Hitler's Secret Army

May 15, 2019
A prolific British documentary filmmaker and author pursues the documentation released between 2000 and 2017 by MI5 and other entities that reveals the mostly secret convictions of a considerable number of British spies during World War II. Despite what England has publicly presented--that the so-called Fifth Column was a myth and the threat of "enemies within" just hysteria--Tate (Pride: The Unlikely Story of the True Heroes of the Miner's Strike, 2018, etc.) returns to the record to tell a different story. He underscores three elements: that the majority of spies for Nazi Germany were not German immigrants but British citizens; that those punished were of lower class than the aristocratic ringleaders at the top; and that much of the evidence of convictions was buried or covered up for decades. Tate looks at several espionage networks, many developed in small towns around regular kinds of people who became radicalized by infiltrations of resourceful German intelligence agents in Britain in its plan to invade the country in the late 1930s. Britain did not have a functioning anti-espionage law until August 1939, when Parliament enacted an Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, allowing a classification system (regarding the level of threat) for non-naturalized Germans living in the country. By May 1940, the House of Commons passed the Treachery Act, dispensing the death penalty for treason. The pool of big fish, "the key pillars of British society," contained plenty of rabid anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi figures, such as Oswald Mosely and his British Union and Archibald Ramsay and his Right Club, which was plotting a coup to replace the government with Nazi sympathizers. While the latter retained his seat in the House of Commons, many little fish were severely punished, even hanged. From the internment of suspects, the British eventually turned to a more covert form of entrapment: the sting operation. In true documentarian fashion, the author relentlessly brings forth evidence that has long been buried. An engaging work of World War II history.

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May 27, 2019
Spies and traitors in the United Kingdom before and during WWII were a reality, not a myth as researchers have often posited, as documentarian Tate reveals in this meticulous analysis of previously secret government files on Britain’s domestic Nazi sympathizers. Beyond piecing together the stories of these saboteurs, whose ranks included lower- and middle-class British citizens as well as aristocrats and parliamentarians, the author discusses the government’s uneven, conflicted handling of their cases and the dangers they posed, especially in the war’s early years. Upper-class conspirators including Lord Tavistock, who called Hitler’s demands for territory in Poland “exceedingly reasonable” and illegally met with German officials in 1940 to negotiate terms to end the war, avoided internment and other punishments meted out to lower-class culprits, allowing them in many cases to continue their subversive activities. Tate draws parallels to the way Western nations handle thorny decisions involving terrorists and immigrants today, asking, “Does the long-term goal—safety and security for the greatest number of people—ever excuse the wholesale trampling of an individual’s human rights?” This will interest history buffs, espionage aficionados, and anyone with an interest in how the mistakes and choices of the past can shed light on the present. Agent: Andrew Lownie, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency.