Returning Serve to the Nazis: Britain’s WWII Radio Propaganda Machine

Posted on by Bonza Rottwheeler
International Relations, Media & Communications, Military history, Regional History
❝History stopped in 1936 – after that, there was only propaganda❞
~ George Orwell

❝We want to spread disruptive and disturbing news among the Germans which will induce them to distrust their government and disobey it❞
~ Sefton Delmer

⨳⨳ ⨳ ⨳ ⨳ ⨳

Previous blogs on this site talked about how the Nazis used expat Britons and Americans to launch a blast of psychological warfare against the Allies with the objective of undermining their forces’ morale in WWII, the means utilised, the ‘weapon’ of powerful radio transmission (voiced by role-playing figureheads, in particular the so-called “Lord Haw-Haw” and “Axis Sally”). It wasn’t long into the World War before Britain decided it too would infiltrate the enemy airwaves in a counter-attempt to try to mess with German military minds.

𝔓𝔯𝔬𝔭𝔞𝔤𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔞 𝔴𝔞𝔯–𝔣𝔦𝔢𝔩𝔡, 𝔚𝔚ℑℑ (ℭ𝔯𝔢𝔡𝔦𝔱: 𝔉𝔩𝔦𝔠𝔨𝔯)

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Es spricht der Chef
To undertake the task the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) was formed with the brief of disseminating ”black propaganda”⦑a⦒ against the enemy.The idea involved setting up a number of fake German radio stations—the first called Gustav Siegfried Eins (shortened to GS1) using shortwave frequency, harder for the Nazis to jam—as the propaganda vehicle for deceiving the Fatherland. From May 1941⦑b⦒ every day at 1648 hours a broadcaster purporting to be an old school Prussian officer known as der Chef would come on the air on German radio and, predictably, denounce the enemy, the ‘Brits’, the ‘Ruskies’ and the Jews, but then launch into a full-blown rant castigating Nazi officialdom too…in “profanity-laced tirades” the Chief would lambast Nazi officials’ “buffoonery, sexual perversity and malfeasance…condemning their incompetence and their indifference to the deprivations” suffered by the German volk⦑c⦒. Because he sounded ‘legit’ the impression many listeners got from the disillusioned Chief’s on-air ‘sprays’ was that there must be a rift within the German high command (‘The Fake British Radio Show That Helped Defeat the Nazis’, Marc Wortman, Smithsonian Magazine,28-Feb-2017, www.smithsonianmag.com).

𝔓𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬: 𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔷𝔬𝔫.𝔠𝔬𝔪

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Other little parcels of poison delivered by “the Chief” via the radio waves included insinuations that the supposedly ‘Ayran’ army of the Third Reich was being contaminated by the influx of foreign troops in its ranks. He also alleged that injured German soldiers were receiving infusions of “syphilis-tainted blood” of captured Slavs. Another unsubtle avenue pursued by the Chief was to play on German officers’ fears of spouse infidelity at home.

𝔊𝔖1 ℜ𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔬 𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔞𝔱 𝔐𝔦𝔩𝔱𝔬𝔫 𝔅𝔯𝔶𝔞𝔫 (𝔖𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔠𝔢: 𝔅𝔢𝔡𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔅𝔬𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 ℭ𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔠𝔦𝔩)

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In truth, the voice they heard belonged not to a disaffected Prussian army veteran but to Peter Seckelmann, a refugee from Nazi Germany acting out the role of der Chef. The panicked Nazi commanders combed the Reich to try to locate what they thought must be a maverick German general on the loose, all the time Seckelmann was secretly housed in England, in a small radio studio tucked away in quiet Bedfordshire.

𝔖𝔢𝔣𝔱𝔬𝔫 𝔇𝔢𝔩𝔪𝔢𝔯 (𝔓𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬: 𝔎𝔲𝔯𝔱 ℌ𝔲𝔱𝔱𝔬𝔫/𝔓𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔢 𝔓𝔬𝔰𝔱/ℌ𝔲𝔩𝔱𝔬𝔫 𝔄𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔰/𝔊𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔶 ℑ𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔢𝔰)

