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Joseph Schildkraut as The Foreign American

America's frustration with the prosecution of our second war with Germany had reached a critical juncture after the Pearl Harbor attacks of December 7, 1941. Having realized that we'd commited to several wars at the same time, the war with Germany seemed the most pressing. Americans across the country had begun writing or displaying their own 'Dear Adolf' letters in an effort to vent some of that frustration.

NBC and The Council For Democracy felt it might be the right time to provide the entire nation with a means to vent some of that frustration in a more public forum. Dear Adolf was conceived as a short Summer series showcasing six weekly "letters to Hitler" framed as reflections of specific segments of American society and culture and their 'open letters' to Adolf Hitler.

To that end, NBC enlisted the support of six great actors of the American Stage and Film: Raymond Massey, Helen Hayes, James Cagney, William Holden, Melvyn Douglas, and Joseph Schildkraut. Each actor would portray a representative from a specific segment of society and their combined reflections, observations, and 'messages' to Adolf Hitler.

The format provided each actor the opportunity to address their own 'concerns' to Hitler, then provided a few more examples of other similar letters from representatives of that segment of American society. Though understandably propaganda, it was the right propaganda at the right time. The chance to vicariously vent some of that frustration through people American had grown to trust proved, in practice, to be a cathartic experience to listeners across the nation.

Series Derivatives:

None

Genre:

Anthology of Golden Age Radio Patriotic Commentary

Network(s):

NBC

Audition Date(s) and Title(s):

None

Premiere Date(s) and Title(s):

42-06-21 01 The Farmer

Run Dates(s)/ Time(s):

42-06-21 to 42-08-02; NBC; Six, 15-minute programs; Sundays

Syndication:

NBC Orthacoustic

Sponsors:

Produced by NBC in cooperation with The Council For Democracy

Director(s):

Lester O'Keefe and William Sweets

Principal Actors:

Raymond Massey, Helen Hayes, James Cagney, William Holden, Melvyn Douglas, Joseph Schildkraut

Recurring Character(s):

None

Protagonist(s):

None

Author(s):

Stephen Vincent Benet

Writer(s)

Stephen Vincent Benet

Music Direction:

Tom Bennett [composer]; Joseph Stopak [conductor]

Musical Theme(s):

Unknown

Announcer(s):

Estimated Scripts or
Broadcasts:

Episodes in Circulation:

Total Episodes in Collection:

Provenances:

RadioGOLDINdex, Hickerson Guide.

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

Bogus Encoding Alert: virtually all circulating collections of Dear Adolf are up-encoded from their original 64-bit encodes to 'fake' 128-bit encodes. This practice renders an identical-sounding recording with the identical sound wave characteristics and content but wastes almost 6 Mbs of storage per recording. The nominal size of a 15-minute, 64-bit .mp3 recording is about 7 Mbs. Whoever's engaging in this practice is simply attempting to give the appearance of a 'near-CD quality' encode to a nominally encoded 64-bit .mp3. Buyers and downloaders beware.

We encounter frauds like the above day in and day out circulating throughout the otr community. In the 'race to the bottom,' apparently it's 'no-holds barred' now. This is most certainly not vintage Radio preservation. It's simply yet another of millions of online and eBay vintage Radio scams on a par with 'Nigerian inheritance' scams. The more hang-time podcasters can trick naive downloaders into wasting, the longer they can bombard you with all their ads and banner exchanges--all the more opportunity to generate income on their 'free downloading' and 'free podcasting' sites, at your expense. And of course you end up filling up your iPod or other portable device with as much as 40 Mbs of wasted storage in the process.

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[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]


The Dear Adolf Radio Program Log
Date	Episode	Title	Avail.	Notes
42-06-21	1	The Farmer	Y	42-06-21 Wisconsin State Journal 4 p. m. — Dear Adolf: series of letters from typical Americans to Hitler, written by Stephen Vincent Benet in dramatic form; Raymond Massey opens series in role of "The Farmer"—WIBA.
42-06-28	2	The Businessman	Y	42-06-28 Wisconsin State Journal 4 p. m. — Dear Adolf (WIBA): Melvyn Douglas as "The Businessman."
42-07-05	3	The Laborer	Y	42-06-28 Wisconsin State Journal 4 p. m.— Dear Adolf (WMAQ): James Cagney narrates and takes the part of "The Laborer."
42-07-12	4	An American Housewife and Mother	Y	42-07-12 Kingsport Times-News "You are the enemy of all I know, of all I feel with my body, know with my mind, the enemy of all women, everywhere." Thus Helen Hayes, first lady of the theater, tells Adalph Hitler what the American housewife and mother thinks of him on "Dear Adolf," today at 5 p.m. over NBC-WKPT. And Miss Hayes will speak for American womanhood, for this script is based upon careful research into the actual attitudes of a cross-section of American housewives and mothers. Announces that the program will not be heard the following week for a Special Shostakovich Symphony
42-07-19	--	Preempted	--	[Preempted for Shostakovich Special performance by Arturo Toscanini] 42-06-28 Wisconsin State Journal 4 p. m.— Shostakovich Symphony (WMAQ) 42-07-19 Washington Post 11:15--Dear Adolf--WRC
42-07-26	5	The American Soldier	Y	42-07-26 Oakland Tribune KPO-Dear Adolph; 2:15 42-07-26 New York Times 5 :00-WEAF-Play-Dear Adolf; Soldier, with William Holden
42-08-02	6	A Foreign-Born American	Y	42-08-02 Wisconsin State Journal 4 p. m. — Dear Adolf (WIBA): last of series narrated by Joseph Schildkraut, stage and screen actor.


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The Dear Adolf Radio Program

The Dear Adolf Radio Program Log