British pow collaborators

Hi

For over 10 years I have been arguing with the MOD over their refusal to put the court martials of collaborators in POW camps into the public domain. The person I was dealing with, James Morehead, denied the collaborator in my father's camp (Fort 13 os Stalag XXA) existed. So I traced many ex-kreigies and received a colourful amount of information on him and other camp collaborators. After sending him copies of the letters, with their colourful and rude (to say the least) impression of the MOD I was ordered to forget the matter. I kept ferreting.

I wrote to David Cameron who passed me onto another dumb individual. So far he has not lied but I am treated like a 5 year old idiot. He has referred me to WO 344 class in the National Archives but returning POWs, unless blessed with the gift of prophecy could not possibly know what sentence such men would receive. Anyway any information they had on such men - whether foreign or Allied - was written on Q forms, which, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, have not been released.

Those collaborators who went on to publicise their activities, broadcasters, BFC, writers and translators etc have for the main part been named, but those who made their fellow servicemen suffer are still protected.

The man who sentenced my father to 'the bread and coffee club' three times was a SM LETTS. I know he was jailed because I phoned his brother in law over forty years ago and was told he had been out of prison for years and had since died. Another man in the same camp was Sgt MCDONALD (one of several in the camp but this one considered himself the Scottish Highland Regt boxing champion.) He used to beat men up but occasionally camp up against better opponents who beat him at his own game.

Fort 17 of the same camp had even more collaborators. RSM HOMER was very tall but Charles Dick told me he used to make men ill with dysentery stand in the snow. Sgt JANSEN gave a POW 18 days solitary for cutting a hole in his British boot to relieve pressure on sores. He regarded it as sabotage and hit him with the boot. Sgt CALVER was also involved in the incident.

A SM SHANKER was considered too friendly to the Germans in the Corinth Transit Camp and he removed goods from Red Cross parcels.

Does anyone have any more names of still secret collaborators to add to my list. I will reply to the MOD during the week.

Jacky

 

Not sure if it will be of interest but I posted a couple of pages on here of names that hadn't been the ideal PoW's. IIRC most were of men being investigated for joining the Friekorps.

 

Thgis is page 2 of a letter my father wrote about the background to his escape from XXA. As you can read, a soldier called Chappell seemed to be a collaborator and Dad had to frame him to get him out of the job of editor of the camp magasine, Prisoner's Pie. This was so dad could get the job and thus have access to the Stalag HQ typewriter to start forging documents.

It appears Chappell went to Berlin to work full time for the Germans



Steve

 

It appears Chappell went to Berlin to work full time for the Germans

Steve

From page 96 of "Letting the Side Down - British Traitors of the Second World War" by Sean Murphy:

Sergeant Arthur Chapple exhibited all the signs of a typical renegade. He always maintained that he was a lifeling socialist and anti-fascist, despite volunteering to broadcast from Berlin and join the British Free Corps. The Yorkshireman's first job was working as a reporter on the Wakefield Times. He then joined the Royal Army Service Corps and was attached to the NAAFI organisation. He was captured in France in 1940 and interned at Stalag XXa at Thorn. While imprisoned at Thorn, Chapple met William Joyce and volunteered to write for The Camp. He was also used to seek out potential Free Corps recruits among captured British POWs at the German administered Genshagen 'holiday camp' in Berlin. Chapple's ridiculous rationale for taking part in Radio National was that he believed himself to have been deliberately selected by the Germans because of his anti-fascist views, in order to give the propaganda broadcasts political balance. He did not of course admit to holding anti-fascist views when he subsequently agreed to join the British Free Corps.

According to this link here:

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general/4393-any-truth-3.html#post31179

Chapple received 15 years in prison.

 

It's very interesting to read about these bastards, and I hope they can be fully exposed.

If you haven't done so already, I strongly suggest that you read Rebecca West's The Meaning of Treason. Much of it deals with Joyce, but West has quite a bit on the Free Corps and the ratbags it attracted. West wrote not long after the war so she couldn't name many names, but her work still gives a lot of insight into the traitor psychology.