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Sefton Delmer at the helm
 The mastermind behind Britain’s black propaganda campaign was Denis Sefton Delmer, born in Berlin of Australian parents. Recruited by PWE in 1940 because of his fluency in German and familiarity with the Nazi leaders⦑d⦒, Delmer had a thing for colourful descriptions of what his black propaganda unit did…”psychological judo” and “propaganda by pornography”⦑e⦒. The former German-based Daily Express journalist moulded PWE “special operations” into a “veritable fake news mill”, assembling an efficient team of artists, writers and printers who worked tirelessly to create thousands of phoney German newspapers and leaflets (not to neglect the role of American bombers who dropped two million units of the bogus literature every day over enemy territory)⦑f⦒. Gathering information from various sources (British intelligence, German POW interrogations, resistance operatives, bomber debriefings), PWE deceived and bewildered the Axis enemy through a carefully measured mix of lies and fact (Wortman). The tactics of ‘black’ radio were “short-term, rumour-filled⦑g⦒ and deceptive” (Nicholas Rankin, Churchill’s Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945 (2008)).

ℭ𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔄𝔰𝔭𝔦𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔪𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔞𝔱 𝔚𝔞𝔳𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔬𝔫 𝔗𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔯 (𝔖𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔠𝔢: 𝔩𝔦𝔳𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢.𝔬𝔯𝔤.𝔲𝔨)

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The fake news network
Soddatensender Calais (G9) was another, British-run, faux Nazi radio station. ‘Aspidistra’, a medium wave radio transmitter located in Crowborough, East Sussex, conveyed the Sefton Delmer blend of music, innocuous information (appealing to German servicemen) together with the manipulated, ‘black’ kind of information (‘Fake News is Nothing New: 5 ‘Black Propaganda’ Operations From the 1930s and 1940s’, Jeanette Lamb, History Collection, 24-Mar-2017, www.historycollection.com).

𝔅𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔞𝔦𝔫’𝔰 𝔭𝔰𝔢𝔲𝔡𝔬–𝔊𝔢𝔯𝔪𝔞𝔫 𝔫𝔢𝔴𝔰𝔭𝔞𝔭𝔢𝔯
∘

Getting back to “the Chief”, Seckelmann under the direction of Sefton Delmer made in all 700 broadcasts to the German population. The Nazis tried to jam the broadcasts coming through the GS1 station but to no avail. Delmer, having decided to close down GS1, orchestrated a dramatic denouement for der Chef charade, having him ‘assassinated’ on-air in the final episode in 1943 (transforming “the Chief” into a kind of martyred loyalist to the Führer⦑h⦒).

Backlash to Delmer’s black propaganda approach
 Not everyone in Britain including those within government were on board with Delmer’s black radio activities. There were critics inside Churchill’s war cabinet, like Richard Stafford Cripps, who condemned PWE for taking the moral low ground … serving up a cocktail of outrageous lies and dirty tricks – from inventing military sex orgies to discredit the SS⦑i⦒ to fake news of American ‘miracle’ weapons like the new, non-existent ”phosphorus shells” to abrade the morale of German listeners [‘Black Propaganda in WW2’, The History Room, YouTube video, 2014). Delmer himself was a forthright, controversial and sometimes polarising figure, he had no compunction about exploiting sex in its most extreme manifestations including ”beastly pornography” and even pederasty, fabricating atrocities including the rape of German soldiers’ wives and sisters. Delmer was eyed with suspicion by both sides, some Germans thought he was a British spy and some Britons thought he was a Nazi spy (Rankin).


How effective were PWE’s black propaganda broadcasts?
PWE’s sheer weight of rumours, lies, half-truths and disinformation from PWE certainly no doubt took some toll on a already sagging German morale in the latter stages of the conflict, but did Delmer’s ”psychological judo” “disrupt the enemy’s will and power to fight on”? (‘Propaganda – A Weapon of War’, NLS, www.digital.nls.uk). It is not possible to definitely answer this question in the affirmative or negative. At the end of the war PWE was disbanded and all its records and documents were shredded. The deficit of data precludes any firm idea of how big and widespread the Germany wartime audience for the phoney radio transmissions was. Praise for PWE’s work however came from on high in the enemy camp, Minister of Propaganda Goebbels no less who conceded that Britain’s black Soldatensender had accomplished a “very clever job of propaganda” (Goebbels’ 1943 diary entry).

