Hitler and My Mother-in-Law

Hitler and My Mother-in-Law is a memoir about a female WWII correspondent, propaganda, and the shifting boundaries between memory and truth—for fans of Rebecca Donner. Threaded with dark humor and sharp observation, this intriguing memoir interweaves the lives of two women: the author, a renowned writer, and her husband‘s mother, the only female journalist to cover WWII in both Atlantic and Pacific theaters. One of the first women hired by CBS Radio, Pat Lochridge was the only female journalist to cover both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of WWII. She interviewed Hermann Göring twice, climbed to Hitler’s redoubt at Eagle’s Nest, was a friend of FDR, and the postwar mayor of Berchtesgaden. Sometimes even her four sons questioned the validity of their mother's stories. The first time she met her daughter-in-law (author Terese Svoboda), Pat showed her a photo of herself and a pile of ashes and said the US command had asked her to identify them as Hitler’s. Was she a fabulist, a trailblazer, or was she simply doing her job? Threaded with dark humor and personal reflection, this memoir explores the stories we inherit and the ones we invent, the official histories we parrot, and the quiet manipulations we accept. From Cold War propaganda and McCarthy-era paranoia to newsroom sexism and the strange theater of postwar art-world politics, Hitler and My Mother-in-Law reveals a life extraordinary—and perhaps crafted. With sharp insight, Svoboda unpacks the contradictions embedded in such a narrative, weaving in reflections on her own experiences in journalism, family, and the uneasy inheritance of truth-through-marriage. With a voice that is at once skeptical and affectionate, the author navigates the slippery terrain of memory—her own and others’—while wrestling with the impossible task of pinning down truth. In an age of misinformation, spin, and revisionism, this book is an excavation of narrative and memoir itself, and a warning about the seductions of a good story.