British Free Corps - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the British Free Corps (in German ) was a unit of the consisting of British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

and Dominion prisoners of war who had been recruited by the Nazis. The unit was originally known as The Legion of St. George Research by a British journalist, Adrian Weale

Adrian Weale

Adrian Weale is a British writer, journalist, illustrator and photographer of Welsh origin. He was educated at Latymer Upper School, University of York and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.- Biography :...

, has identified about 59 men who belonged to this unit at one time or another, some for only a few days. At no time did it reach more than 27 men in strength – smaller than a contemporary German platoon

Platoon

A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. Platoons are organized into a company, which typically consists of three, four or five platoons. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the...

Recruiting

Recruiting for the Free Corps was done in German POW camps. In 1944, leaflets were distributed to the POWs, and the unit was mentioned in Camp, the official POW newspaper published in Berlin. The unit was promoted "as a thoroughly volunteer unit, conceived and created by British subjects from all parts of the empire who have taken up arms and pledged their lives in the common European struggle against Soviet Russia". The attempted recruitment of POWs was done amid German fear of the Soviets; the Germans were "victims of their own propaganda" and thought that their enemies were as worried about the Soviets as they were. In one camp in Holland, the POWs were lavished with cigarettes, fruit and other such items and made to listen to Nazi propaganda officers who described the good the Germans were doing in Europe and asked the men to join them in fighting the real enemy, the Soviets.

One such individual who attempted to recruit soldiers was John Amery

John Amery

John Amery was a British fascist who proposed to the Wehrmacht the formation of a British volunteer force and made recruitment efforts and propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany...

, son of the serving British Secretary of State for India

Secretary of State for India

The Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...

, Leopold Amery. He was sentenced to die after a court-martial found him guilty of high-treason and treachery.

Commanders

The BFC did not have a 'commander' per se as it was the intention of the SS to appoint a British commander when a suitable British officer came forward. However three German Waffen-SS officers acted as the 'Liaison Officer' (Verbindungsoffizier) between the SS-Hauptamt

SS-Hauptamt

The SS-Hauptamt was the central command office of the German Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany until 1940.-Formation:...

Amtsgruppe D/3 which was responsible for the unit and the British volunteers, and in practice they acted as the unit commander for disciplinary purposes at least. These were:

SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Werner Roepke: September 1943 – November 1944
SS-Obersturmführer Dr Walter Kühlich: November 1944 – April 45
SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr Alexander Dolezalek: April 1945

A number of sources mention the involvement of Brigadier Leonard Parrington, a British Army officer captured by the Germans in Greece in 1941. This was based on a misunderstanding by some of the British Volunteers after Parrington in the summer of 1943 had visited the POW 'Holiday Camp' at Genshagen, in the southern suburbs of Berlin, as representative of the Senior British POW, Major General Victor Fortune

Victor Fortune

Major-General Sir Victor Morven Fortune KBE, CB, DSO was a British Army officer. He saw service in both World Wars...

. Parrington had told the assembled prisoners that he 'knew the purpose of the camp' and the BFC volunteers who were there took this to mean that he approved of the unit. In reality, Parrington had accepted Genshagen at face value as a rest centre for POWs.

Courts Martial of those involved

Newspapers of the period give details of the court-martial of several Commonwealth soldiers involved in the Corps. One Canadian captive, Pte. Edwin Barnard Martin, who said he joined the Corps "to wreck it". He designed the flag and banner used by the Corps , and admitted to being one of the original six or seven members of the Corps during his trial. He was given a travel warrant and a railway pass which allowed him to move around Germany without a guard. He was charged with aiding the enemy while a prisoner of war.

Another New Zealand soldier claimed at his court-martial that he joined the Corps for similar reasons, to gather intelligence on the Germans to form a revolution among POWs, or to sabotage the unit if the revolution failed.

In popular culture

Many readers' first acquaintance with the British Free Corps (BFC) came in Jack Higgins

Jack Higgins

Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...

' World War II novel The Eagle Has Landed
The Eagle Has Landed
The Eagle Has Landed is a book by Jack Higgins set during World War II. It first published in 1975. It was made into a film of the same name in 1976 starring Michael Caine...

. In the novel, a BFC Officer named Harvey Preston, who is patterned on Douglas Berneville-Claye

Douglas Berneville-Claye

Douglas Webster St Aubyn Berneville-Claye , born Douglas Berneville Claye, was a British Nazi collaborator and member of the S.S. British Free Corps during World War II.-Early life:...

, is attached to the Fallschirmjäger unit which attempts to kidnap Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

. A convinced Nazi and petty criminal, Preston is viewed with disgust by all members of the German unit.

The 2006 film Joy Division
Joy Division (2006 film)
Joy Division is a 2006 British film directed by Reg Traviss. The story is a fictional biopic which follows the life of a boy in Germany at the end of WWII into his adulthood in Russia and London during the Cold War...

portrays a member of the BFC, Sergeant Harry Stone, among the German troops and refugees fleeing the Red Army advance into Germany. In the film it is the aggressive Stone who appears to be the only convinced Nazi remaining among the Hitler Youth with whom he is grouped. He is seen attempting to recruit British POWs before the column is attacked by Soviet aircraft.

In 2009, the BFC also featured in the last episode of the ITV series Foyle's War
Foyle's War
Foyle's War is a British detective drama television series set during World War II, created by screenwriter and author Anthony Horowitz, and was commissioned by ITV after the long-running series Inspector Morse came to an end in 2000. It has aired on ITV since 2002...

, "The Hide" (Series 7, episode 3).

The 2010 novel SS Englander: The Amazing True Story of Hitler's British Nazis is a fantasy novel about an Englishman who fights in the Waffen SS, seeing limited action at Stalingrad as a special advisor, before joining the BFC during its formation.

Sources of Confusion

Over the years, reliable information about the British Free Corps has been remarkably difficult to obtain. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, prior to the 1990s, British Public Records law allowed British government departments to impose long periods of closure on official documents which prevented them from being released into the archives. Secondly, the private publication, in 1970 of a book entitled 'Yeomen of Valhalla' by a Jersey-born author using the pseudonym 'The Marquis de Slade'. 'Yeomen of Valhalla' is a broadly accurate account of the formation and activities of the British Free Corps and its membership, however the author chose to apply pseudonyms to almost everyone mentioned in the book. 'De Slade's' book was subsequently effectively re-written by the British spy writer Ronald Seth as 'The Jackals of the Reich' (New English Library, 1974) and he also chose to use the same pseudonyms. Neither of these books included references or a bibliography and the result was that some subsequent writers have taken the pseudonyms to be real names.

External links

Pipes, Jason. " Britisches Frei-Korps / British Free Corps"
Pipes, Jason. "British Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in WWII"
BBC News {for reference only}
Guy Walters' site's history of the BFC, complete with pictures "http://www.guywalters.com/BFC%20main%20page.html
Daily Mail article on the British Free Corps from 2010
BFC Facebook group, non political set up for anyone with an interest in the BFC to share information, photos, documents and anything else that would be considered relevant http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=14531&post=97803&uid=5319066908#!/group.php?gid=5319066908&v=wall