𝖁𝖔𝖑𝖐𝖘𝖊𝖒𝖕𝖋ä𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗 (𝖑𝖎𝖙. “𝕻𝖊𝖔𝖕𝖑𝖊’𝖘 𝕽𝖊𝖈𝖊𝖎𝖛𝖊𝖗”) (𝕾𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖈𝖊: 𝕮𝖔𝖔𝖕𝖊𝖗 𝕳𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖙 𝕮𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓)

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Footnote: ‘Black’ v ‘white’ propaganda
Black propaganda is distinguished from the more common type ‘white’ propaganda. The ’White’ kind is propaganda that does not hide its origins or nature, that emanates from bodies from government international information services (eg, BBC, The Voice of America). A third variant, ‘grey’ propaganda, straddles the other two – the origin of the information and messages is concealed so it can’t be discerned, eg, during the Cold War the CIA beamed grey propaganda into the Eastern Bloc through the intermediary of radio stations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (’Grey Propaganda’, www.powerbase.info).

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⦑a⦒ a form of propaganda (used by both sides in the war) which “is presented by the propagandizer as coming from a source inside the propagandised” (Becker, H. (1949). ‘The Nature and Consequences of Black Propaganda.’ American Sociological Review, 14(2), 221–235. https://doi.org/10.2307/2086855) , ie, by those it is supposed to discredit (Wikipedia)


⦑b⦒ the onset of Der Chef’s broadcasts coincided with the defection of the Nazi deputy leader Rudolf Hess to Britain


⦑c⦒ the Chief’s main target for ”character assassination” were ”lower-level Nazi functionaries” and their presumed corruption, ‘His Majesty’s Director of Pornography’, Stephen Budiansky, HistoryNet, www.historynet.com)


⦑d⦒ Delmer met Hitler himself while inspecting the Reichstag fire in Berlin


⦑e⦒ he even referred to himself irreverently as “HMG’s Director of Pornography”


⦑f⦒ producing “agitprop masquerading as inside dirt” (‘Fighting the Nazis With Fake News’, Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian Magazine, April 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com)


⦑g ⦒ one baseless rumour spread by the bogus German stations that led the Gestapo on a wild goose chase concerned a resistance group of anti-Nazis supposedly inside the Reich called “Red Circle” ‘Undermining Hitler (Part One of Three)’, Providentia, 07-Feb-2016, http://drvitelli.typepad.com)

⦑h⦒ Seckelmann‘s dissident officer in his radio diatribes had been careful to exclude Hitler himself from any blame, suggesting that it was the subordinates who had betrayed the Führer


⦑i⦒ the PWE artists’ role in the Brits’ deception was to skilfully forge documents which falsely incriminated Nazi personnel in the SS and other arms of the forces


ƿՐ૦ƿค૭คՈძค ८૦Ն૦υՐs

The Hitler Diary Forgeries: The Bonanza Scoop and a Need to Believe?

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Creative Writing, International Relations, Literary & Linguistics, Regional History, Society & Culture

Hitler-Tagebücher, the discovery of diaries, hitherto unknown, claimed to be written by Adolf Hitler, the most talked about man of the 20th century, who wouldn’t want to find out more about a scoop with such history revising ramifications?

The news, when it surfaced in the early 1980s, certainly caused quite a sensation internationally. After eminent historian Hugh Trevor-Roper (Lord Dacre) declared the diaries legit on a first sighting (though later he walked that back a bit), newspaper editors in Germany and the UK unhesitatingly bought the ruse. Rupert Murdoch, after forking out £250,000 to buy the serialisation rights from Der Stern magazine for the diaries, ordered their immediate serialisation in the Sunday Times.

Trevor-Roper: his damaged academic reputation never really recovered from the humiliating affair

With everyone so enthusiastically “gung-ho” about them, the spoiler was that the diaries were fakes, the work of one Konrad Kujau, an East German petty crim and recidivist forger. Kujau’s “Hitler Diaries” were acquired by a ‘Naziphile’ journalist with a bent for Third Reich memorabilia, Gerd Heidemann❶, who was the go-between in selling the diary rights to Stern for somewhere in the region of $2–$3 M. In the transaction Heidemann purloined something considerably north of a tidy sum for himself.

