The Black Pearl Who Spied on the Nazis
Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975), dubbed the “Creole Goddess”, “Black Pearl”, and “Bronze Venus”, was the first person of color to become a globally famous entertainer and star in a major movie. An American-born entertainer, renowned dancer, Jazz Age symbol, 1920s icon, and civil rights activist, she moved to France and made it her home. When her adopted homeland was conquered, Baker joined the French Resistance. Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, she was raised poor and had to work from an early age. By age thirteen, she was already performing on stage, and became a chorus girl a year later. Baker injected comedy into her routines, and became a hit with audiences. Ambitious and confident in her talent, she refused to accept the strictures and ceiling imposed on her career by the color of her skin in America. So she moved to France, where her career took off in post-WWI Paris.
When WWII broke out, Baker was recruited by French military intelligence. She had initially expressed support for the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s. So when the Axis defeated and occupied France, they assumed that she was friendly to their cause. She was not. Taking advantage of the Nazi occupiers’ trust, Baker risked her life to spy on them. Her fame opened doors. Baker rubbed shoulders with prominent Axis personnel, and charmed officials she met in social gatherings to collect information. As an international entertainer, she had an excuse to travel, and she did, within Nazi-occupied Europe, to neutral Portugal, and to South America.
Baker transported coded messages, written in invisible ink on her music sheets, between the Resistance and the Allies, and smuggled them beneath the Nazis’ noses. They contained information about German troop concentrations, airfields, harbors, and defenses. Baker also hid fugitives in her home, and supplied them with forged identification papers and visas obtained through her contacts. Later in the war, she joined the French Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, in which she was commissioned as a lieutenant. She also performed for Allied troops. In recognition of her wartime exploits and contributions to France, Baker was named a Chevalier of the Legion d’honeur by Charles De Gaulle. Among the medals awarded her by the French military were the Croix de Guerre and the Medal of Resistance with Rosette. Upon her death in 1975, Josephine Baker became the first American woman buried with military honors in France, including a twenty one gun salute.
