WWII Brit collaborators
Interesting article in the Telegraph about British collaborators who, once captured, decided to work for the Nazis.
We all know the story of the escape attempt from Stalag Luft III (Air prison 3) near Sagan, immortalized as “The Great Escape”. Recently, it has come to light that one of the escape participants, Desmond Plunkett, maintained that the escape was not foiled due to bad luck or ending short of the trees as the book and film suggest, but that two British collaborators betrayed the scheme to the Germans voluntarily.
Now, collaboration is a fact of life in camps – there are always those who are happier in a camp than escaping, sympathize with the enemy, whatever – any image one may have of the entire camp population working selflessly in harmony to support escapes , dreaming of their shot, is a Pollyanna-esque fantasy. Real world: even in a fairly clearly morally defined war like WWII, only about a third of the POWs even participated in an escape. Worse:
Packed into a wooden theatre were several hundred Allied prisoners of war watched over by their German guards. Suddenly, heads turned and a hush fell. Two men, dressed in the uniform of the dreaded Waffen-SS, entered the room and walked down the aisle.
Some noticed that there was something strange about their SS uniforms. On the men’s left sleeves had been sewn Union Flag shields. There were three lions from the Royal Standard on their right collar tabs and the words “British Free Corps” had been stitched on their left cuffs.
The two men mounted the stage and one of them started to speak in perfect English.
The prisoners were stunned. Many were tempted to tear up the leaflets but others advised against it, suggesting that with the shortage of lavatory paper they could be put to better use.
It was the spring of 1944, and the Germans were so desperate to find soldiers to fight on the Eastern Front they had launched a campaign to recruit from the ranks of Allied POWs.
The “British Free Corps”. Collaborators. Traitors. Switched sides opportunistically. In any just world, dead men walking.
For the most part, BFC members were either fascists or simpletons, pathetic individuals for whom concepts such as decency held little currency. Of all of them, the example of Thomas Cooper serves well to illustrate the treacherous journey these renegades took.
Deeply frustrated, Cooper decided to join Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirt movement in 1938, and he was soon blaming the Jews for his lack of success in the job market. In the spring of 1939, he went to Germany to find employment. Despite his fluency in German, he could find only occasional work as a farm labourer or English teacher. With the outbreak of war, Cooper found himself joining the German army. His application was noticed by a senior SS officer who invited him to join the elite SS fighting force in early 1940.
By his own account Cooper performed admirably, but it was an excellence of the most horrific and criminal sort. He would later tell his fellow British traitors that he had shot 200 Poles and 80 Jews during a single day in Warsaw. His injuries won him the Silver Wound Badge, making him the only Englishman to win a German combat decoration during the war. The Telegraph
Well worth a read. The good part? Only 57 actually joined the BFC, never more than 20 in it at one time. The bad part – none were executed after the war.
If you see no similarities to the would-be collaborators selling out to China or Russia, or filling the streets with pro-Islamist demonstrations… you seriously need to get your eyes checked.
Seems an appropriate topic today, my history-buff wife’s birthday is today (and it’s a biggie). We will not discuss the number. Happy Birthday, my love.
Category: Historical, UK, WWII
If you watched Masters of the Air the 2 main characters were in Stalag III when the Brits made their break for it. As in the ‘Great Escape’, 50 were caught and executed, the commandant was relieved, and the Gestapo/SS took over the camp. Its a good watch especially if you binge. 9 episodes from the duo of Band of Brothers and The Pacific.
Hack Stone watched a video on YouTube covering French and Belgian SS members who fought in the defense of Berlin in the closing days of the war. They fought to the last man, knowing the fate before them if captured alive for turning on their own countrymen and going all in for the enemy. They should have just stayed in Paris working for the Vichy government, as most of them seemed to get a pass for collaborating with the Germans. Of course, not all French collaborators got a pass, the women who were “involved” with the Germans had their heads shaved and were beaten in the streets and ostracized. The male collaborators didn’t seem to have that problem.
Additionally, plenty of German troops captured by the Soviets ended up fighting for the Russians, and plenty of Soviet prisoners of the Germans voluntarily fought for the Germans, and you can’t blame them after Stalin raped their countries with his purges.
How many “citizens” that joined ISIS or Al-Qaeda or the Taliban have we executed?
Isis and Al-Qaeda have feelings too ya know. We should help them get in touch with them, slowly and methodically.
Taliban Johnny still breathes.
Yep
Cocksucker.
Then there is Provoo. You can look him up in the Congressional Record, his treasonous crimes are listed there. What crimes?
Walked out of the tunnels of Corregidor after the surrender in a kimono speaking fluent Japanese to throw his lot in with the victors. He acted as an interpreter and when the conquerors demanded that all American wounded be moved out of the tunnels he translated to the Japanese the refusal by Capt. Thompson of the US Army Medical Corps. The Japanese took Thomson outside and murdered him. Other American prisoners after the war testified to Provoo being a collaborator. Alas the US Army royally screwed the pooch after the surrender and simply discharged Provoo with an Honorable.
The Federal case of treason as brought by the FBI did result in a conviction. But it was later overturned because of several factors – that Honorable discharge, how the Army turned Provoo over to the FBI, and mentioning that Provoo was a homosexual tainted the case.
Provoo died on August 28, 2001. And is buried at Hawaii Veterans Cemetery #2.
Never heard of him until now. Now you have Hack wondering what Robert Garwood has been up to.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_David_Provoo
https://kstolt.medium.com/victim-or-traitor-the-strange-case-of-pow-robert-garwood-7c4dc937368d
Monti too.
Who hates Galvanized Knotzies as much as they hate Illynoise Knotzies?
Jake Blues is unavailable for comment.
Back in the 1950’s, my family used to get readers digest and in the section Humor in uniform, there was a story which I mentioned in the past about a captured B-17 crew member who was online (NOT A PC) waiting to be being checked into one of the Stalag camps and when it was his turn, the German guard says to him, Mr. I forgot the prisoner’s name after all these years, says what are you doing here. Turns out that the guard was the crew members butcher where he lived. The guard also held a dual Citizenship who went to visit his relatives just before we got involved in the war and when the war hit the US, the guard had to join the Army. I forgot what happened to the butcher when the war ended.
John Amery was one of the very first BFC members. He was hanged in late ’45. Johnny was the son of a Tory MP. That had to be a little embarrassing for Dad.
A couple others were sentenced to dangle but were commuted.
The story of Lord Haw Haw is quite interesting too.
Accounts I have read state that the Germans had better luck recruiting Ukrainians (what with the Holomor, etc.).
If any of them were captured by the Russians, they’d have longed for execution.