Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
A Nazi Journalist Comes to London
Founding the London Ortsgruppe
Otto Bene, Ortsgruppenleiter
Establishing a Nazi Brown House
The Expulsion of Hans Wilhelm Thost
Appointment of a Nazi Consul-General
The Nazi Takeover of German News Agencies
Party and SS Members in the German Embassy
Bonhoeffer and the Struggle for Church Autonomy
Nazi Infiltration of Business and Labor
Mosley’s British Union of Fascists
Nazi Influence over the British Legion
Otto Karlowa and the Landesgruppe Gross Britannien
The Government’s Dilemma: Whether to Outlaw
Foreign Organizations
German Journalists: First Targets for Expulsion
Nazi Intimidation Leads to Deportation
The Question of Espionage
Epilogue
Appendix – Members of the London Ortsgruppe
Index
|
“The fruit of extensive research in
British and German archives, this is the first study to chronicle
the activities of Nazis in pre-war London and the British government’s
response to them… This book contains much interesting and
useful material (including an appendix with basic data on over 400
members of the Nazi Party living in or near London), and complements
studies of British fascism, the policy of appeasement, and the Third
Reich. Highly recommended.” Choice
“James and Patience
Barnes have engaged in some detailed detective work to uncover
one of the least known and most intriguing aspects of the history
of
Nazism. Their study provides a fascinating insight into the previously
overlooked but highly significant story of Nazi overseas operations.
Neither the history of London nor the history of Nazism will
look quite the same again.” Professor Dan Stone, Royal Holloway, University of London, author of The
Historiography of the Holocaust and Responses to Nazism in Britain
1933–1939: Before War and Holocaust “The history of German
Nazi groups abroad is still a relatively neglected subject, and
the authors of this book have dutifully researched their ramifications
in the British capital. Through an impressive and extremely detailed
research carried out in British, American, and German archives,
they have brought to life the about four hundred Germans who sought
to organize Nazi activity in London in the 1930s. … The strength
of the book lies in its thorough, wide, and precise research.” Journal of British Studies
“How fascinating to watch the machinations
of the Third Reich from far afield. As early as September 1930,
more than two years before Hitler came to power, a young Nazi journalist
representing the Völkischer Beobachter, Hans Wilhelm Thost,
was dispatched to establish a toehold in London. His instructions
were simple: to tell the readers of the VB the ‘inside story’
of events in Britain, to promote peace between the two nations,
and to secure ‘justice’ for Germany from the restraints
of Versailles. At the same time, Thost reported to Alfred Rosenberg,
a member of Hitler’s inner circle, about political matters,
ran errands on his behalf, and informed on the loyalty of arriving
émigrés and members of London’s German community…
Patience and James Barnes have written an outstanding book, encyclopaedic
in detail and thoroughly researched. No archive or relevant primary
source has been overlooked, to the exclusion of important secondary
works.” German Studies Review
“This is the first book to study the
activities of Nazis in London in the 1930s. These fell into two
main categories: journalists reporting for German newspapers, and
members of the German community in the British capital. London acquired
a reporter for the Nazi Party newspaper, the Völkischer
Beobachter, as early as 1930, and Nazi sympathizers among Germans
in the city organized a branch of the party, an Orstgruppe,
not long afterward. As is well known, once the Nazis were in power
they attached great importance to organizing and controlling Germans
in foreign countries, and James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes
may be right in asserting that the Orstgruppenleiter was
more important than the German ambassador, save during Joachim von
Ribbentrop’s tenure of that post at the peak of Adolf Hitler’s
efforts to achieve an understanding with Britain. British authorities
– the Home Office, the Foreign Office, and MI5 – were,
at first sight, surprisingly, more concerned with the journalists
than with the Orstgruppe. In 1935 the senior Nazi journalist in
Britain, Hans Thost of the Völkischer Beobachter,
was expelled, and there were nine more expulsions of journalists
in 1937 alone. Barnes and Barnes assemble fairly conclusive evidence
that Thost was detected engaging in low-level espionage.” American Historical Review
“The most interesting chapter …
presents the whole debate between various government departments,
notably the Foreign Office and the Home Office, on whether it was
advisable to ban all Nazi organizations in Britain.” German
Historical Institute, London
“In a particularly valuable chapter,
the authors reconstruct the composition of the group, which for
the most part comprised business-persons, diplomats, journalists,
clerical workers, artisans, and domestic servants… James and
Patience Barnes have certainly undertaken their detective work with
forensic meticulousness. This volume is rich in its informative
detail. What is more, the authors should be congratulated for including
an appendix that lists the names, addresses, birth dates, occupations,
years spent in England, and dates of joining the NSDAP for some
400 Germans who lived in Britain during the 1930s and who became
members of the NSDAP. This is an original and well-researched volume,
and it will surely fill a gap in current historiography.” Central European History
“Like Claudia Baldoli’s work Exporting Fascism (Oxford, 2003), this new book by James and Patience Barnes opens
up fresh material for research, in this case the impact of the National
Socialist Party (NSDAP) in London in the 1930s. This is quite an
achievement in itself; the favourable impression is reinforced by
the subtle analysis and the meticulous detective work that buttress
their conclusions. There is much that is new here. It will provide
a reference point for future work in British and German archives.
Since the completion of the authors’ research in London, the
continuing release of MI5 files has provided some interesting new
material about the increasing concern felt by the Security Service
about the Nazi threat. To date, however, the new documents do not
fundamentally alter the case made in this book.”Journal
of Modern History
“This study presents a great deal
of valuable research on German National Socialists living in Britain,
mainly London, during the 1930s, and looks at the question of Anglo-German
relations from a number of interesting yet hitherto largely neglected
perspectives. It offers the fullest account available of the leadership,
personnel and activities of the NSDAP Ortsgruppen, detailing their
fortunes from the party’s founding in London in 1931 to the
fate of some party members, including their internment or expulsion,
at the outbreak of war. Most interesting is the way this organization
managed its relations with the British secret service, which was
from the start aware of its dangerous potential; with native fascist
movements, particularly the British Union of Fascists, which would
have welcomed some collaboration, while Ortsgruppen members were
instructed ‘not to participate in British politics and particularly
. . . not to associate with Fascists’ (21); and with the British
public more generally, as members were reminded by their Ortsgruppenleiter
Otto Bene that ‘Herr Hitler had issued strict orders that
Germans in this country were to refrain from the distribution of
Nazi propaganda’ (19). Similarly intriguing is the way in
which German NSDAP members and nonparty members in Britain were
managed by the German Embassy in London, and this study demonstrates
the ever extending reach of the Nazi regime, including its policy
of anti-Semitism, into the diplomatic service.
… Indeed, what Nazis in Pre-War London is never short
on is detail, and on offer is an almost encyclopaedic account of
the individuals involved, including, where possible, their personal
histories, a chronicle of events, and the scandals, incidents and
intrigues that inevitably figure in such a tale of ‘enemies
within’.” European History Quarterly
|
