The only U.S. Pilot to defect to the Waffen-SS during WW2... in October 1944

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During the Second World War there were multiple people from Allied countries that deserted to the Axis powers. Actually, there are too many to name them all. Some of them ended up working propaganda jobs, and the ‘American-Germans that travelled to Germany to defend the Reich’ was of course immortalised by the (fictional) scene in Band of Brothers. But all these people generally deserted before there was a full-fledged war between the United States and Germany. Let alone when it became obvious that Germany was going to lose the war. Well, not Martin James Monti. This United States pilot stationed in Karachi, India, deserted several weeks before his 23rd birthday. Playing a bit of bluff he ended up in German-held territory in Europe, joined the SS propaganda unit and even fought on the German side. But what makes the case perhaps even more strange is that all this happened in late October 1944, when it was evident to nearly everyone that Germany would lose the war. Nevertheless, the story of Martin James Monti is a very curious one, and certainly one worth telling.

Martin James Monti was born in St. Louis in 1921. He was one of seven children of a Swiss-Italian father and German mother that migrated to the United States. The family was staunchly Catholic, and during his teens, Monti became a firm anti-communist believer. One of the reasons, if not the reason for him developing anti-communist beliefs was the radio priest, Father Charles Coughlin.
Charles Coughlin, also known as the “Radio Priest”, reached about thirty million listeners every week during his broadcasts. He raged against the US bankers and although initially supportive of president Roosevelt, over time felt he didn’t take on the bankers enough. His broadcasts became a mixture of anti-communist, anti-semitic and fascist propaganda. Coughlin supported several developments in Italy, Germany and Japan. His radio broadcasts became fanatic to the degree that in 1936 US Catholics tried to silence him, among whom Joseph Kennedy, with the help of the Vatican cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius the 12th. These Catholics weren’t necessarily known for their leftist convictions, which says something about the content of Coughlin’s broadcasts.

Either way, it seemed that Coughlin managed to radicalise young Monti. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States officially entered the Second World War and in 1942 at the age of 21 Monti too registered for the draft. Before he was sent off to war he travelled to Detroit that same year, to meet with Father Coughlin. Nobody knows what happened during that meeting, but what is known is that following it Monti tried to enlist in the Navy. That could just have been because his four brothers served honourably in it. Eventually, in November that year, Monti enlisted in the US Air Force as an aviation cadet.
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:13 Martin James Monti
5:34 Monti in the Reich

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