British Free Corps
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox military unit The British Free Corps (abbr. BFC; Template:Langx) was a unit of the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Nazi Germany during World War II, made up of British and Dominion prisoners of war who had been recruited by Germany. The unit was originally known as the Legion of St George.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Research by British historian Adrian Weale has identified 54 men<ref name="WealeMythHistory">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 3757–3758. Appendix 5 British Members of the British Free Corps and their Aliases.</ref> 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.<ref name="WealeMythHistory"/>
FormationEdit
The idea for the British Free Corps came from John Amery, a British fascist, son of the serving British Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery. John Amery travelled to Berlin in October 1942, and proposed to the Germans the formation of a British volunteer force to help fight the Bolsheviks. The British volunteer force was to be modelled after the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism), a French collaborationist force fighting with the German {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. In addition to touting the idea of a British volunteer force, Amery actively tried to recruit Britons. He made a series of pro-German propaganda radio broadcasts, appealing to his fellow countrymen to join the war on communism.
The first recruits to the Corps came from a group of prisoners of war (POWs) at a 'holiday camp' set up by the Germans in Genshagen, a suburb of Berlin, in August 1943.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 1948.</ref> In November 1943, they were moved to a requisitioned café in the Pankow district of Berlin.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 2002.</ref> Recruits also came from an interrogation camp at Luckenwalde in late 1943.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 2083.</ref> The Corps became a military unit on 1 January 1944, under the name 'The British Free Corps'.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 2172–2173.</ref> In the first week of February 1944, the BFC moved to the St Michaeli Kloster in Hildesheim, a small town near Hanover.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 2264.</ref> Uniforms were issued on 20 April 1944 (Hitler's 55th birthday).<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 2331.</ref> On 11 October 1944, the Corps was moved to the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Pioneer school in Dresden, to start military training for service on the Eastern Front.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 2529–2530, 2793.</ref> On 24 February 1945, they travelled from Dresden to Berlin, where they stayed in a requisitioned school on the Schönhauser Allee.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 2979–2980.</ref> On 8 March 1945, they were moved to the village of Niemegk, a few miles to the south-west of Berlin.<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 3007.</ref>
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 Dutch camp, cigarettes, fruit, and other items were lavished on the POWs while they listened to Nazi propaganda officers who described the good that the Germans were doing in Europe, then asked the men to join in fighting the real enemy, the Soviets.<ref name="The Toronto Daily Star">Template:Cite news</ref>
CommandersEdit
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 {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("liaison officer") between the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 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:
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Hans Werner Roepke: September 1943 – November 1944Template:Sfnp
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Dr Walter Kühlich: November 1944 – April 1945Template:Sfnp
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Dr Alexander Dolezalek: April 1945Template:Sfnp
A number of sources mention the involvement of Brigadier Leonard Parrington, a British Army officer captured by the Germans in Greece in 1941.<ref>See, for example, Template:Cite book</ref> 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. Parrington had told the assembled prisoners that he "knew the purpose of the camp"<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 1961.</ref> 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.