Bear in mind, though, that the few British officers and O.R.'s who collaborated with the Germans (and the Japanese) were not necessarily the most damaging traitors. Thanks to lax security, the SIS and FO included types like Burgess, MacLean, and Philby, who funneled info to the Soviets. Klaus Fuchs was a similar case. And then you have the the highly placed types who worked against Churchill in the 1940 crisis, including the Duke of Windsor, Halifax, and Chamberlain. These last were not traitors in the technical or legal sense, perhaps, but in my view their influence was all the more dangerous for that reason.

 

On the general subject of British treason and collaboration, I also recommend Bernard Wasserstein's The Secret War in Shanghai and his biography of the bizarre Ignatz Trebitsch Lincoln. Both works have many shameful and embarrassing revelations about the bad behavior of British civilians and military personnel in the Far East during captivity and Japanese occupation.

 

Sir,
I recall ,in conversation, a mention of a cousin of Lord Haw Haw who was an RAF Prisoner of War worked for the Germans,interrogating prisoners,adopted a German alias I believe.When the tide of war started to turn he left his German `Masters` and returned to England with a `Cock`and `Bull` story.The authorities awarded him a Military Medal ! It was only when the Boys came home from the war that the truth came out. Sorry memory isnt what it was cannot recall the fellows name nor the person who told me.Just wondering if I may have read it here on the forum?

Best

Clifford

 

Hi
I think you mean Michael Joyce. His details are in the public domain. Also most of the Britische Freikorps are as well. A few were considered to have joined for other reasons than ideology and were not prosecuted. They were mostly kept in harsh conditions until they agreed to join. Some of them were kicked out by the Germans for being a thorough nuisance but there were some like John Amery, the founder and Thomas Cooper who were Nazis from start to finish. Cooper was sentenced to death but reprieved on appeal and Amery was hanged. He pleaded guilty so never had a full trial but some of his details are still kept secret.
Jacky

 

When in Dulug Luft, early October 1943 my father was "interviewed" by Raymond Hughes an R.A.F. service man who was shot down on the Peenemunde raid. Hughes was representing himself as a representative of the Red Cross after being "turned" by the Germans.

 

Interesting thread.
I have a question though,
Is it possible that the Germans used Germans who had been educated in England/the US and gave them cover Allied identities to illicit honest responses from captured Allied prisoners? There are examples of Americans who had joined the German forces due to family connections, I am unsure how much the Germans took advantage of this.

 

It's possible, Andy. But there was no need to give them cover identities. I am aware of a German-Canadian who returned to Germany when Hitler came to power and ended up interrogating downed Allied air crew. Some said he "spoke better English than we did".

It seems you can't read a book about aircrew POWs these days who DIDN'T have a (bogus) Red Cross official ask them to answer a (bogus) Red Cross questionnaire with such necessary information as "type of engine on aircraft"

 

Very true alieneyes. I suppose the 'cover' (i.e. Unit and backstory to how they ended up a prisoner) wouldn't be necessary unless the person was being used as a plant within the POW population.

 

Saw this on the BMF, thought it might be of interest

" D.C.M. London Gazette 27 September 1945. The original recommendation states:

‘This N.C.O. was serving with the B.E.F. in France when he was captured on 29 May 1940, at Caestre. After a few weeks at Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf, he was sent to Blechammer, E. 3 Kommando, where he devoted his energies to the welfare of the men and general escape work until he was returned to the main camp in January 1942. Shortly afterwads he was transferred to a working camp in Berlin (No. 806 attached to Stalag IIID). Five months later he was again sent to Blechammer and in June 1943, he was appointed Camp Leader to Genshagen holiday camp.

Realising that the Germans intended to use this camp subversively for their own ends he determined to thwart them. Despite the very real danger involved, he pretended to be working for the Germans, whilst at the same time he was really using the comparative freedom accorded him to further the cause of the Allies. Even when the Gestapo became suspicious B.Q.M.S. Brown did not hesitate to continue work. Acting as he did entirely on his own initiative, he fully realised that in all probability he might be suspected of betraying his own country. This did in fact happen, but it has now been established without question that he did acquire and transmit to this country valuable information.