Gerd Heidemann, subsequently jailed for fraud for his part in the forgeries ▼

An incredible lack of credibility
On the face of it the Hitler forgeries had the hole-ridden texture of Swiss cheese. The German Federal Archives eventually pronounces them “clumsy fakes” after two weeks of commotion, described as a “14-day historical mystery-thriller, in which experts changed their minds, Jewish leaders were horrified at an apparent attempt to whitewash Hitler”❷ (Schwarz and van der Vat). There was a “thoroughly incomplete vetting of the diaries” (McGrane). In the flurry of activity as interested parties competed for the diaries, no one thought to test the ink, paper and string of the supposed ‘personal’ seals of the Führer (when three volumes in the form of small notebooks were eventually examined it was shown that they dated from after WWII – Kujau used modern paper which he stained with tea to give it an aged appearance!). Nor did they think to scrutinise the text of the diaries more closely – if they did they would have detected the plagiarism, Kujau copied (word for word) large chunks of a book on Hitler’s proclamations and speeches by Max Domarcus (McGrane).

▲ Some of Kujau’s handiwork (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Then there’s the handwriting which didn’t match, an oversight not immediately picked up on. Initially Kujau produced some 27 volumes of the ‘lost’ diaries…the sort of money these fetched was irresistibly tempting, suddenly Kujau ‘discovered’ a whole new vein of Hitler writings, a further 35 diaries and a third volume of Mein Kampf, alarm bells still didn’t ring❸.

Likewise, the simple fact that there had been absolutely no previous record of the diaries’ existence, in an area of historical research which has been so inexhaustibly and copiously trawled for decades, somehow escaped all of those with their eyes on the prize. Another clue missed was Kujau’s careless labelling of each volume ‘FH’ in Gothic letters rather than ‘AH’. The editors of Stern fatally failed to press Heidemann to divulge his source for the diaries, the employee only giving up the name of the known fraudster when the jig was virtually up. The catch-up forensics, when they came, quickly verified the bogus nature of the ‘documents’.

Konrad Kujau (got four-and-a-half years jail for his crime) ▼

Clarity comes with hindsight
Self-recrimination for such egregiously bad judgement followed. With hindsight Lord Dacre reproached himself for being seduced by the find of such a historical treasure…”I should have refused to give an opinion so soon” (Schwarz and van den Vat). 30 years on, Felix Schmidt, one of the three editors-in-chief at Stern ❹, reflected that the very thought that Hitler kept diaries triggered “a kind of collective insanity in the upper echelons Stern’s editorial offices”, adding that “delusional secrecy” and “illegitimate mystification” about the affair prevailed.

(Source: Business Insider)

There was in such an intoxicating atmosphere “simply too much money at stake for anyone to come to their senses”.(McGrane). Clearly the newspapers were blindsided by the dollar (and Deutschmark) signs dangling before their eyes, hence their inordinate haste to rush in where cooler and wiser heads would have proceeded with great caution❺.

Postwar German generation
A persuasive argument for why the participants were so easily duped comes from Die Zeit editor Giovanni di Lorenzo, who attributes their ready acceptance of the flimsy evidence for the diaries‘ authenticity to generational fixation with Hitler of those who lived through the Nazi era. This fascination, Lorenzo concludes, would have been unimaginable to later German generations (McGrane).

PostScript: Hitler Diaries on the celluloid screen
The celebrated hoax has been translated twice to the screen, the first a 1991 British mini-series based on Robert Harris’ book Selling Hitler with the same title (Alexei Sayle is a comfortable fit as the cheerful and uncomplicated ‘Conny’ Kujau). The second, a satirical German-made film, Schtonk!, released in 1992.

▲ Dictator diarists, courtesy of their ghostwriters

⌯⌯⌯ ⌯⌯⌯ ⌯⌯⌯ ⌯⌯⌯ ⌯⌯⌯ ⌯⌯⌯ ⌯⌯⌯ ⌯⌯⌯

❶ Heidemann’s devotion to Nazi memorabilia extended to purchasing the late Field Marshal Göring’s yacht

❷ in the diaries Hitler is incredulously depicted as being almost blissfully unaware of the atrocities committed against Jews

❸ Kujau sold his first faux Hitler diary to a collector in 1978

❹ all three summarily sacked for their failings

❺ the Sunday Times especially should have been treading warily given it had been scammed before in 1968 when it spent $250,000 trying to get its hands on the equally fraudulent “Mussolini Diaries”