MembersEdit
Leading members of the Corps included Thomas Haller Cooper (although he was actually an {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} proper<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 2297.</ref>), Roy Courlander, Edwin Barnard Martin, Frank McLardy, Alfred Minchin and John Wilson – these men "later became known among the renegades as the 'Big Six', although this was a notional elite whose membership shifted periodically as members fell into, and out of, favour."<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 2209–2211.</ref>
In 2002, it was claimed that Robert Chipchase, an Australian, was by then the last surviving member of the British Free Corps.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He commented that he had changed his mind about joining and refused to sign the enlistment papers, spending the rest of the war in a punishment camp.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Preparation for active serviceEdit
In March 1945, a BFC detachment was deployed with the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland under {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Joachim Ziegler, which was composed largely of Scandinavian volunteers and attached to the III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps under {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Felix Steiner. They were first sent from Stettin to the division's headquarters at Angermünde. "From there they were sent to join the divisional armoured reconnaissance battalion ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) located in Grüssow [on the island of Usedom]. The battalion commander was {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Rudolf Saalbach ... [The BFC were allocated] to the 3rd Company, under the command of the Swedish {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Hans-Gösta Pehrson."<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 3028–3032.</ref> The BFC contingent was commanded by {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (squad leader) Douglas Mardon, who used the alias "Hodge". Richard W. Landwehr Jr. states "The Britons were sent to a company in the detachment that was situated in the small village of Schoenburg near the west bank of the Oder River".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sps
On 16 April 1945, the Corps was moved to Templin, where they were to join the transport company of Steiner's HQ staff ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Steiner).<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 3077–3078.</ref> When the Nordland Division left for Berlin, "the transport company followed Steiner's Headquarters to Neustrelitz and the BFC went with it."<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Location 3132.</ref> On 29 April, Steiner decided "to break contact with the Russians and order his forces to head west into Anglo-American captivity."<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 3140–3141.</ref> Thomas Haller Cooper and Fred Croft, the last two members of the Corps, surrendered on 2 May to the 121st Infantry Regiment (United States) in Schwerin, and were placed in the loose custody of the GHQ Liaison Regiment (known as Phantom).<ref>Weale (2014), Kindle Locations 3162–3170.</ref>
Courts-martialEdit
Newspapers of the period give details of the court-martial of several Commonwealth soldiers involved in the Corps. One Canadian captive, Private Edwin Barnard Martin, said he joined the Corps "to wreck it". He designed the flag and banner used by the Corps,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was found guilty of two charges of aiding the enemy while a prisoner of war.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
New Zealand soldier Roy Courlander claimed at his court-martial that he joined the Corps for similar reasons, to gather intelligence on the Germans, to foster a revolution behind the German lines, or to sabotage the unit if the revolution failed.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
John Amery was sentenced to death in November 1945 for high treason, and hanged on 19 December 1945.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In popular cultureEdit
- The film Joy Division (2006) 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.
- Jack Higgins' novel The Eagle Has Landed portrays a BFC officer named Harvey Preston, who is patterned on Douglas Berneville-Claye. He is attached to the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} unit which attempts to kidnap Winston Churchill. A convinced Nazi and petty criminal, Preston is viewed with disgust by all members of the German unit.
- On TV, the British Free Corps was a subject for "The Hide", the final episode of series 6 of the British TV series Foyle's War, in which a British POW who had joined the BFC was tried for treason in Great Britain once he returned home, after surviving the firebombing of Dresden.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
GalleryEdit
- William Brittain.jpg
lang}} William Brittain, February 1945
- Thomas Haller Cooper.JPG
lang}} Thomas Haller Cooper (British mugshot, 1945)
- Roy Courlander.jpg
lang}} Roy Courlander, 1944
- Eric Pleasants.jpg
lang}} Eric Reginald Pleasants, 1944
See alsoEdit
- Non-Germans in the German armed forces during World War II
- Friesack Camp, attempt to raise an "Irish Brigade"
- Indian Legion
- List of members of the British Free Corps
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} foreign volunteers and conscripts
- Fusilier James Brady
- John Codd
- Free Corps Denmark
ReferencesEdit
CitationsEdit
BibliographyEdit
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- Template:Cite book 'The story of the British volunteers of the Waffen-SS has long been treated with scorn and derision by the establishment media ... This publication at least will try and change that perception.'
- Template:Cite book
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- Template:Cite book Details the formation and activities of the British Free Corps and its membership, though the author chose to apply pseudonyms to those mentioned the book.
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- Template:Cite book This book was effectively a re-writing by the British spy writer Ronald Seth of The Yeomen of Valhalla (Behind the Siegfried Line). Seth also chose to use the same pseudonyms. Neither of these books included references or a bibliography and, as a result, some subsequent writers have taken the pseudonyms to be real names.Template:Citation needed
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- Weale, Adrian (2014), Renegades: Hitler's Englishmen, Random House (Kindle edition).
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External linksEdit
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