Backstage, a 19-year-old American dancer is about to introduce herself to Europe. Josephine Baker has come a long way from the poverty and segregation of St. Louis, but Paris doesn't know that yet. What it will soon know of her is her dancing, her outrageous expressions, and her barely there costumes. And before long, a certain skirt made entirely out of bananas. But behind the scandalous performances, there's a woman learning just how powerful fame can be. Because one day, that fame won't just get her into Europe's bigger stages, it'll get

• 2:47Kate Lister?

  her past Nazi checkpoints.

• 3:10Kate Lister?

  Hello, and welcome back to Betwixter Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me, Kate Lister. Of all the people's lives that we have covered on Betwixter Sheets, this, Josephine Baker's, has to be one of the most remarkable. From poverty and segregation in America, to being the toast of Europe for her outrageous performances, and the small matter of working as a spy against the Nazis in World War II. But I'm giving too much away, and trust me, there is so much more than that besides. So who was Josephine Baker? Well, joining me today is author and professor emerita Hannah Diamond, whose work on women in the Second World War led her to writing a book on Josephine.

• 3:57Kate Lister?

  Well, hello, and welcome to Betwixter Sheets. It's only Professor Hannah Diamond. How are you doing?

• 4:04Speaker 02

  I'm doing really well, thank you, Kate. Thank you for this lovely invitation.

• 4:08Kate Lister?

  You are really Professor Diamond. That's the coolest name ever.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Well, yes, I suppose. Yeah, most of my students call me Hannah, though.

• 4:18Kate Lister?

  Okay, okay, fair enough, fair enough. I was just, Professor Diamond, that's like, it's like a Bond villain. That's just the best name ever. But apart from being a Bond villain in your side, you are also Professor Emerita at Cardiff University with a specialism in French history, particularly in World War II. Well, bonjour. And how did you get into this, Hannah?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Well, I've done, really, all my professional life. I've worked on France and the Second World War. I came into it through doing oral history work on women and the Second World War and talking. Everyone said I was, when I was working on my doctorate, I loved talking to grandmothers who would tell me all their wartime stories. So particularly interested in gender and women, and telling those stories that hadn't been told before, really.

• 5:11Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  So I was actually approached to do some research about Josephine Baker. And I realised that I really didn't know much about her wartime life, and that I wanted to do more and delve into it and find out everything I could about this extraordinary story of performance and espionage and celebrity, which, really, although we know a lot about Josephine Baker, Kate, and there's been wonderful work done about her early years when she came to Paris and made her name, and there's really brilliant scholarship as well about her later life and her work for the civil rights movement, there was

• 5:53Speaker 02

  this gap in her life around the Second World War that I set out to fill, and I hope I have.

• 6:01Kate Lister?

  You absolutely have, and you have filled it with your book, Josephine Baker's Secret War: An African-American Star Who Fought For France And Freedom, which is out in paperback in October. What a fabulous book that is. But there might be people listening who don't know who Josephine Baker is. And normally, what I'd say at this point is, tell us who Josephine Baker was. But I don't even know how you would condense that to a few sentences, but can you try? Who, who was she?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Well, Josephine Baker was African-American, who was born in St. Louis in 1906. And she rose from really, not the easiest of starts, you know? It was a very deprived, difficult existence for that African-American community at that time. But she had this flair for dance, and she had a lot of ambition. She wanted her better herself. There weren't enormous amount of opportunities for black women at that time. And it is an extraordinary rags-to-riches story on one level. She became noticed, she went on to the, to become a dancer on the New York stage at the time of Vaudeville.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  And she was noticed and picked up, I mean, I'm doing it briefly, picked up, came to Paris, and her dancing there made her a kind of overnight sensation. And I think of her as becoming really one of our first proper celebrities. And she, she gained, honestly, world renown. I mean, the Americans really never warmed up to her, at least not in those in four years. But she became a huge star. She went on to sing, sing in music hall. She became a film star. She made firstly a silent film, and then spoken films. And by the outbreak of the Second World War, where I sort of pick up her biography, she

• 7:58Speaker 02

  had really recognition, you know? She was followed by crowds everywhere. And she loved to talk to journalists. She had a lifestyle, she had a success, she could never have really aspired to in America under segregation. So it's a really remarkable story.

• 8:15Kate Lister?

