Nazi sympathisers revealed on war-time Home Office blacklist
Mark Bridge, History Correspondent
Tuesday November 17 2020, 12.01am, The Times
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Sir Oswald Mosley was well known for his Nazi sympathies, but others on the blacklist were new to British security services
FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
A Home Office blacklist has been uncovered of hundreds of Britons thought likely to help the Nazis in the event of an invasion.
Neil Storey, a historian, said that the list – including people in “all walks of life”, from civil servants and teachers to shop workers and farm hands – was “clear evidence” that the fear of a fifth column was grounded in a genuine threat.
The individuals on the list, referred to as “suspected persons who might be disposed to assist the enemy in the case of invasion”, include both British Fascists and people of German heritage who had been outspoken in their support for the Nazis. One is a young woman who fantasised about her German soldier penpal landing by parachute and who wished to run Winston Churchill around Hyde Park with a pitchfork.
Although the list includes well-known fascists such as Sir Oswald Mosely, leader of the proscribed British Union of Fascists, and some others who, like him, were interned, many were neither interned nor known from other records to have been under suspicion. In fact, Mr Storey said the majority were “ordinary people” up and down the country — “the person next door”.
The list was compiled by police and MI5 in accordance with a Home Office circular of August 24, 1940. Mr Storey said those named had gone through stringent evaluation, and many people who were considered for inclusion were cleared. Many suspects’ files cite multiple reports from neighbours, acquaintances or even family members of their pro-Nazi statements or actions.
He has found the sub-lists for a number of regions at the National Archives and regional archives and estimates that with each carrying about 50-100 names, there would have been a total of about 720 suspects across Britain.
He said that some of the suspects had belonged to “very active pro-German organisations” operating openly in Britain before the war that printed magazines, held meetings and set up penpals.
One suspect was a blacksmith from West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire who was heard by two witnesses, on May 16, 1940, to say: “Germany is a better country than England. England is not worth fighting for. I would not hesitate to help the Germans if I had a chance.”
The file for a fascist activist in Muswell Hill, north London, noted that a police search of his flat had uncovered “a complete fascist uniform, a photograph of Winston Churchill with a jack-knife inserted in the throat, a quantity of fascist literature and correspondence” among other red-flag material.
Mr Storey, who reveals details of the list in his new book Beating the Nazi Invader, said the authorities feared that British Nazi sympathisers would provide local knowledge to German forces and act as guides or provide other practical help during an invasion and collaborate thereafter. Had an invasion been launched, the records indicate that the suspects would have been detained; although Mr Storey said accounts from former members of Auxiliary Units, trained in guerrilla warfare, suggest that they were poised to kill those deemed most dangerous.
A plot by fascists in Leeds, uncovered by MI5 in August 1940, to assist the Germans through sabotage and terrorism, including throwing bombs from the top of a tram, gave an indication of what fanatical pro-Nazis might be capable of, he added.
Mr Storey said the list was maintained and updated until late 1944 when there was no longer an invasion threat, and suggested that the authorities “had a pretty good handle on who was going to prove the most dangerous people in any area”.
He added that it provided “clear evidence” that a threat from a pro-Nazi fifth column, widely feared at the time and often “dismissed” in hindsight, was real. However, he said: “It’s important to remember that if we’d been a nation of fifth columnists the whole nation would have collapsed.”
Alan Allport, a historian who was not involved in the research and whose book *Britain at Bay *describes events from 1938-1941, said he had never come across anything like the list and it was interesting to see details of suspects. He said fears of a fifth column were “huge”, but he believes there was a greater risk that suspects on the list would have collaborated after a successful invasion than provided meaningful help to German forces during one.
Case study
Among those listed as a Nazi sympathiser was Trixie Lowe, 23, a teacher from Berkshire, whose mother was German and father was a British First World War veteran. Police received a “very large amount of information” about her mother’s pro-Nazi sympathies.
A “reliable informant” told police of a visit to the family home on March 2, 1940, when, under the gaze of a portrait of Hitler, the mother told the informant that Miss Lowe was a “keen supporter of the Nazi regime” and, “although British born, is really a German at heart”.
In June, it was claimed that she said the British would soon be “crawling on our haunches to Hitler”. Police found Nazi propaganda photographs, a German edition of Mein Kampf and love letters to Lowe from a German soldier called Heinz.
Lowe and her mother were held in July 1940, but on appeal the mother impressed an advisory panel which said there was no reason to think she would be disloyal.
She told the panel “if in recent history England had been more willing to give and take, some of this ‘unpleasantness’ [the war] might have been avoided”. The home secretary disagreed with the panel, but revoked her detention. She was listed as to be detained in the event of an invasion.
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