Ezra Pound's radio broadcasts, 1941–1945

The expatriate American poet Ezra Pound recorded or composed hundreds of broadcasts in support of fascism for Italian radio during World War II and the Holocaust in Italy. Based in Italy since 1924, Pound collaborated with the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and expressed support for Adolf Hitler. Written at first for EIAR (Radio Rome, the public broadcaster), and later for a new radio station in the Salò Republic, a Nazi puppet state in northern Italy, the broadcasts contained deeply antisemitic and racist material. They were transmitted to England, central Europe, and the United States, mostly in English, but also in Italian, German, and French.

Calling himself "Dr Ezra Pound", Pound referred to Jews as "filth". He praised Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, recommended eugenics to "conserve the BEST of the race", and said the melting pot in America was "lost". He complained about "Mr. Churchill and that brute Rosefield [President Franklin Roosevelt] and their kike postal spies and obstructors". When he learned that the Nazis in Italy were rounding up Jews, he suggested that book stores showcase The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903), a hoax document purporting to be a Jewish plan to dominate the world. He wrote: "The arrest of Jews will create a wave of useless mercy; thus the need to disseminate the Protocols."

The broadcasts were monitored by the United States Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service, and on 26 July 1943 the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia indicted Pound in absentia for treason. Pound continued to broadcast for the fascists until shortly before his arrest by American forces in Italy on 3 May 1945. He spent over 12 years in St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Washington, D.C., until his release in May 1958. He died and was buried in Italy in 1972.