  That is, isn't it? And she, I mean, if you've never seen a picture of Josephine Baker, I urge you to Google her immediately, dear listener, because she is a sight to behold. She's the most incredible-looking woman. But let's try and take it right back to where she was born, because, like, as you said, rags-to-riches. And when you say rags, like, you don't just mean people that maybe don't have enough to get by. This is real poverty that she was born into.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Yes, she was. Her father disappeared off the scene quite early, and she was brought up by her mum, who put her into service, really, in rich, affluent, white households. And she was not well-treated. I mean, it's clear that she had a very rough time. I mean, it was a hard life, but it was not like the life of others in similar situations around her. And I don't know, she did the laundry, she did childcare, she looked after children. She really didn't have much freedom. And I think one of the key things about that background is also something that I discovered isn't that unusual in these communities, is she married very young.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  She, she married at 13, her first time.

• 9:29Kate Lister?

  Jeez, wow.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is, it is very young, but it wasn't from the, you know, this isn't my field exactly, but from the secondary sources that I consulted, this was not that uncommon in these African-American communities, to set up young people, give them a measure of independence. But this first marriage to Willie Carson, it wasn't a very successful marriage, and she didn't enjoy it. And she does talk a little bitter about it later on, although Josephine memoirs are not, are notoriously not that reliable, you know? She tended to embellish her story a little bit for contemporary audiences. But it clearly wasn't a happy setup, and they divorced very quickly, some months later.

• 10:15Kate Lister?

  Do you know how old he was?

• 10:16Speaker 02

  I think he was about the same age. He was young, doing...

• 10:19Kate Lister?

  Oh, so two, two very young kids together.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  It wasn't a happy outcome, but it wasn't that uncommon, I think, we have to say.

• 10:27Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  But she did start to dance. She would dance in the street, and she was noticed.

• 10:34Kate Lister?

  In the street.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  And she was able to... Use that passion and that ability that she had to get herself noticed. And so she was picked up by, at this time, Dixieland jazz, black troops that were touring the US and they took her on. And she was able to raise herself out of these particular circumstances and get herself to New York. Around this time, she marries again. She's a bit older, she's fifteen, she marries a wheeling baker. And this was a more successful marriage, although they also end up divorcing in the twenties, but she kept his name, Josephine Baker, the second marriage as her stage name.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  So there she is, performing in New York for a big show that would shuffle along. And it was at this point that a woman called Caroline Dudley was out prospecting, looking for black dancers to take to Paris.

• 11:36Kate Lister?

  Specifically to take to Paris.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  To take to Paris. She was the wife of a diplomat, I think, an American diplomat who worked in Paris, perhaps even the ambassador. And she wanted to set up a show to tap into a kind of real success that all things black culture, as it was perceived in France at that time, was having. This is a period when France is really enthralled by its empire and particularly black Africa. And black sculpture, black art, black music, jazz is sort of thrown into that, was something that Parisians were celebrating and enjoying.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  So Caroline Dudley sees Josephine Baker. And Josephine Baker, that was noticeable also because she would, there's film that survived of her, which is also perhaps interesting for your viewers to Google. And you can see her at the end of the chorus line, being a bit silly, like not taking herself terribly seriously. She's kind of wiggling around, playing with the audience, she goes a bit cross-eyed, she pulls silly faces.

• 12:47Kate Lister?

  Yes, she does.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Sort of taking the mickie out of herself a bit. And I think Caroline Dudley thought, hmm, there's a budding performer there, I could do with a bit of this. So she invites Josephine Baker, who's just nineteen, to join this troupe that she calls the Revue Nigre, to go to Paris and perform there. And that's the beginning of her sort of French story, if you like.

• 13:12Kate Lister?

  And we should remember as well that the America that Josephine was leaving was not particularly welcoming, well, not welcoming at all to black people, to black women. This is the Jim Crow era.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Of course, and you know, segregation meant that she, she could have the opportunity to perform as part of a black troupe. And it is also said that she would blackface her face, she was slightly lighter skinned. Her heritage meant that she probably had, her father may have been Hispanic. I mean, we don't know exactly, because again, she changed her story quite a lot. But she was very embedded at this point in that kind of black Harlem Renaissance performance, vaudeville, which was why she went to Paris in the first place. And the story is that as soon as she arrives in Paris, gets off the boat, this is the

• 14:09Speaker 02

  story she told, and a porter comes rushing up to her, a white Frenchman, and says, can I help you with your bags, ma'am? She immediately realizes she's in a different world because that would never have happened to her at home. And she really celebrates this, you found freedom in a sense. I mean, of course, France also had its problems with race, but it was a different framework of racism, if you like, very different from the strict segregation that she left behind her. And she always celebrated that, that freedom that she felt she could experience. And, and she talks about it very movingly later on.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  And so it was, she goes into rehearsals to perform with this troupe, the Revue Nigre. And the directors of that revue encourage her to perform in a particular way and also to appear without many clothes on. There are, there are photographs that have survived of that performance. And we see that she really isn't wearing very much at all, just maybe a few feathers placed in the most intimate places. But she appears on stage, most famously in her Sauvage, her savage dance, in the D 'Art des Champs-Élysées in nineteen twenty-five, and goes into this kind of extraordinary

• 15:34Speaker 02

  frenetic dance where she moves, it's her interpretation of the Charleston, in a way that those audience had never seen before. And honestly, they're electrified by her performance. They've never seen anything like it. People are shocked, amazed, delighted, you know, and nobody can, literally, she was the talk of the town. And after that performance, she kind of goes from strength to strength, she attracts attention, controversy, the literati year of the day celebrated her, the surrealists adored her, people designed clothes for her.