୭ ˚ ୭ ˚ ୭ ˚

Bibliography:

‘Diary of the Hitler Diary Hoax’, Sally McGrane, The New Yorker, 25-Apr-2013, www.thenewyorker.com

‘Hitler Diaries proved to be forged — archive’, Walter Schwarz and Dan van den Vat, The Guardian, 07-May-1983, www.theguadian.com

‘The Hitler Diaries: How hoax documents became the most infamous fake news ever’, Adam Lusher, Independent, 05-May-2018, www.independent.co.uk

Liverpool’s Most (In)famous Phantom Resident

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Regional History

There’s nothing like unearthing a hitherto unsuspected and improbable sounding historical connexion to give a boost to a city’s tourist industry. In the case of Liverpool, UK—the city that the Beatles, the Mop-Top “Fab Four”, launched onto centre-stage on the world’s pop culture map—that nexus may not be an altogether welcome one if it connects it to the most reviled political figure of the 20th century.

(Image: www.lonelyplanet.com)

One story that has been quietly doing the rounds of England since the early 1970s is that Adolf Hitler—long before his elevation to German führer and his failed shot at world domination in the 1930s and 40s—visited Liverpool and spent several months in the city during his formative years. The myth of Hitler’s visit has sustained itself over the years and even found favour with some Liverpudlians despite the complete paucity of proof to support any such claim.

Alois Hitler ⇧

What we do know with some certainty
Adolf’s elder half-brother Alois Hitler visits Dublin in the early 1900s where he meets a young Irish woman, Bridget Dowling. They elope to London, marry and move to the Merseyside city in search of work. Alois lives in Liverpool between 1911 and 1914. A son is born in Liverpool (William Patrick Hitler, 1911). The evidence for this primarily comes from the city census of 2011, Alois Hitler is listed on the residential register – although the register records his first name as ‘Anton’. The Hitlers live at 102 Upper Stanhope Street, Toxteth, L8 1UN (a suburb of Liverpool). One degree of separation to AH, definitely, but so far nothing that places the Nazi mass-murderer in person in the city of Liverpool.

(Source: www.dailymail.co.uk)

Adolf gets Merseyside?
It is Hitler’s sister-in-law that draws the dots between Adolf in Upper Austria and the family in Liverpool. In the late Thirties, Bridget Hitler, long-parted from Alois and no longer domiciled in Liverpool, writes her (unpublished) memoirs which recounts a stay by young Aldolf with her family in the Upper Stanhope Street home⌖ (supposedly between November 1912 and April 1913). Bridget’s revelation was the first time anyone had an inkling that Hitler had ever been to Liverpool or England. There was nothing on the public record and no one else has ever corroborated Bridget’s claim [‘Adolf Hitler Liverpool links discussed again in new TV documentary’, Liverpool Echo, 08-May-2003. www.liverpoolecho.co.uk].

Hitler’s alleged Liverpool holiday only comes to light and reaches a wider audience after historian Robert Payne discovers Bridget’s unfinished manuscript in the New York Public Library while researching his own book on Hitler in the early 1970s. The claim gets taken up by Liverpool’s daily papers…in particular editor Mike Unger runs the story hard, in 1979 he edits Bridget’s book and publishes it as The Memoirs of Bridget Hitler [‘Hitler, 23, fled to Liverpool to avoid service in Austrian army’, (JohnThomas Didymus), Digital Journal, 26-Nov-2011, www.digitaljournal.com]

Draft-dodger führer?
In her memoirs Bridget explains Adolf’s reason for coming to Liverpool as an attempt to avoid being conscripted into the Austrian army (unsurprisingly Bridget’s portrayal of her brother-in-law is not a flattering one)◘. Another theory for the unexpected visit is that Hitler, a “wanna-be” artist, is on the rebound—having been rejected from art schools in Austria—and travels to Liverpool as its a city known for its artists and art schools [‘Hitler Living in Liverpool’, The History of Liverpool, www.historyofliverpool.com].