Through his continuous efforts the British Free Corps, which the Germans hoped to expand from the men sent to Genshagen, gained few recruits and eventually the project became a complete failure. In addition B.Q.M.S. Brown used the frequent change of personnel at the camp to establish inter-camp communication, passing on information and escape aids. It is remarkable that whilst busy with all these activities, he did not neglect his duties as senior N.C.O. Genshagen was excellently run and men who had been there have shown marked respect and esteem for B.Q.M.S. Brown.

When the camp closed in December 1944, B.Q.M.S. Brown was again sent to Lamsdorf, and with the other personnel was later evacuated to Hehenfels (Stalag 383). On 22 April 1945, this camp was liberated by an American unit.’

John Henry Owen Brown’s extraordinary wartime story is recounted at length in his memoirs, In Durance Vile (London, 1981), but for a more succinct and independent assessment of his activities it is best to turn to Adrian Weale’s fascinating history, Renegades, Hitler’s Englishmen (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1994). Weale uncovers a number of important errors that appear in Brown’s own account, not least that his coded messages were being delivered to M.I.9, not M.I.6 as he thought, and that he did not in fact get involved in such clandestine exchanges until 1942. He was, too, as a result of his work as a “self-made spy”, the beneficiary of better rations, living conditions and even a girlfriend in Berlin, all of which point to a certain degree of “opportunism” but which, nonetheless, take nothing away from the highly dangerous nature of his chosen course - namely to hoodwink the Germans into believing he was a genuine fascist and to pump them (and real British traitors) for all they were worth for the benefit of British intelligence, whilst also providing, via a black market racket, vital supplies for his fellow P.O.Ws.

Brown, an Oxford graduate, was taken P.O.W. in late May 1940, while serving in 226/57th Anti-Tank Regiment, R.A., and, in common with thousands of other British prisoners, was marched to Trier on the German border, and thence - by cattle truck - transported to Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf. A few weeks later, he was moved to E.3 Kommando at Blechammer, to work on the construction of a factory for artificial oil and rubber, and it was here, via the camp interpreter, that he began to ingratiate himself with the Germans, a task no doubt assisted by his pre-war membership of Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (B.U.P.). In truth, however, Brown used his apparent liking for the Nazi cause to establish a profitable black market racket for the benefit of his fellow P.O.Ws, a highly dangerous enterprise that resulted in the acquistion of a radio set, extra clothing and rations, and, at a later date, vital surgical equipment for the camp medical officer, a New Zealander.

By early 1942, he had established sufficient confidence in the Germans for them to summon him to an interview in Berlin, at which they intended to assess his promise as a full-blown renegade. Shortly afterwards, he had his first meeting with William Joyce (a.k.a. “Lord Haw-Haw”), whom he had known by sight from before the war. Such introductions gained him the freedom to “see the sights”, albeit in the company of a guard, and he was therefore disappointed to be returned to Blechammer that August without means of passing on his newly acquired knowledge to British intelligence. Fortuitously, however, on his return, he made the acquaintance of a newly arrived inmate, Captain Julius Green, a Jewish Glaswegian who had concealed his religion from the Germans and was an M.I.9 operative, and he taught Brown a series of M.I.9 codes that could be used in letters he wrote home - the door was now open for the regular transmittal of intelligence to London and Brown engineered his way back to the Berlin area by enacting a serious row with his fellow senior N.C.Os, and seeking the assistance of the commandant, Prinz zu Hohenlohe, with whom he was on good terms.

His ruse succeeded and in the summer of 1943 he was moved to a small hutted “holidaying” complex near Gross Buren railway station, Genshagen, where he found he was to be appointed the British camp leader. He also discovered that this was the establishment where the Germans intended to “work-up” the nucleus for a British Free Corps (B.F.C.) for service on the Russian front - his subsequent coded report to London, which was forwarded by M.I.9 to M.I.5, sent shockwaves through the corridors of power, the implication of British troops being engaged against Stalin’s forces causing obvious alarm.

Amazingly, the edict announcing the formation of the B.F.C. was read out for the first time in Brown’s quarters, by Thomas Cooper, a genuine traitor who had fought in a Totenkopf unit of the S.S. - Cooper made the error of confessing to Brown that he had committed assorted atrocities in Poland while in the S.S., information that the latter was pleased to divulge at the end of the War, when he gave evidence at the Old Bailey TreasonTrials - Brown also accumulated evidence against William Joyce and John Amery, in addition to less well-known traitors such as Roy Purdy, a Sub. Lieutenant, R.N.V.R., who had made anti-Semetic broadcasts from Berlin.