• 16:13Kate Lister?

  She's a huge deal.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  And she just, you know, became immensely rich and immensely famous.

• 16:20Kate Lister?

  Go on, Josephine, did she speak French when she arrived?

• 16:23Speaker 02

  No, she was, she didn't, she wasn't very well educated. I mean, her, I've looked at her archives, I mean, her English, she, you know, her English is quite phonetic. And she only really learnt to speak and write French later on. She met a man called Count Abbotino, he was an Italian, he called himself a count, he wasn't a real count. And they got together, they had a relationship, they had a kind of, they pretended they got married, but it was a sham. He was a bit of a sham character publicly, but he knew how to market Josephine. He sort of produced her, if you like. I mean, here she is, this nineteen-year-old girl, who's being asked to do all sorts of

• 17:04Speaker 02

  things in a country where she doesn't really even speak the language very well. But he took her on, he looked after her, and he helped her to use her fame as a vehicle to better herself. He got tutors in, he taught her to sing, she learnt to speak French, and she became a much more rounded performer than this rather, I suppose, more primitive savage image, the savage in the Sauvage sense, French sense, that she starts to leave behind her, though she does carry it with her, but she sort of reinvents herself.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  And I think one of the things that's most remarkable about Josephine Baker is how multifaceted she, she proves to be. She, she changes her image and her identity as she moves through life, fashioning him herself to those contemporary mores and appealing to French audiences by picking up. One of the things she does very effectively is tap into what we, we academics sometimes call the colonial unconscious.

• 18:14Kate Lister?

  Yeah, I was just about to ask you about that, yeah.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  She resonates as the kind of, the colonial, savage is a bit strong in English, but she's the Tunisian shepherdess, she's the, the island beauty. And in all the, she does these kind of performances and sings songs that resonate with that imagery. And even in her films, she is playing those characters. And this appeals to this kind of French context of the time, which is very caught up in empire and all things that they perceive as African. And there's a kind of irony there because she's African-American, she doesn't originate

• 18:59Speaker 02

  from the Martinique or, or from Tunisia, but she's able to use those stereotypes to appeal to those audiences. Does that make sense?

• 19:09Kate Lister?

  Oh yeah, she's playing with a colonial lens and kind of marketing herself because it was this sort of colonial fantasy that was sweeping Europe at the time, as it was going around and conquering about, you know, quote unquote savage Africa. That was a big colonial fantasy that they were all having, we've got to go over there and civilize all of these people. And she was able to play right into that and to exploit it and to make herself very successful. Is that, is that sort of like, what, because one of her most famous dances is the, is the banana dance? Is that part of that?

• 19:43Speaker 02

  I think so. I think the banana dance is still quite early. I mean, she's launched in twenty-five, the banana skirt, which is designed for her especially, does tap into this, this kind of imagery. And if you think about a banana skirt, it accentuates all those kind of frenetic moves she does.

• 20:03Kate Lister?

  I'm just looking at it right now, I've got a, I've got a photo of her wearing it. It's, it's a hell of an outfit, that.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  It is, and it's probably, I think, probably her most famous, most, the most iconic image of her. And there are also drawings that were done of her, not always, you know, we look at them now and they probably are on the edge of feeling rather uncomfortable to look at, but they fit with that context of the time. And she is playing with images of race and using them. And I think the very interesting thing about Josephine Baker is, you know, she's nineteen, she clearly doesn't have much agency at the beginning, but she does acquire more and more agency and more power over her own image. And she learns, she's very, very savvy.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  She, she learns about what works. And she, you know, from very early on, she starts to tell stories about her background, she learns to appeal. Abbotino gets her contract, she sells cosmetics, you know, she has this very garçon-like look, you know, very short hair, very stylish with this incredible curl on her forehead. She knows how to sell herself. And it is remarkable.

• 21:19Kate Lister?

  She enjoyed the trappings of fame and she had numerous relationships. So let's talk a little bit about Josephine's love life because that's the stuff of legend as well, isn't it?