Hitler, Liverpool man-about-town
Lots of wild and occasional wacky tales have been told about Hitler’s time in Liverpool. People come out of the woodwork with anecdotes about supposed Merseyside encounters their great-grandparents had with the future German reichkánzler. The myths abound, Hitler is ‘remembered’ drinking at Peter Kavanagh’s Egerton Street pub and barracking for “his team” Everton at Goodisall Park, or alternately some have depicted him as a ‘Kopite’ (a fan of rival Liverpool FC); he gets banned from the Walker Art Gallery; the Liverpool ice rink at Wavertree keeps a pair of his skating boots on display, etc [‘Did Hitler ever visit Liverpool, and if so, why?’ (Notes and Queries), The Guardian, www.theguardian.com]. As Prof Frank McDonough observes, for many Liverpudlians it seems “the fiction is much more interesting” (‘Hitler Liverpool links’).

(Source: www.irishcentral.com)

Fanciful rather than factual
Though the Liverpool Echo is sympathetic to Frau Hitler’s account, most serious scholars reject the claims about her brother-in-law’s Liverpool sojourn as pure fabrication, flimsily-written and without foundation. Others attribute Bridget’s motives to an opportunist scheme by her and her son to cash in on the Hitler phenomenon (see also Endnote) [‘Brigid and Willy Hitler: The Nazi dictator’s Irish family who tried to make money off his rise to power, (Rachael O’Connor), The Irish Post, 05-Sep-2019, www.irishpost.com]. Refuting Bridget’s tenuous claims that Adolf spend 1912-13 (Hitler’s so-called “lost year”) in Liverpool, Third Reich historian Ian Kershaw places Hitler instead in a Viennese men’s hostel during the same time period [‘Your Story: Adolf Hitler – did he visit Liverpool during 1912-13?’, Legacies – Liverpool, (M W Royden), www.bbc.com].

⇩ Bridget and William

Endnote: Hitler’s scouser nephew
Whether or not Hitler ever made it to Liverpool, we do know that he had significant interactions with his nephew (more precisely half-nephew) in Nazi Germany. William travelled there after Hitler’s acquisition of power hoping (as his mother did before him) to exploit the family name and his connexions to his advantage in the Third Reich. The relationship between führer and scouser nephew however is a tempestuous one. William is unhappy with the cushy job Hitler arranges for him and the latter in turn becomes disaffected with his “loathsome nephew”. In the late 1930s William returns to England where he does an about-face, denouncing uncle Adolf. Next William moves to the US where, accompanied by his mother, he tours the country giving ‘insider’ lectures about his “madman uncle”. When America enters the world war William enlists in the navy and serves in the fight against Nazism. After the war mother and son change tack once again… changing their name to “Stuart-Houston” they turn their back on a life of publicity-seeking and disappear without trace into Long Island (NY) suburbia [‘Hitler’s Irish Nephew’, Dublin City Council, 19-Jun-2020, www.dublincity.ie].⇧ Hitler and his ‘renegade’ enemy nephew

PostScript: The fake Hitler jottings
The “Hitler in Liverpool” saga is a little reminiscent of a later, much more famous deception also purporting to shed new light on Hitler, the Hitler Diaries controversy of the early 1980s. The ‘discovery’ of hitherto unknown diaries of the führer was ultimately exposed as a hoax (perpetrated by a small-time, recidivist “con man” from East Germany)⊠, but only after West Germany’s Stern magazine and Murdoch’s The Sunday Times both got badly burned in their avaricious haste to try to capitalise big-time on the story scoop. The diary forgeries claimed a further victim in Hitler expert Prof Hugh Trevor-Roper whose reputation gets irreparably impaired by him prematurely authenticating the diaries as being the genuine Hitler article before a proper analysis of the documents is carried out.

_____________________________________________
⌖ ironically the Hitler house gets flattened in a German bombing raid during WWII

◘  Bridget takes the credit in her memoirs for suggesting to Hitler that he trim his moustache to the iconic style he is famous for, and for fostering his interest in astrology

◍ the circulation of fake photos showing Adolf Hitler standing in front of well-known Liverpool landmarks are part of the myth-making

⊠ described by handwriting expert Kenneth W Rendell as “bad forgeries but a great hoax”

Heligoland, the North Sea’s “Border Island”: A Mini Platform for Historic Anglo-German Rivalry

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Geography, International Relations, Military history, Regional History

