
Propaganda Girls
The Secret War of the Women in the OSS
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Narrated by:
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Samara Naeymi
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By:
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Lisa Rogak
About this listen
“Naeymi's mesmerizing narration takes listeners into the heart-stopping intrigue and action of nations at war and into the souls of women with cool demeanors and spines of steel.”—AudioFile
The incredible untold story of four women who spun the web of deception that helped win World War II.
Betty MacDonald was a 28-year-old reporter from Hawaii. Zuzka Lauwers grew up in a tiny Czechoslovakian village and knew five languages by the time she was 21. Jane Smith-Hutton was the wife of a naval attaché living in Tokyo. Marlene Dietrich, the German-American actress and singer, was of course one of the biggest stars of the 20th century. These four women, each fascinating in her own right, together contributed to one of the most covert and successful military campaigns in WWII.
As members of the OSS, their task was to create a secret brand of propaganda produced with the sole aim to break the morale of Axis soldiers. Working in the European theater, across enemy lines in occupied China, and in Washington, D.C., Betty, Zuzka, Jane, and Marlene forged letters and “official” military orders, wrote and produced entire newspapers, scripted radio broadcasts and songs, and even developed rumors for undercover spies and double agents to spread to the enemy. And outside of a small group of spies, no one knew they existed. Until now.
In Propaganda Girls, bestselling author Lisa Rogak brings to vivid life the incredible true story of four unsung heroes, whose spellbinding achievements would change the course of history.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
©2025 Lisa Rogak (P)2025 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"An enjoyable and briskly told group biography."—Kirkus Reviews
"A page-turning account of the courageous women who manufactured the fog of war and armed the OSS with an arsenal of lies. Rogak writes a story to rival those of her protagonists—except this time it’s true."—John Lisle, author of The Dirty Tricks Department
"A riveting journey into the covert world of female OSS agents who played a pivotal role in securing victory during WWII through strategic cunning, masterful deception, and razor-sharp wit. Readers will be pulled into this gripping account of four women whose unwavering determination and willingness to risk everything helped triumph over the forces of fascism."—Lorissa Rinehart, author of First to the Front
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Overall
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Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. “I did it and I don’t deny it,” she said when arrested shortly thereafter. “He ruined me and my daughter.”
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Fascinating story
- By evboy on 03-17-25
By: Gary Krist
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The Colfax Massacre
- The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror, and the Death of Reconstruction
- By: LeeAnna Keith
- Narrated by: Gwen Steel
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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On Easter Sunday, 1873, in the tiny hamlet of Colfax, Louisiana, more than 150 members of an all-black Republican militia, defending the town's courthouse, were slain by an armed force of rampaging white supremacists. The most deadly incident of racial violence of the Reconstruction era, the Colfax Massacre unleashed a reign of terror that all but extinguished the campaign for racial equality.
By: LeeAnna Keith
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The Rebel Empresses
- Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France, Power and Glamour in the Struggle for Europe
- By: Nancy Goldstone
- Narrated by: Tamsin Kennard
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When they married Emperors Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, respectively, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France became two of the most famous women on the planet. Not only were they both young and beautiful—becoming cultural and fashion icons of their time—but they played a pivotal role in ruling their realms during a tempestuous era characterized by unprecedented political and technological change. Fearless, adventurous, and independent, Elisabeth and Eugénie represented a new kind of empress—one who rebelled against tradition and anticipated and embraced modern values.
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Excellent book!
- By Kayleigh on 03-04-25
By: Nancy Goldstone
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The Trouble of Color
- An American Family Memoir
- By: Martha S. Jones
- Narrated by: Martha S. Jones
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Martha S. Jones grew up feeling her Black identity was obvious to all who saw her. But weeks into college, a Black Studies classmate challenged Jones’s right to speak. Suspicious of the color of her skin and the texture of her hair, he confronted her with a question that inspired a lifetime of introspection: “Who do you think you are?” Now a prizewinning scholar of Black history, Jones delves into her family’s past for answers. In every generation since her great-great-great-grandmother survived enslavement to raise a free family, color determined her ancestors’ lives.