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Well, yes, I mean, she obviously had this, she understands how to use her sexuality to her, to her advantage. I mean, I have to be honest, as a historian, I can only go by the memoirs, what is said about her, because these aspects of her life obviously aren't logged in archives so much. But she is very famed for having had many lovers, you know, Ernest Hemingway fell for her. She was able to have whoever she wanted, really. And it is said that she slept with men and women, that she was bisexual, and she had the most wonderful time, by the sounds of it.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  What interests me perhaps more than the numbers of lovers and the people that she met was the way in which she was a performer. And I think, looking back at her life in this interwar period, and the way in which she was able to make herself such a celebrity, and to play on the trappings of celebrity. For example, another example, I mean, we're so used to celebrity now, but Josephine Baker, as a promotion stunt, really, was given a cheater to promote one of the shows she was in at the Casino de Paris.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  And she would walk down the Champs-Elysees with this extraordinary cheater in its diamond collar, and people would follow her and look at her, marvel of this incredible woman. And she loved animals, she had a great menagerie of animals. Now, we're used to this kind of celebrity behaviour now, but she sort of invented all of this, you know, she created this extraordinary celebrity persona, which became a part of her performativity and her stage persona as well. And this would serve her really well when we come to the period that I've worked on,

• 23:31Speaker 02

  because it gave her the most superb cover to undertake espionage, because she could hide in plain sight, be this great eccentric celebrity, who never really came under suspicion, because people just saw what she wanted them to see.

• 23:51Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Hannah and Josephine after this short break.

• 24:01Kate Lister?

  In case you weren't aware, World Mental Health Day takes place in October. And I don't know about you, but I'm taking this as a reminder to practise some proper self-care, saying no to plans I don't want to go to, guilt-free snacking and Halloween movie marathons. It's also the perfect time to check in with yourself and your mental health. For many, it can mean taking that step and speaking to a professional who can help and guide you through any difficulties you're having. But often when you try to do that, it's still way harder than it should be. A lot of online therapy platforms don't accept insurance at all, which means even during a month focused on mental health, you're stuck paying out of pocket or signing up for an expensive monthly subscription.

• 24:45Kate Lister?

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• 25:27Kate Lister?

  You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Hi, everyone, it's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households, yet many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

• 26:32Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right, it took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there, and the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe, because the people in charge of the money really do like that. Right, let's get on with it.

• 27:15Kate Lister?

  So, everything's going fabulously well for Josephine in Paris. She is thoroughly enjoying herself, she's on the rise, she's making money, she's making a name for herself, she's becoming more and more independent, she's becoming more and more pushing herself out there. But in the looming backdrop of this is that the Second World War is gonna, is gonna start. We've got the rise of fascism, we've got the Nazis coming to power. I mean, that must have been a threat bubbling away in the background, she can't have not been aware of that. And then war breaks out and eventually France falls to the Nazis. So let's talk about what she was doing in the war, because it's quite extraordinary, because she had the money and the resources to have left, to have just gone, I'm out of there.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yes, and she was quite unusual. I mean, Josephine Baker was not the only African-American musician, singer, to make her fortune in Paris between the wars, you know. Parisians adored the jazz and other musicians went to France and spent a long time there, and even friends of hers. But they knew that they would be targeted by the Nazis. And the American Embassy put out warnings, and most of them left, even reluctantly. They didn't want to go, but they understood that they were in danger from the Nazis. And Josephine Baker knew that too. She'd been to Germany and Austria in the late 20s, and she, the Nazis hadn't come

• 28:38Speaker 02

  to power yet, but she was vilified, she was seen as decadent, you know, jazz music was banned, and her concerts were heckled, and the Austrians tried to ban her. So she understood that the Nazis were a threat for her. But by this point, by the time the war breaks out in 1939, Josephine Baker has, she's tried to perform in America, but the Americans didn't get her. And in 36, she came back from a very unsuccessful tour in America and decided, that's it, I'm going to stay in France, I'm going to invest in France. And she married, a third married, a man called Jean Lyon, who was Jewish.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  And at the ceremony at this wedding, she takes French nationality, she renounces her American nationality. And I think we see, this is kind of a milestone, really, in her life, because she is turning her back on America and embracing France. So it is, when the war breaks out, Kate, Josephine sees everyone leaving, she says, no, France is my home, I'm going to stay here and see it out and do my best for my adopted country. And she does, she stays, and during the phony war, she starts to become involved in patriotic acts, she sends letters to the soldiers on the Maginot Line, she does good work.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  She'd always been doing, part of her celebrity persona was to go and, you know, give poor children presents at Christmas, but now she adopts soldiers, sends them parcels, she puts on a show with Maurice Chevalier, who I'm sure will be a familiar figure to many of your listeners, called Paris, London, which celebrates the cooperation of the two countries during this period of the phony war.

• 30:31Kate Lister?