Meanwhile, and more importantly in terms of supporting the immediate Allied cause, Brown used his relative freedom to move around to gather valuable information regarding enemy airfields, barracks, A.A. defences, and other camouflaged sites, on one occasion discovering the whereabouts of an underground tank factory - it was successfully bombed by the Allies. By and large his intelligence reports were despatched in coded form in his correspondence home, but from time to time he made use of other avenues of delivery, thus a Dutch civilian or a Swedish sea captain, or for that matter the British-born opera singer, Margery Booth, who on one occasion hid one of his messages in her costume prior to appearing on stage in front of Hitler at the Berlin Opera House.

Genshagen remained in use until December 1944, when, because of the obvious failure of the British Free Corps plan, it was closed down. Yet so well had Brown ingratiated himself into the enemy’s camp that even the Gestapo were unable to bring him to account for the undoubted sabotage he had inflicted on the formation of this renegade corps, let alone for being a regular M.I.9 contact. Indeed he was virtually allowed to roam Berlin at will over the coming months, acquiring a girlfriend and meeting with the likes of traitor John Amery. Eventually returned to Lamsdorf as the Allies closed the net in North-West Europe, he was liberated after further adventures in April 1945 - taking possession of a fleeing S.S. Colonel’s staff car, he used it to motor 300 miles of his homeward bound trip.

Yet his deliverance into the hands of the Americans, and even his safe arrival back in the U.K., were moments of celebration marred by accusations of treachery from his fellow P.O.Ws, and his remarkable bravery was not really made common knowledge until he appeared as a prosecution witness at the Old Bailey Treason Trials: thereafter, he was quickly recognised as one of the most successful British agents of the War.

Brown, who described his wartime exploits in a fascinating series of articles published in the Sunday Sun in 1950, died at Poole in September 1965, aged 56 years. Fortunately for posterity’s sake, he had earlier completed the manuscript for his more detailed memoir In Durance Vile, which was posthumously published in 1981 (copy included).

Sold with a large file of original documentation, including a printed “British Free Corps” statement of intention, a mass of newspaper cuttings and several wartime photographs from Brown’s time as a P.O.W., together with assorted letters, including correspondence between the recipient and Swiss Y.M.C.A. in August 1943, with Kommandantur Stalag III D stamps, a typewritten note to Brown, dated at Berlin 23 December 1944, in which the writer states that some confiscated wine would be returned to him and his fellow inmates, three letters (1949-50) addressed to him from an ex-P.O.W. camp commandant, Prinz zu Hohenlohe (who was eventually removed from his post), a copy of Brown’s statement, on behalf of Margery Booth, to be reinstated to British citizenship, and War Office (Room 055) reply, dated 8 May 1950.

Provenance: Ex Sotheby’s 8 July 1982 (Lot 521), when consigned by the recipient’s widow."

 

If you haven't done so already, I strongly suggest that you read Rebecca West's The Meaning of Treason. Much of it deals with Joyce, but West has quite a bit on the Free Corps and the ratbags it attracted. West wrote not long after the war so she couldn't name many names, but her work still gives a lot of insight into the traitor psychology.



West's account needs to be read with caution. It is not wholly accurate, and she was not herself free from prejudice.

 

Hi

I have now heard from the MOD. They insist all the collaborators are in the public domain but a search of some names failed to produce a result so I have contacted the NA.

Jacky

 

KV2/3581 from the PRO (you can download it online) might be a source of info.........basically names all those investigated.......do you have any specific names you are interested in????

 

Hi Fatboybooty

Thanks for the tip.

Stalag XXA had SM LETTS, Hector? MCDONALD, CALVER, JANSEN and HOMER but I have heard of a man called SHANKER in an Italian Camp. Any other names will be gratefully accepted.

Jacky

 

Hi von Poop

However did you find Porter! He was not on my list but I have added him and hope to look him up when I next go the the NA. It's interesting because he is not listed under his name.

Thank you very much

Jacky

 

Fascinating thread. Thanks alieneyes for sharing with me today here.