By: Martha S. Jones
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Mary Chesnut's Civil War
- By: Mary Chesnut, C. Vann Woodward
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 50 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The incomparable Civil War diarist Mary Chesnut wrote that she had the luck “always to stumble in on the real show.” Married to a high-ranking member of the Confederate government, she was ideally placed to watch and to record the South’s headlong plunge to ruin, and she left in her journals an unsurpassed account of the old regime’s death throes, its moment of high drama in world history. With intelligence and passion she described the turbulent events of politics and war, as well as the complex society around her.
By: Mary Chesnut, and others
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Vatican Spies
- From the Second World War to Pope Francis
- By: Yvonnick Denoël, Alan McKay - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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"Officially" the Vatican has no espionage service; but does no one carry out intelligence operations on its behalf? During the Second World War and Cold War, Rome was teeming with spies. A band of undercover monsignors and priests hunted for Vatican "moles," led clandestine diplomacy, investigated assassinations of priests and other scandals threatening the Church, and conducted high-risk missions behind the Iron Curtain.
By: Yvonnick Denoël, and others
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The Next One Is for You
- A True Story of Guns, Country, and the IRA's Secret American Army
- By: Ali Watkins
- Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a guerilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia’s Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: The next one is for you or your family. As reporter Ali Watkins reveals, the conflict in Northern Ireland might have gone very differently had it not been for a small ragtag band of gunrunners in the United States.
By: Ali Watkins
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Spell Freedom
- The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement
- By: Elaine Weiss
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The acclaimed author of the “stirring, definitive, and engrossing” (NPR) The Woman’s Hour returns with the story of four activists whose audacious plan to restore voting rights to Black Americans laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.
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They kept on keepin’ on!
- By Janie on 03-15-25
By: Elaine Weiss
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Do Not Cry When I Die
- A Holocaust Memoir of a Mother and Daughter's Survival in Jewish Ghettos, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen
- By: Renee Salt, Kate Thompson
- Narrated by: Renee Salt, Kate Thompson, Maria Louis, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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When German soldiers invaded Poland in September 1939, it began a six-year journey for then-ten-year-old Renee Salt and her mother Sala. Until their liberation in 1945, Renee and Sala were imprisoned in ghettos and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. The only light in the darkness and brutality for Renee was the unwavering grasp of her mother’s hand in hers–enduring, against all odds. It was this unbreakable bond, along with a few miracles, that kept Renee alive.
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Accuracy and detail of the Holocaust
- By Lisa Pollack on 03-25-25
By: Renee Salt, and others
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Hidden Histories with Nova Reid
- By: Nova Reid
- Narrated by: Nova Reid
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Original Recording
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Nova Reid, author of The Good Ally, delves into the untold stories of extraordinary, unsung Black women who created and shaped pivotal moments in world history, British culture and society. Through powerful storytelling, personal insights and new research, Nova delves into the lives of pioneers, journalists and rule-breakers who made vital contributions to civil rights, yet have been mythologised, are unknown or erased from history.
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Very Informative
- By SaSa on 03-23-25
By: Nova Reid
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He Leadeth Me
- An Extraordinary Testament of Faith
- By: Walter J. Ciszek S.J., Daniel L. Flaherty S.J.
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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He Leadeth Me is a deeply personal story of one man’s spiritual odyssey and the unflagging faith which enabled him to survive the ordeal that wrenched his body and spirit to near collapse. Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent some twenty-three agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. In He Leadeth Me, he relates how it was only through an utter reliance on God’s will that he managed to endure.
By: Walter J. Ciszek S.J., and others
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The Fifteen
- Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America
- By: William Geroux
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The revelatory true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown.
By: William Geroux
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The Girl from Greenwich Street
- A Novel of Hamilton, Burr, and America’s First Murder Trial
- By: Lauren Willig
- Narrated by: Jane Oppenheimer
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows. Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well. Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor.
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Fantastic Research
- By Avid series reader on 04-03-25
By: Lauren Willig