  Wow, that's risky.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Well, they're there, they're waiting for the, you know, the phony war is this long period where nothing happens. Everyone thinks everything's going to go crazy on the 3rd of September, when war breaks out. But we go into this curious period of the phony war, which lasts for many months. And Josephine Baker is doing her bit to, you know, keep morale up, doing this show. And around this time, she gets an approach from a man called Jacques Abt, who works in counterintelligence, and he needs to know what's going on underneath the surface of French society at this time. He needs to know, you know, everyone was terrified that the Germans were infiltrating,

• 31:17Speaker 02

  this notion we had in Britain as well of a fifth column. So he's looking for informers, people who can help him. Now, initially Jacques Abt, rather like us, I suspect, would think, well, Josephine Baker, she's hardly the obvious person to recruit as a spy, is she?

• 31:35Kate Lister?

  That's what I'd think, you'd want someone a little bit more, you know, to blend into the background and not be noticed. She wouldn't be my first choice, no.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Also, she had this very eccentric image, but he goes to see her and he sees a very different Josephine Baker from that public facing persona we've been talking about. Here is a much simpler, hard, genuine person who really feels she has a huge debt that she owes the French, who've made her so famous, who've adopted her. And she says to Abte something along the lines of, you know, I owe, the French have given me their, their hearts, I owe them my life. And he says, well, maybe there's something here, let's give her a try. And during this period of the phony war, Josephine Baker is very well connected, she's invited

• 32:28Speaker 02

  to parties and she manages to contrive to get an invitation to the Italian assembly. The Italians really liked Josephine Baker because she rather ill-advisory spoke out in support of Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia. So she gets, she floats into this, you know, wonderful event at, at the embassy. And there she is in all her Josephine Baker finery and these diplomats and administrators like, oh, you know, they are completely starstruck by her arrival. And she's able to ask them questions, you know, what is Mussolini's position on this? And what will he do if, you know, the Germans get more active in the war? And she goes allegedly into the loos and scribbles down the information they, these

• 33:13Speaker 02

  unwitting men tell her and passes this information on to Abte. And he says, hmm, hmm, that's interesting. It tallies with some of what we're hearing. Maybe there's something here. Maybe Josephine Baker is going to be able, she has an entree into circles of people in the know and maybe she can be useful. She then goes into the Japanese embassy, another event, another soiree, comes back with information for Abte and he decides to take her on and he trains her in the art of spycraft. And they will then start a kind of partnership and they do also become romantically involved

• 33:58Speaker 02

  with last pretty much throughout the course of the war, working together. Josephine Baker acts with him, sometimes she does missions on her own, often with him and collecting and transmitting intelligence, first on behalf of the Allies and then after the 1942 Operation Torch invasion of North Africa, because she and Abte are sent and are based actually in North Africa, particularly in Morocco, she then works directly for the Free French Resistance, the go list.

• 34:35Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Doing this kind of work. So the, the book tells the story and looks at the wise and the wirefords of their activities.

• 34:46Kate Lister?

  What kind of work was she doing? She was like getting information from people, but what was she, was she spying on people? Was she like, what, what, what was she doing? What do you ask Josephine Baker to do as a spy?

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Well, basically she was, one of the amazing things about Josephine Baker is she, everyone adored her. So she had this huge capacity to move across different social groups. And so she could, like, she's sent to Morocco, for example, she falls in with a not very pleasant man called Fahmi El-Ghulawi, who's like the second in line after the Sultan of Morocco, very powerful, actually rather dictatorial man. But he's very impressed with Josephine Baker, she is this great star and he adopts her in his circle. And this man and his court, for want of a better word, that these are all the people, the great and the good of Southern Morocco, who are in the know.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  And they're talking to her openly, like, you know, and they, they know who are the German spies, the Italian spies and the French are there and the Americans, they're, you know, they're in the background. And she is able to get a sense of that landscape of espionage.

• 36:02Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Some of your listeners may be aware of that wonderful film Casablanca. You know, Josephine Baker is situated right in the heart of that landscape that is portrayed in Casablanca of spies of many different nationalities, the Allies are there, but the Germans and the Italians and also then later the British and Americans. And she's able to move around various different groups of people, both those French groups and those other groups, and of course the Americans, but also into those Moroccan

• 36:44Speaker 02

  populations, because there is a big worry about how these colonial populations are going to respond during the Second World War and whether they're going to go over to the Germans or whether they're going to support the Allies. So Josephine Baker, through her own experiences, is able to report in to those who need that information, what is happening on the ground. Now she has a second advantage, which is because she's Josephine Baker, here we have a wartime situation, all the frontiers are shut, but not to her. Everyone's desperate to get visas, the Jews are all waiting in Marseille, in Lisbon,

• 37:28Speaker 02

  in, in Casablanca to get the visas they need to escape. Whereas Josephine Baker, I'd like to go and she really wants to go and meet the British in Lisbon and meet the intelligence services.

