The Book
Hitler’s British Traitors: The Secret History of Spies, Saboteurs and Fifth Columnists; Tim Tate; Icon Books, 2019.
Summary
I came across this book while looking for resources on the Fifth Column in Britain. I had read A.W.B. Simpson’s article, “In the Highest Degree Odious”, which covered the wartime detention of British (and foreign) individuals, mostly without a trial. Simpson had argued that such detention smacked of authoritarianism, particularly as there was no evidence of a well-organized Fifth Column in Britain. Well… had Simpson researched and written his article 40 years later… he might have come to a different conclusion! Hundreds of previously classified MI5 files have been released to the National Archives in the last 20 years, and they shed a new light on Fifth Column activity in Britain during the Second World War.
Tate has done an excellent job of combing through these files and piecing together the evidence to present a very different picture of wartime Britain. While some of the names were familiar to me (e.g. Ramsay, Wolkoff, Briscoe, Hiscox, Kent, Jackson, O’Grady, Reville) there were a large number of individuals who were completely new.
Tate tells the stories of these primarily fascist fanatics, people from the Link, the Right Club, the Imperial Fascist League and a truly bewildering array of other subversive organizations. We learn that several groups were actively planning to attempt a coup d’etat in the event of a German invasion of the Great Britain. And yet, as MI5 came up to speed (they were pretty weak at the start of the war), we begin to see a pattern. Individuals who had status, whether because of class, wealth, position or prestige, might be detained for a few months, but were invariably released to carry on stirring the fascist pot. Working class folk or people without class, wealth, position or prestige, were invariably jailed for months, if not years.
Towards the end of the book, and sometime around 1942, MI5 finally realized that it’s attempts to intern people without trial were getting overturned by the Advisory Committees. It also realized that actual legal trials were a lot of work. And… it was reluctant to allow its secret agents who had infiltrated fascists groups to be blown by testifying in court. In the face of these roadblocks, MI5 simply created its own Fifth Column using stay-behind Gestapo-agent Jack King (actually MI5 agent Eric Roberts) as a magnet to draw malcontents into his orbit. Better to have fascist agitators within sight than hidden underground.
Tate then concludes the book by noting the similarities between MI5’s actions during the Second World War and what is happening today regarding the terrorist threat. Detention without trial has not gone away.
Review
I found this book to be very helpful in deepening my understanding of the Fifth Column threat in Britain during the Second World War. I had no idea that there were so many malcontents in Britain, people who genuinely thought that Hitler and Nazi Germany would be an improvement. Mind-blowing.
I would have really liked a deeper dive into the chasm between how the rich, powerful, muckity-mucks were treated, versus your run-of-the-mill Briton. The fact that several high-ranking generals, admirals, intelligence directors, MPs and Dukes were fans of Hitler just really makes me wonder. Because while Tate touched on the modern comparison with MI5’s actions today… I can see some similarities to the burgeoning right-wing movement in different European and American countries. A movement that, in some cases, has actually gotten into power. Concerning to say the least. And let’s not even mention how few of these higher-ups actually faced any consequences for their rabid pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic views. Britain was, and still is, very much an old-boys-network who protect their own, no matter what they have done.
The one other thing with the book was that each chapter covered different fascist cells/individuals and would follow them from the early days of the war until they were broken up and interned. Which meant that each chapter went back to the start so it was a bit hard to get an overall timeline of how and when they were all taken down. It was a bit confusing.
Overall though, I did enjoy the book and found it very informative. It makes one think… at what point do individual liberties become less important than the survival of the whole? Or to paraphrase Commander Spock of Star Trek fame: Do “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one”? And who determines how great the threat is to the many? Interesting questions.
Review Score
5 out of 5 – very informative and well-researched