I have received some fascinating mail over the last few months. I am always a bit shocked when people write to me, seemingly out of the blue, and claim their connection to one of the historical figures that I have written about. In so many ways, we are all connected, and these stories, the stories of the war, of the Shoah, need to be told.
SPIES – Grandnephew of Gösta Caroli
Bengt Caroli sent me a message asking me if I had ever been in touch with his father, Ulf Caroli. Ulf, who passed away in 2016, had been the son of Gunnar Caroli, one of Gösta Caroli’s brothers. Gösta, for those who might not know, parachuted into England as a spy in early September 1940. He was turned by the British and became Double Agent SUMMER for a few months. He then tried to escape and was quietly retired and held in confinement for the rest of the war.
According to Bengt, his father, Ulf, had written a book about his “amazing” uncles, Gösta and Tryggve. I found the book on a Swedish site and translate the book’s Swedish description here:
During the final stages of World War II, I experienced a dramatic event. Someone rang the doorbell to the main entrance of the vicarage and my father opened the door but did not let anyone in. Instead, I heard a conversation, which ended with father having a fit of rage and slamming the door shut. It scared me because I had never seen my calm father do anything like that. I was very scared but above all I was curious and wondered who it could be that had made my father so upset. It was obvious that we were living in the shadow of war with bombers at night and standby soldiers in the house. There once came a mysterious letter from Germany. Mother and father were upset because it had been opened by the Swedish security police and resealed. My parents’ concern was contagious so I became even more fearful and curious so I never stopped asking about these two events. When I got a little older, it reluctantly crept out that it had to do with my uncles. They didn’t say how, but I’ve done everything I can to find out. What I came to I have reproduced in this book.
I believe Tryggve (born 1905) became an architect later in life, and while we know what Gösta got up to during the war… now I wonder about Tryggve. The book is about 75 pages long and after a fair amount of dithering ($$$$/page), I ordered the book. Google Translate and I will report back later, after I work my way through it.
REFUGEES – Grandniece of Hans Blum
Hans Blum was a German-Jewish lawyer who started the black market passport business with which Josef Jakobs became involved in 1937. Hans and his wife managed to escape to England while the rest of his family, with one exception, perished in the Shoah. The survivor was Peter Wolfgang Blum, a nephew of Hans who was sent over to America before the war at the age of 13. One of his children, Hannah, reached out to me after finding my blog on Hans Blum. We have been conversing back and forth for the last few weeks. She has been transcribing and translating letters that her father received from his family before/during the war.
It has always puzzled me how Hans Blum managed to escape Nazi Germany and yet his mother and siblings all perished in the Shoah. I can’t even imagine how survivor’s guilt might have showed up for Hans and his wife. The events of the Shoah are still echoing through descendants today.
ATTORNEYS – Granddaughter of Anthony Marlowe
Finally, I received a message from the granddaughter of Anthony Marlowe! Her grandfather served as the attorney for the prosecution at the court martial of Josef Jakobs on August 4 and 5, 1941. Herself a writer, the granddaughter has Marlowe’s case notes for some of the post-war trials of Nazi war criminals. In particular, the file relating to the execution of four female SOE operatives at the Natzweiler concentration camp. I had never come across this horrifying story before and look forward to the book that will surely follow. These are the stories that need to be told and retold.
I believe the Natzweiler incident was in Vera Atkins book ‘Life In Secrets’? She worked for SOE in F section and after the War made it her mission to go and find out what happened to the female agents in her care who disappeared. Controversy surrounds her, apparently. She was a Romanian Jew, but concealed this from her employers. She (and the SOE hierarchy) failed to understand the extent to which the Germans had penetrated the SOE networks, and perhaps felt guilty about the large number of her ‘girls’ that were rounded up, tortured and killed. Actually, the networks that collapsed also did so through naivete, as well as treachery, particularly on the part of Henri Déricourt, whose name crops up a lot in these labyrinths. He was tried by the French after the War and would have been executed, but was acquitted after testimony from MI6/ex-SOE in the form of Nicolas Boddington, who vouched for him. My personal belief is that this was another naive move on the part of our intelligence services, who didn’t really know if Déricourt was a double/triple or quadruple agent. Or, was it done to ensure Déricourt didn’t spill a lot of beans that would have embarassed MI6, in particular Claude Dansey, its highly secretive, odd, assistant chief? Deep, murky waters even to this day.
Dansey’s lifelong secretive nature may have been due to the scandal he was inolved with in 1893 at the age of 17 when he became sexually involved with Robert Ross, and Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, both of whom were Oscar Wilde’s lovers. Some believe that Wilde himself had a tryst with the boy. Dansey’s parents were persuaded by intermediaries not to expose the whole thing, (which would have brought Wilde’s downfall forward by two years…). Dansey married, but was probably a lifelong homosexual, which would have created another scandal and ended his career in the secret services.
Thanks for the comment John! I’ll have to look into some of these stories in more detail. I was just listening to a podcast series about Lionel “Buster” Crabb, the frogman who disappeared in Portsmouth Harbour in 1956. Conspiracy theories abound, along with bisexuality, the Cambridge 5, and Lord Mountbatten. The official files are still under lock and key, and I do tend to agree with you. So many of these cases were just buried, like Déricourt. The old-boys-club protected their own and it sounds like Claude Dansey needed protecting. “Deep, murky waters” indeed!!