• 37:41Kate Lister?

  Perfect cover.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  And she says, I'm planning a tour in Lisbon and we'll go on South America, here's your visa to do it. So not only was she, did she have the means to acquire the information, she also had the means to take it to the people who needed it.

• 37:59Kate Lister?

  Actually, she, that does make a very good spy, doesn't it? Like she's got the perfect cover, she can go anywhere by saying, I'm just going to do a tour. Because she's Josephine Baker, she's the celebrity. Now, I don't know enough about the psychology of celebrity, but I know that we become weird around celebrities, like a famous person's there, you do become a little bit just like, and I can imagine people would start talking and spilling secrets. And because you wouldn't expect her to be a spy, because it's so ridiculous that she would be, it wouldn't occur to you that that's what was going on. So she's actually the perfect spy.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Well, she's very successful and she does, she does do great service to both the Allies and the go lists.

• 38:42Kate Lister?

  How much danger was she in? Like, was this, was she in a lot of danger doing this?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  I think when she was carrying stuff, she used to hide notes of information on her person. She would pin notes because she didn't remember everything. She'd pin notes to the inside of her bra and she also would wear clothes and, and pin things to the underwear. And she does say in her memoir, she says, you know, I could sail through the borders because nobody would think to search Josephine Baker. And she's also able, on one occasion, she facilitates Abte also being able to travel with her. He travels in disguise as her secretary. And when they get to the border, this is when actually very early on, after the Germans have occupied France, they want to get to Lisbon, because initially they want to try

• 39:32Speaker 02

  and get to London, although in the end they end up working mainly in North Africa, but they want to get to Lisbon and talk to the British. And Abte travels in disguise as her secretary and she is, she arrives at the border in all her Josephine Baker finery and there's pandemonium. Josephine Baker's here, you know, the railway workers run home and fetch their wives, come and see Josephine Baker at the border. The, the customs officers aren't very interested in anything but getting her autograph. And Abte at this point, who's actually carrying in his briefcase, song sheets of the, you

• 40:12Speaker 02

  know, the cover and the story is written in invisible ink, are messages from the French secret services with information. He's able to pass through, Josephine Baker's there, making, playing this great star and he's passed it through border control, nobody gives him a second thought. It's a lovely story, isn't it?

• 40:33Kate Lister?

  It is, isn't it? So she was a very successful spy during the Second World War, but did she ever nearly get caught?

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Not as far as I was able to establish.

• 40:42Kate Lister?

  Go on, Josephine.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  She was protected, I think. You know, she's not cited in a lot of documents, she's cited by the French. She also, once the Americans are established in North Africa, after the Allied invasion of North Africa, she works closely with the Americans. And there is another sort of extraordinary story about her, that she falls very ill, very seriously ill in 1941. And she's ill for a long time and she really is very near to death. We don't know exactly what was wrong with her. She desperately wanted children, she may have had an intervention that went wrong, she may have had a miscarriage, but she is very seriously ill and she's put in a clinic in

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Casablanca. And when the Americans are there, they come to hear, hear of this ailing star and they're preparing for the American invasion of North Africa. And so they decide, hmm, we'll go and see Josephine Baker and try and find out how she is. So they turn up for news of this star. And subsequently, once they've made, Abte and Baker have made initial contact with these Americans, her bedside, her room in the clinic becomes a meeting point for those who are sympathetic to the Allied cause.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  So Moroccan, French officers of the French army who support the Allies, members of the Resistance are able to use going to see Josephine Baker in her hospital bedroom as a ruse to exchange, pick up information and have meetings. I mean, it's extraordinary story.

• 42:27Kate Lister?

  It is, it's wild, it's the most insane story. I'll be back with Hannah and Josephine after this short break.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Hi everyone, it's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep

• 43:25Speaker 01

  theirs. Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Hi there. I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History Podcast. And I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you're gonna do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you've never heard before. Feel the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Accretaine, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world, as she goes on crusade to the Holy Land with 300 handmaidens in tow. She leads her own army. Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  And trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History.

• 44:50Kate Lister?

  What about after the war? Because like, you know, like, now we look back on all this, and we know that, that, you know, the Allies won the Second World War. But of course, at the time, no one knew that that was, that was what was gonna happen. It was very risky and frightening. But then, you know, the, the war ends, and she is recognized for this. But then what does she do with her post-war years? Does she just go, well, I'm a war hero now, so I'm just gonna retire quietly and just sit over here?

• 45:14Speaker 02

  No, you know that. You, you know enough about Josephine Baker to know that wasn't very likely.

