His father was a legal expert who, after the First World War, represented the Bavarian government in the Geneva Red Cross negotiations on the release and exchange of prisoners-of-war.
The item was noticed by the chief of the local United Press office, and he was invited to join the operation, collating reports from all over the world for distribution in Germany and neighbouring countries.
However, when the programmes acquired a more overtly political slant in about September 1939, Mittler found himself reluctantly acting as an English-language propagandist for Nazi achievements and goals.
[4]It is widely believed that it was Mittler's voice that the British journalist Jonah Barrington first described when he wrote of hearing a man who spoke "English of the haw-haw, damit-get-out-of-my-way variety" and whose "strong suit is gentlemanly indignation".
[citation needed] After the end of World War II and his subsequent return to Germany, he became a radio host for Bayerischer Rundfunk, where he became best known for his simultaneous translation of broadcasts such as John F. Kennedy's speech addressing the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962[7] and the first Moon landing live in 1969.
[8] He also conducted interviews with celebrities like Louis Armstrong,[9] Josephine Baker,[10] Gregory Peck,[11] Maria Callas,[12] and Ingrid Bergman,[13] and American president Richard Nixon.