"Miss Dietrich was a Berliner who was an early and passionate opponent of Nazism. When Hitler started arresting Jews, she financed the escape of several friends. Rejects Germany; Films Are Banned In 1937, while filming the melodrama "Knight Without Armour" in England, she was approached by agents of Hitler offering her an almost blank check to return to Germany to star in movies of her choice. She angrily rejected the offer, and her films were banned in Germany. Soon after, she applied for American citizenship, which was granted in 1939. During World War II, Miss Dietrich became somewhat of a symbol of free Germany. She made anti-Nazi broadcasts in German, took part in many war-bond drives and, in three years, entertained half a million Allied troops and war prisoners across North Africa and Western Europe. Tirelessly and good-humoredly, she roughed it with the G.I.’s, standing patiently in food lines, washing with snow and sleeping in dugouts and ruins, often near the front lines. She sang her movie songs, the international wartime ballad "Lili Marlene" and some current songs, and even played a musical saw, a skill she had mastered for the Berlin stage. The troops loved her. After the war, she was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor the United States Government bestows."-The New York Times, from Marlene Dietrich’s obituary