• 45:19Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  Well, Josephine Baker does get recognition for her wartime actions. Some of it is a bit slow to come. But like many other women in the Resistance, actually, that I worked on, they don't wax lyrical about it in the post-war period. I mean, luckily for Josephine Baker, she comes out of the Second World War as a heroine. She gets a Resistance Medal Medal in 1946. She made the right choices. She has a good story to tell. And it's very much the basis for her relaunch as a, you know, celebrity and singer. I mean, other musicians and performers did not have such an easy time. You know, Maurice Chevalier

• 46:00Speaker 02

  himself, he came under suspicion. Edith Piaf, they had a much more, a less clear trajectory during the war. And they were investigated. They, they got off quite lightly in the end. But Chevalier did perform in prisoner of war camps in Germany. Piaf did fall under suspicion. You know, a lot of these big figures were not, it wasn't entirely clear. Whereas Josephine Baker had a good war. Later in the war, she, she's taken on by the army. She's made a lieutenant, a second lieutenant in the French Air Force. You see a lot of pictures of her goalless propaganda in the, at the end of the war and in the early post-war

• 46:41Speaker 02

  years, in her army uniform. So she's an established patriot, if you like. And this, this helps her, I think, relaunch her career in the post-war years. And she does a lot of troop entertainment throughout the war as part of her cover, particularly once the French and the British and the Americans troops are present in North Africa. She does a huge amount of entertaining and fundraising and promotion of de Gaulle, who she adores, actually. But I think one of the things that I found very interesting about this period of troop entertainment is here's Josephine Baker, who's distanced herself from her homeland,

• 47:22Speaker 02

  from the segregation that was America, and she celebrated and embraced the freedom she had in France. Here she is, an entertaining American serviceman, and confronted once again with the realities of segregation.

• 47:37Kate Lister?

  Yeah, of course.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  She sees these black American servicemen who are being treated, really, they're not allowed on active duty. They have to do all the dregs of army work, you know, bury the dead, build the bridges, run the canteens, clear out, flop out the latrines. And she makes a point to journalists of talking about promoting their contribution. So we see in the press at this time, articles, interviews with her, and she says in her own words, things that, I'm so proud of what my race is contributing to the war effort. And she talks about that contribution. So I would argue she kind of re-embraces her African-American

• 48:22Speaker 02

  identity. And I think we can see the beginnings here of her understanding of her platform as a celebrity, that she could speak out on behalf of the causes she believed in. Now, after the war, when she's relaunching herself, and like many other African-Americans who've lived through the war, very disappointed that their contribution to the war effort didn't bring segregation to an end, she starts to become increasingly engaged in the movements that are building anti-racism, pro-equality. First in France, and she joins groups and

• 49:05Speaker 02

  she speaks out. And, and gradually also, she starts to go to America, and also becomes involved in the civil rights movement. And that culminates, we see her in 1963, speak at the March on Washington. She's one of just two women who speak before Martin Luther King comes on. And she's in her army uniform with all her medals, just before he gives his I Have a Dream speech. Now, in the interim, she decides that in order to show the world how to put into action her belief in an equal society, she adopts an extraordinary number of children. You may have heard this story.

• 49:49Kate Lister?

  Yes, we should. You mentioned that she couldn't have children of her own. So she, she adopts a lot of children.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  She adopts a lot of children. She starts off, she's, by this point, she's married to a man called Joe Boyon. This is her fourth marriage.

• 50:05Kate Lister?

  Oh, so this is number three. Right, okay.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  No, this is number four, actually.

• 50:09Kate Lister?

  So number four.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  Number three didn't work out in the end. Joe Boyon, this, this Jewish man who really wanted to shut her up and make her into a housewife. He wasn't so keen on being number two in that relationship. And although she sort of played along for a while, it didn't work out in the long run. They were divorced in 1941. But Joe Boyon, Josephine Baker, she has, one of the places she took, she uses a lot in during the war, and she takes refuge there at the beginning of the war, is a chateau in the Dordogne, Chateau de Miland, which is a wonderful place, which is now actually a museum, a Josephine Baker museum. And she marries Joe Boyon, and they buy this chateau. And she uses this chateau

• 50:53Speaker 02

  as the site where she decides to perform this, almost this living experiment in human life, adopting children from all around the world and bringing them up all together, children with, you know, different Japanese, Korean, North African, African-American, all a mixture, to show the world that whatever your, the color of your skin, whatever your background, whatever your religion, everyone can get on together. Now,

• 51:26Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  Again, it sounds like a bit of a celebrity.

• 51:30Kate Lister?

  It does. It sounds, it's, it's, it's, it sounds a tad performative there, doesn't it?