The small but strategic island that Britain gave away twice

Heligoland, is a tiny speck of land (a mere 0.67 sq mi) in the North Sea. The main island (Hauptinsel) is a formation of rock and stone cliffs frequently impacted by wind and storm – or as one observer described it, “an outcrop of sandstone and chalk” [Harry Campbell, Whatever Happened to Tanganyika? The place names that history left behind, (2007)]. It’s dominant geographical features are a 200-feet high Oberland (upper land) and a Unterland (lower land)✲. Just to the main island’s east is a second, smaller island known as the Düne or Sandy Island for its collection of small beaches❅. Heligoland is 40 miles from the town of Cuxhaven in the Lower Saxony region of Germany (also close to and coming under the provincial administrative jurisdiction of Schleswig-Holstein), and some 290 to 300 miles from the nearest point on the British Isles.

The remoteness and fairly nondescript appearance of Heligoland (in German and Danish: Helgoland, presumably from Heyligeland, “Holy Land”) belies a rather colourful history of fluctuating fortunes, especially over the last two centuries. Up until 1807 the island was the property of Denmark (interrupted by one or two brief periods when it fell under the control of Hamburg). ThIs “No-Man’s Land” has traditionally served as something of a haven for mainlanders – a refuge from the severe climatic conditions of the German Bight, and also occasionally from Danish taxation officials [George Drower, Heligoland: The True Story of German Bight and the Island that Britain Betrayed (2002)].

In 1807, as the Napoleonic Wars raged in Europe, the British Navy under orders from Whitehall seized it from the Danes. Heligoland was of value to the British in the war against Napoleon as a means of circumventing the economic blockade imposed on Great Britain by the French emperor (the Continental system). Having Heligoland provided the British with a handy base to carry on (illegal) trade with Europe in defiance of Napoleon…between 1809 and 1811 alone, some £86 million worth of goods passed through the island and into the hands of German merchants. Heligoland’s economic activity flourished with most of the smuggled merchandise comprising tea, coffee, tobacco, rum and sugar from GB’s commodity-rich colonies around the globe [‘Heligoland’, (The British Empire), www.britishempire,co.uk/].

“The Gibraltar of the North Sea”

A spa was introduced to the island in 1826, luring visitors and holidayers from the nearby German mainland. Some came in search of a haven of a different kind, liberal Germans were attracted because it offered them, they believed, “a political retreat from the nationalistic fervour of their homeland” [‘Heligoland: Germany’s hidden gem in the North Sea’, (James Waterson), The Guardian, 24-Apr-2011, www.theguardian.com]. The new German-British trade ran hand-in-hand with the traditional island vocation of fishing (mainly for lobsters). The permanent population of Heligoland, despite the boost, has over the years remained pretty stable, never rising above 3,000 at any point (predominately the locals have been of German stock, speaking a North Friesian dialect)〥.

A coloniser’s swap: Heligoland for Zanzibar

The status quo on Heligoland remained intact till the late part of the century. In 1890 the change occurred that was to have seismic repercussions in the 20th century. As part of “the scramble for Africa” at the time, the British traded Heligoland to Germany in return for Zanzibar and part of Tanganyika◘, adding to GB’s “patch-quilt pattern” of GB’s ‘pink’ colonies on the world map. But the British were to discover that the true cost was the loss of a significant strategic asset in it’s 20th century foreign policy. Heligoland’s location on a ‘corner’ of the North Sea guarded the entrance to the port of Hamburg and was approximate to the estuary of the Elbe, the Kiel Canal and three other great North European rivers (Drower).

▵ Aerial view of Heligoland, between 1890 and 1900

With the European powers preoccupied with war preparations by the early 1900s, Imperial Germany strengthened the fortifications on Heligoland. When war (WWI) did come, Heligoland did not escape the conflict. It was the site of one of the earliest engagements of the war, the Battle of Heligoland Bight⊕, and involved in one of the first seaplane attacks, the Cuxhaven Raid (Christmas Day 1914)(ibid.). Whatever the fortunes of the British and German forces in Heligoland, the biggest losers were the island’s inhabitants who were summarily ejected from their homes on the island, having been given no say in the matter❂. They were given only six hours to pack and take only what could be transported by hand. The house-holders’s bedding and furniture was left behind. They were ‘reassured’ that they would be able to return after the war was won – in a few weeks! (ibid.). After the war Germany in accordance with the Versailles Treaty was required to demilitarise Heligoland, it was however allowed to retain the island – despite entreaties to Britain from the islanders (returned from their five year-plus exile) that it take back its former colony (ibid.).

