Marlene Dietrich’s ambitious plan to murder Adolf Hitler: “It would be a pleasure”
Throughout history, plenty of men have found themselves weakened by the presence of a woman, even starting wars over the object of their affection or toppling from their patriarchal thrones at the hands of female seduction.
It’s no secret that women have needed to work extra hard to achieve the kind of power that men are seemingly born with. Sexism has plagued society since the beginning of time, which is long enough for women to get creative when it comes to finding ways around misogyny.
Marlene Dietrich – the iconic German actor who defined a new era of womanhood in the 1920s with her experimental, often androgynous style – existed during a time when the idea of women harnessing any form of power was unfathomable. So, to use an outdated term, she found a way to use her feminine wiles to get what she wanted. And what she wanted was to kill Adolf Hitler.
According to Marlene Dietrich: A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler, the actor once hatched a wild plan to seduce Hitler into submission – luring him in with the promise of her company and, more to the point, her body. Once he was suitably vulnerable, she intended to kill him. She knew it could cost her life, but reckoned it was a risk worth taking.
Despite the fact that Dietrich was disgusted by the Nazis’ rise to power, Hitler, for some reason, loved her. Her move to Hollywood allowed her to escape the regime, which had unsuccessfully tried to hire her to star in propaganda films – she couldn’t think of anything worse. In an interview, she even called the Nazi leader an “idiot”, adding, “Boys, don’t sacrifice yourselves. The war is crap.”
Yet, she soon came to the conclusion that sacrifice might be the only way to get the whole ordeal to be over. With the lives of millions of innocent people on the line, Dietrich supposedly believed that risking her own life to save others would be worth it. She laid out her plan to Douglas Fairbanks Jr, reportedly saying, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I feel I must do something. The thing is I think I can do it or at least I can make a good try.”
She hatched her golden plan. “I know how to get close to a man. I’ve heard that Hitler likes me. Leni Riefenstahl has been telling it to people. [Joseph] Goebbels and his cronies are always wanting to get me back, with their promises. I have to agree only to do one film until I see whether I want to do more, and they are offering me the world.”
Under the false pretence of agreeing to work with the Nazis, Dietrich planned to meet with Hitler alone – that would be her one condition – and here she would seduce him until he was weakened enough for her to strike. “I would explain that it’s because I admire him so much, worship him, I would say. I would go so far, gushing over how I feel about him, intimating that I am desperately in love with him,” she supposedly told Fairbanks.
Knowing that security would be high, she suggested meeting Hitler wearing next to nothing, just a hairpin containing poison, which she could sneak past his guards. “I would not expect to escape. I would go there prepared to die. I don’t want to die. I want to live. Life is wonderful. But to kill Hitler would be wonderful. We all have to die sometime, and that would be something to die for!”
Dietrich obviously did not go through with this plan, but her war efforts were monumental, regardless. She boosted morale by performing for troops and even helped Jewish people to escape Germany, working alongside filmmaker Billy Wilder to support refugees. The actor was given the Medal of Freedom for her efforts, which did not, of course, include murdering Hitler, as much as she wanted to.
