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Ken Adam, the only German Second World War fighter-pilot in the RAF, climbing into a Typhoon |
The Germans who bombed for Britain
The Germans who turned their backs on Nazism recently gathered at the Imperial War Museum to celebrate a book written in their honour, writes Ruth Gorb
The King’s Most Loyal Enemy Aliens
By Helen Fry (Sutton Publishing £18.99)
ON Tuesday evening an extraordinary event took place at the Imperial War Museum. It was the first ever reunion of the last of the 10,000 Germans and Austrians who fought for Britain during the Second World War. They came as refugees from Nazism and by enlisting in the British Forces contributed to Hitler’s defeat. They became known as “the King’s most loyal enemy aliens”.
It was an emotional reunion. Veterans and their families were welcomed by Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Dr Helen Fry, the historian who decided that their story should be told before it is too late and who has told it in a book published this month.
She said: “It is an exceptional piece of war history – it crosses every campaign in every part of the war. These men’s oral testimony is essential to our knowledge.”
Dr Fry talked to hundreds of veterans during a huge piece of research which was fitted into a busy home life. She lives in Temple Fortune with her husband and three sons.
Her career has focused on Anglo-Jewish relations, although she is not Jewish herself, and when she studied history in her native West Country she discovered that there had been a flourishing Jewish community there in the 18th and 19th centuries. The result was her first book, The Jews of Devon and Cornwall. She later co-curated a travelling exhibition on the subject, and while it was in Barnstaple she was asked by a visitor whether she had done anything about “all the non-British people” who were there in the Second World War. These non-British turned out to be German refugees, many of whom had been interned and all of whom had volunteered for the army.
They were recruited to the Pioneer Corps, where their work was menial but essential.
Dr Fry says: “A large proportion of them were professional people. Not only Jews, although most were, but Catholics, socialists, anti-Nazis and ‘degenerate artists’.
“What you had here was a microcosm of German/Austrian intellectual society. They set up a mini university, arranging lectures after their military training.
“None of them received British nationality until after the war. They were enemy aliens. Yet they volunteered to put their lives on the line – they were among the last to be evacuated from Dunkirk, for instance, having fled for their lives from Austria and Germany.
“They were scientists, writers, surgeons, architects, bankers, musicians, lawyers. Among them were Arthur Koestler, Peter Ustinov, Walter Nessler, Robert Maxwell, Ken Adam [production designer for the James Bond films] and the son of Sigmund Freud, lawyer Martin Freud – most of his army career was spent washing-up and peeling potatoes.”
By 1942, the British Army recognised that these men had something more to offer, such as knowledge of languages. A special Commando group was formed and in 1943 there was a general mandate which said that men in the Pioneer Corps could transfer to any regiment they wanted. They were called upon to interrogate and translate. Some were sent behind enemy lines on reconnaissance missions. Some were parachuted into Arnhem, some died on D-Day.
“They could easily have stayed on a farm in Hertfordshire, but they wanted to make a difference,” said Dr Fry.
After the war, they were involved in the search for Nazi war criminals: Howard Alexander, who was made a captain, was largely responsible for tracking down the notorious commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess.
Again and again Dr Fry heard stories of remarkable courage. What made them even more remarkable was the enormous mental leap German Jews had to make. Hitler saw them as Jews, but for most of them Jewishness had played no part in their lives. They thought of themselves as Germans and here they were fighting fellow Germans.
Ken Adam, the only known German fighter pilot in the RAF, admits that he had no qualms when he attacked German soldiers during the war.
“I decided that we had to win the war and we had to get rid of Hitler and the Nazis,” he said.
The story of Willy Hirschfield and his moral dilemma is only one of many. The son of a man who had fought in the German forces in the First World War, Willy survived Dachau concentration camp, came to England in 1939, was interned, served in the Pioneer Corps and in 1943 was transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps. Two years later he took part in the capture of Hamburg.
He said: “I was in my tank and heard someone crying. Behind the bush was a young German soldier, not more than 16, shouting, ‘Don’t shoot me.’ He was only a young kid. I spoke to him in German. I even gave him a cigarette.”
Willy took part in the 1945 victory parade in Berlin.
He says: “As a refugee from Nazi oppression, I am happy that I served England which had, after all, given me my freedom.”
Dr Fry was often moved to tears when she heard these men’s stories. Many of them live in north London and told her this was the first time they had received recognition of their war service.
Dr Fry gives the last word to Ernest Guttman, one of the few Germans in the Coldstream Guards who admits that some Germans today think he committed high treason.
“We did what we had to do,” he says. “We tried to fight for the redemption of the human race and to give history another chance,”
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