Hanna Diamond is the author of the new book Josephine Baker's Secret War: The African American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom. She is a professor at Cardiff University in Wales.
Q: What inspired you to write about Josephine Baker’s experiences during World War II?
A: The truth is, I did not know much about Josephine Baker’s wartime contribution until, as a specialist historian of this period in France, I was commissioned to do some research on her activities during this period.
Once I started to delve into it and, in particular once I read Baker’s memoirs, I was amazed. I had no idea that she had agreed to work for the French secret services in 1939 and collected and transmitted intelligence not just during the phony war but throughout the war using her celebrity as a cover.
This was all a complete revelation to me and I determined that when I had the chance, I would follow up on all possible leads to find out more about it.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: After the initial project, I realised that there was a real gap in our knowledge about Josephine Baker’s activities during the war. This inspired me to apply for a fellowship to allow me to have the time to research the subject in more detail and to follow the archive trail in France, the US, and Britain.
I took Baker’s memoir and that of her handler, Jacques Abtey, as a starting point and used these as a guide to follow up on any relevant material I could uncover relating to their activities. I looked through countless documents and also the personal archives of people they had spent time with.
The press also proved to be a valuable resource, especially the African American press which carried articles about Baker’s movements throughout the period. I was able to cross-check these various sources to map an accurate picture of where she was and when.
I was then able to drill down into a more detailed exploration of what she was doing at the various different stages of her wartime trajectory. She operated first in France (1939-1940) and then in North Africa (1941-1944) before returning to France in October 1944 and working there to raise funds for the resistance and entertain the troops until she was decommissioned in September 1945.
I was surprised by her deep commitment, and her courage. She took enormous risks, sometimes carrying out missions on her own. Remarkably, although her handler, Jacques Abtey, fell under suspicion, no one ever imagined that she could be doing this kind of undercover work.
I was also particularly fascinated by my discoveries about her later activities after the Allied landings in North Africa. From 1943, she worked directly for the Gaullist Free French resistance movement engaged in propaganda activities as a cover for her ongoing espionage work, all of which has been completely overlooked until now.
Q: What would you say are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about Baker?
A: In France, Josephine Baker is best known as an exotic interwar music hall star, an image which is closely associated with her iconic banana skirt. In the US, she is probably better known as a somewhat eccentric postwar civil rights activist who adopted children from all over the world and spoke at the March on Washington in 1963.
While both of these images reflect key moments of Josephine Baker’s life, they are also very reductive. In reality, she was a fiercely intelligent multi-faceted individual who reinvented herself several times and adopted a series of different identities.
A consummate performer, she learnt how to use her celebrity to promote the causes she believed in and played on her eccentric image to achieve this.
During the war, when she worked as a spy, her celebrity persona enabled her to quite literally “hide in plain sight.” Her role as an international star afforded her access to people in the know who could help her acquire the intelligence she sought, and under cover of her concert tours, she was able to travel at a time when borders were shut, allowing her to pass on vital information to those who needed it.
An African American woman, and a performer, no one suspected that Josephine Baker could possibly be involved in the work she was actually doing. She may have been underestimated but she used this to her advantage and with remarkable effect.
She offered valuable wartime service and made a significant contribution to the cause of the Allies and the Gaullist Free French Resistance movement.
Q: What do you see as Josephine Baker’s legacy today?
A: Josephine Baker came from a very deprived background and she was able to escape the confines of segregation, and make a career for herself, against the odds.
But rather than satisfy herself with fame and riches that she achieved when she was just 20 years old, she went on to better herself. She learnt to sing and to act, and later used her position to become a spy and a political activist.
Her example teaches us that we can have success whatever our origins and importantly, that we should make the most of the opportunities that come our way, and mobilise them to promote what we believe in.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: It is early days, and I don’t want to say too much, but my new project continues on the theme of women, France, war, and resistance. I’m working on the research now and hopefully will uncover exciting new material.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I think it is so important that we continue to work to uncover the untold stories of people who selflessly risked their lives during the war and whose contributions have been overlooked.
While much valuable work has already been done by historians and researchers to document the work of those who were engaged in less visible activities or who came from less traditional backgrounds including women and African Americans, more still needs to be done to populate the historical record with all their stories.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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