Above: When Madeline Webb entered Westfield on June 22, 1942, she was assigned to kitchen duty, just like all new arrivals. By July, her case had already been immortalized at a Coney Island wax museum. Because her defense claimed she wasn’t in the hotel suite when the murder occurred, her wax figure appeared not in the killing scene — but in a prison cell.

Inside Issue Three

• Madeline Webb’s own article in a 1942 detective magazine

• Madeline’s niece helps uncover a rocky academic past

• This Month in (Nazi) True Crime Infamy

• Podcasts worth a listen

This Month in True Crime Infamy

Seven months into World War Two, the United States was gripped by spy panic. Some 10,000 enemy aliens had been arrested, and 1,000 people had been convicted of subversion or disloyalty. Here’s what happened in July 1942:

• July 8 — Nazi Saboteurs Tried

  • Eight Germans went before a secret military tribunal in Washington, D.C., for plotting sabotage attacks in the United States. German U-boats had dropped them off the previous month – four on Long Island, New York, and four near Jacksonville, Florida.

  • Ringleader George Dasch went to the FBI and informed on the others. It took just nine days to round everyone up.

    On August 3, the tribunal found all eight guilty and sentenced them to death. President Roosevelt spared Dasch and another man, Ernst Burger. The other six died in D.C.’s electric chair five days later.

• July 9 — Spy Captured

  • Authorities announced the arrest of Herbert Karl Bahr, a 29-year-old American who confessed to trying to slip into the country to spy for the Nazis.

  • Bahr, who had spent four years as an exchange student in Germany, arrived aboard a Swedish ship that brought many Jewish refugees to the United States. The State Department used the Bahr case to deny visas to thousands of Jews fleeing the Holocaust.

  • Bahr received a 30-year prison sentence but by 1951 was out and living with his widowed mother, who had angrily disowned him after his arrest. When he died in 1982, his obituary listed a wife and four sons as survivors.

• July 21 – American Nazi Leader Confesses

  • Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze pleaded guilty to providing U.S. military secrets to Germany and Japan. The 36-year-old, a former leader of the pro-Nazi German-American Bund, received a relatively light sentence of 15 years.

  • Kunze was captured in Mexico in early July as he outfitted a boat to meet a German submarine and flee to the Fatherland. He died in 1973 in Philadelphia.

• Chicago, July 23 – ‘Female Führer’ Charged

  • A federal indictment accused Nazi sympathizer Elizabeth Dilling of conspiring to damage the morale of the U.S. military.

  • Dilling was the author of a fiery anti-Soviet book, The Red Network, and a frequent speaker at isolationist rallies. A German publication once called her “the Female Führer.”

  • The charges alleged she helped distribute cartoons that mocked the Army and Navy. The indictment named 27 others — all men.

  • The defendants never went to trial. In 1946, a federal judge dismissed the case, with Attorney General Francis Biddle calling it “a dreary farce.”

Back to Oklahoma

A trip to the Sooner State in June provided an opportunity to give talks about the forthcoming Madeline Gets Life – and also led to new research surprises.

Madeline’s Lost Article

One was an article Madeline wrote from the Women’s House of Detention in New York for a magazine called Headline Detective. It hit newsstands just before her murder trial in May 1942, and she probably wrote it to help defray the costs of her defense.

I came across it during a visit to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City (worth seeing). The article turned up in a collection of papers donated by Oklahoma writer Glenn Shirley, an authority on the West.

Among Madeline’s revelations: She was ashamed of a modeling photo that was widely circulated while she was being hunted by police. Newspaper reproduction techniques of the day made it seem she was posing nude behind an army helmet. In reality, a clearer version (below) reveals she was modestly draped, wearing what looks like a strapless top and short shorts.

Also: Madeline developed a drinking problem in New York before meeting and falling in love with Eddie, her murder co-defendant.

And she said if it was true, as she’d been told, that he was a small-time con man, “then Eddie Shonbrun deceived me all the time. I will never look at another man. And I’ll never marry.”

It certainly was true, and Eddie was the last man in Madeline’s life.

Early Susie Reich photos

Another Shirley collection article revealed rare photos of murder victim Susie Reich — ones I had long heard about but had never seen. A pretty teenager gazes out from the images, probably shot for a photography book, Beautiful Polish Women.

Above: A young Susie Kolischer, later Susie Reich, poses for a photographer.

Speaking Events

On June 11, co-author M. J. Van Deventer and I gave a talk at the Muskogee Public Library. M. J. lives in the city. Special thanks to branch manager Julie Poor, reference supervisor Richard Holland, and tech wiz/genealogy expert Leslie Young-Howard for making it happen – and to the folks who showed up!

On June 12, a nice crowd turned out for a talk at the Stillwater History Museum (below). Susan, my wife, came along and took photos. M. J. couldn’t make the trip, but I played a video of her explaining how she met Madeline in the late 1960s when she was the women’s editor of the Stillwater News-Press. Many thanks to museum director Cat de Araujo for hosting us.

Madeline’s Niece Sherrylea

Among the people we’ve met while writing Madeline Gets Life, one of the most interesting was Sherrylea Webb. Read about her connection to the story and about the stroke that failed to stop her on the Vintage Crime Vault blog.

True Crime for the Ear

About 23,000 true crime podcasts compete for your attention. A sizeable number are devoted to misdeeds of yesteryear.

We’re here to help narrow the field:

Allie in the Archives – Our new favorite, literally, because it just burst on the scene in June. Allie Siebert is a historian and author who focuses on Michigan and surrounding states. What sets her apart are her storytelling skills and her ability to unearth key details many podcasters would overlook. Subjects range from a murdered “witch” to a pregnant woman who disappeared only to be found weeks later, poisoned to death, in a basement just steps from her family’s home. Average length: 30 minutes.

True Crime Historian – The prolific Richard O. Jones mines newspaper accounts and other documents to bring old murders to life. And he narrates them in a voice that matches the often-tortuous writing style of bygone days (an acquired taste for some). Jones tackles well-known stories such as the Osage Indian murders that inspired the book and movie Killers of the Flower Moon. He also tackles forgotten tragedies, such as a killer who would have gotten away with his deed if only he’d placed his victim across the railroad tracks instead of between the rails. Average length: One hour plus.

Most Notorious – Writer and historian Erik Rivenes interviews true crime authors on his weekly-ish podcast and lets them talk about their newest books. This allows for a huge variety in the subjects he and his guests tackle. In one podcast, Whack Job author Rachel McCarthy James gives a history lesson about axe murders. Another is devoted to Rhode Island’s last execution. Rivenes is approaching his 400th episode and often interviews the same author multiple times over the course of their writing career. Average length: One hour plus.

Buried Bones – Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes put historical crimes under a 21st century microscope in this masterful weekly podcast. Dawson teaches journalism at the University of Texas, and Holes is a former cold case investigator. They banter back and forth as they walk the listener (and YouTube viewer) through crimes ranging from a woman who got away with poisoning her husband in 1855 to the 1963 kidnap-rape case that led to the Supreme Court’s Miranda decision. Average length: One hour or less.

Thanks for reading Vintage Crime Gazette! If a friend forwarded this issue to you, please click below to subscribe.

We love your feedback. What did you enjoy? What do you want more (or less) of? Drop me a note: dan@danwilliamsauthor.com