▵ An artist’s impression of the Cuxhaven Raid

Island spring-time

The interwar period heralded something of an economic renaissance and the introduction of large-scale tourism for Heligoland. In the 1930s it annually drew 30,000 visitors with enhanced spending power to patronise the new fashionable drinking establishments and expensive gift shops. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi consolidation of power saw a rebuilding of the island’s fortifications. Hitler harboured other grand plans for Heligoland (an anti-aircraft fortress and a gigantic new naval base intended to rival the Royal Navy’s one) but these never came to fruition.

During the Second World War, Heligoland was the site of another early aerial/sea battle between GB and Germany and the onset of the global conflict in 1939. After the Allies gained the upper hand over Germany and it’s Axis partners, the British RAF subjected the fortified island to great devastation (over a two-day period in April 1945 7,000 bombs were dropped on the island, resulting in the flattening of the middle section of Hauptinsel).

Allied victory in the war did not mean a respite from the British destruction for the island. GB having taken interim charge of Heligoland, once again cleared the island of the local population and used it as a bomb-testing range over the next seven years. This assault included a British “Big Bang” (6,700 tonnes of explosives on one single day), thought to be the single largest non-nuclear explosions ever!) [Jan Rüger, Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea, (2016)].

▵ German Federal Republic stamp commemorating the 1952 hand-back

Cold War sacrifice

After the war, the devastated state of the island proved good propaganda fodder for the new West German Federal government, allowing it to represent itself as “an emblem of German victimhood and nationalism“. In 1952, the Brits, preoccupied with the wider Western imperatives of the day (the Cold War), gave the tiny archipelago back to the West Germans as an inducement to bind them and their influential chancellor Adenauer firmly to the Western anti-Soviet camp [ibid.].

In peace, once more the rocky island reverted to a pleasant holiday destination for continental (mainly German) day-trippers. In the early 1960s Heligoland rebuilt it’s tourist industry and the island was transformed yet again into a modern holiday resort with attractive duty-free benefits and a new spa complex. The present ambience of the born-again island has been likened to “the understated charm of a classic British seaside resort, a miniature Scarborough transplanted into the middle of the German Bight”. Contemporary Heligoland and it’s harbour has also resumed its earlier role as a venue for yacht races. [Waterson, loc.cit.; Rüger, loc.cit.].

Germany’s only Hochseeinsel⊞

For all they have suffered materially and emotionally as a consequence of British misrule, in war and in peace—the betrayals, the dismissive lack of consultation, the physical devastation—the Heligolanders seem to have buried that sorry chapter in the past. The German tourist spiel for the island depicts it as Deutschlands einzige meersinsel (“Germany’s only sea island”), projecting images of quaint and colourful fishermen’s harbourside cottages. Phrases such as “offshore oasis of relaxation”, “a unique natural setting…(and)…mild maritime climate” litter the pages of published promos (www.germany.travel/).

Footnote: Promised resort lifestyle aside, contemporary Heligoland eschews many of the trappings of modernity for a more minimalist if not entirely back-to-basics existence—no autos, no bicycles (push-scooters and hiking the prevailing modes of transport), no high-rise, no internet, no invasive smells, noises or sounds of industry—a diet of peace and tranquility and migratory bird-watching, befitting Heligoland’s curative, get-away-from-it-all role over much of it’s history.

▵ Heligoland crest

︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻︻

✲ these days the island also has a crater-shaped Mittelland (middle land), thanks to the British bomb-testing program of the Forties and early Fifties

❅ severe storm action has massively altered the geology of Heligoland over the centuries…until 1720 the two islands were connected [‘Heligoland’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]

〥 today they number around 1,500-2,500

◘ Lord Salisbury, the architect of the exchange, had first had to overcome staunch internal opposition to the relinquishment of Heligoland, not least from Queen Victoria herself

⊕ three German light cruisers and one torpedo-boat was sunk

❂ this has been a recurring motif with Heligoland, GB’s disposal of the island in 1890 was likewise done without consulting the 2,000 inhabitants of Heligoland

⊞ offshore island