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it is quite performative. I mean, she, she encourages tourists to come and watch all these children having their tea. But I also think it's, it's driven by a profound belief that it can make a difference, that it can show the world that we can live together peaceably. And sadly, this experiment, I mean, they run out money. After about the sixth child that she brings home, Joe Boyon says, enough, I'm, I'm out of here. And he disappears off to South America. But she goes on adopting children. She's really out of her depth. She brings her mother over from the US, and she runs out money. In the end,

• 52:19Speaker 02

  by the end of the 60s, it's all fallen apart. And she is actually bailed out by Princess Grace of Monaco, who thinks very highly of Josephine Baker and helps her at the end. But yeah, it's, you know, there she is, Josephine Baker on her own with, you know, 12 adolescents who don't get on. You know, anyone who's got teenage children will tell you they're a handful. And it's tough for her.

• 52:45Kate Lister?

  What happens to the children?

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Well, the children, ultimately, she dies in 1975. Some of the children join their father, Joe Boyon, in South America. Others sort of just make their lives. They become, they go off and, and they make their lives. I think. I mean, the children have come much more to the fore recently, Kate, because in 2021, President Macron decided to recognise Josephine Baker by making her, giving her the top national tribute by having her ashes symbolically moved to the Pantheon, which is like a kind of mausoleum in Paris, where mainly men of French society are celebrated

• 53:31Speaker 02

  by being buried there. And in 2021, Macron, with the support of the family, and the family does all come together to support this move, because it's a great honour, that celebrates in November 2021, Josephine Baker's contribution to France. And really, we mustn't be naive, he's in the, he's at the beginnings of a presidential campaign. So he knows that Josephine Baker, celebrating her, will, will probably appeal to a wide, diverse set of voters potentially. But we do see the family together. And, and one of the members, the surviving members of the family, Brian Bion Baker, becomes a kind of spokesperson.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  And he has gone on to do a lot of events, bring the family's experience, their life in the chateau, very much to the fore. And I must say, the way he speaks about it is reasonably positive. Like, they understand, you know, they understand that she was out of her depths, but they speak to her, about her very generously. But, you know, it's kind of an odd world, where you've got the son of Josephine Baker, who is, his life, it's dominated by his mother's legacy. It's kind of weird, isn't it?

• 54:50Kate Lister?

  What a life. So as a final question, then, although we could, we could, honestly, we could talk to you about this forever. But what do you think Josephine Baker would want her legacy to be? Because there's so much here. Like, do we want to say that she was an amazing dancer, a pioneering performer? Do we want to say that she was a fighter for civil rights, for a civil, you know, that, that she was an espionage, she helped win the war? Like, there's so much. What do you think she would want her legacy to be?

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Well, I think, you know, if we look at her life, and we look at where she came from, I think she would want us to learn from that, and to realise, like, anything is possible. She, she had this extraordinary capacity to make the most of what she had. I mean, she was able to get out of this miserable, really, beginning, and reinvent herself. And she was always reinventing herself. She became hugely famous. She didn't just sit back and enjoy it. She went on to improve herself, to learn to sing, to be on film. And then, when the war broke out, she didn't sort of run away and hide, or compromise herself. She refused to perform for the Nazis. She understood the danger of that ideology.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  And she, she used her celebrity, she operationalised it, a horrible word, but, but, but helpful, to do something useful and for the allied cause, and to promote what she believed in. She didn't agree with Nazism. She didn't agree with antisemitism. And then, she uses her wartime experience, what she's learnt about her power and her platform, to go on and fight for equality and for civil rights, to again, promote the causes she believed in, and to have an impact. So for me, that's the lesson. Here, we see a woman at the

• 56:42Speaker 02

  crossroads of gender, espionage, empire, equality, freedom, who, you know, crosses all these different fields of, of interest and research, doing extraordinary things in all these very different forums, really. So, that's a rather long-winded answer. But does that give a?

• 57:06Kate Lister?

  It absolutely does. Hannah, you have been wonderful to talk to. You have absolutely lit up this woman's life. What an extraordinary legacy. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Oh, they can find me on, on the Cardiff website. So, yeah, Hannah Diamond.

• 57:26Kate Lister?

  And give us the title of the book again?

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Josephine Baker's Secret War: The African-American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom.

• 57:34Kate Lister?

  Thank you so much for coming by. You have been magnificent.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you, Kate, for the invitation. I've enjoyed it immensely.

• 57:41Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening, and thank you so much to Hannah for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review, and follow along, whatever it is you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have got episodes on how to create the look of Marie Antoinette, and one on Scotland's 16th century sappho, all coming your way. If you'd like us to explore a subject, or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep

• 58:54Speaker 01

  theirs. Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.