Edward Vieth Sittler (1916-1975) was an American musician and educator who renounced his United States citizenship before World War II in order to take German citizenship, and (similarly to the fictional Howard W. Campbell Jr. in the Kurt Vonnegut novel Mother Night and its film adaptation) worked for the Nazis as a broadcaster during World War II.
Shortly after Germany's September 1, 1939, invasion of Poland, Sittler applied for naturalisation as a German citizen, renouncing United States Citizenship.
Monti (who used the name Martin Weithaupt in Germany), who was also employed in the production of propaganda, became a regular visitor to Sittler's home.
Cuomo had in fact interrogated Monti, who had been captured in Italy where his explanation (that he had stolen his SS uniform and was escaping the German-occupied area with the help of the Italian resistance) was doubted, but had avoided prosecution due to the influence of his father.
Sittler was permitted to return to the United States in 1946, arriving at New York City on October 25 on Flight NC9093 from Germany (his last address in Germany was Prinz-Heinrich-Straße 17, Berlin, though he boarded the flight in Frankfurt with an exit permit (number 071629) issued by the United States Army Military Orders Headquarters in Frankfurt.
[5][6] On June 5, 1951, Sittler was ordered to leave the United States within ninety days or face deportation to West Germany.
When Sittler's presence became more widely known, calls for his removal from Long Island University and the United States multiplied, led by the New York Department of the Jewish War Veterans, Senator Jacob Javits, State Assemblyman Alfred D. Lerner, and the former commanders of five Long Island veterans' associations.
[9] Sittler took his case for citizenship before the court, which rejected it on April 12, 1963, when Federal Judge Lloyd F. MacMahon said: "in this troubled world, it is sought by many, granted to few, and treasured by all who possess it.
His brother Charles Vieth Sittler, employed by the University of Chicago in 1960, had also broadcast for the Nazis (and had married Klara Julie Karoline Clee Hitterling in Berlin-Steglitz on February 1, 1945), and had arrived in the United States at Westover Field on January 18, 1949, on a military flight via the Azores with Egidius A. Houben, both as Government witnesses destined for the United States Attorney's office in the Federal Building at Brooklyn, New York City.