FASCISM IS A political ideology that has three principal elements: ethnic-nationalism, totalitarianism (i.e. state control of social life) and messianic leadership.
This concept of fascism had been developing in Italy well before World War One but the cessation of hostilities saw the fascists’ paramilitary leadership adopt a more aggressive policy. In 1922 the King, Victor Emmanuel III, appointed Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister. Without a majority in Parliament, he succeeded in forming a coalition government and proceeded to stamp his authority on the country with repressive domestic measures coupled with an aggressive foreign policy.
In Britain, early fascism gained momentum in the mid-1920s but, unlike the Italian version, as a counter-revolutionary rather than a revolutionary force. The British Fascisti (BF), the first fascist party in Britain, was ultra-conservative. It did not advocate change of government by revolution, was not overtly anti-Semitic and was intensely patriotic. Although the Special Branch monitored the movement as a paramilitary organisation that might threaten public order, it did not consider it subversive. Certainly MI5 did not regard it as such; indeed, according to Andrew, ‘until 1933, MI5 “paid practically no attention” to Nazism – nor did Whitehall expect that it should’.1
BF’s founder, Rotha Lintorn-Orman, was brought up with those values that fashioned the imperialist and anti-socialist attitudes of sections of the English middle class. She was a feminist with a strong sense of patriotic duty. She was opposed to trade unionism, and socialism, which she considered was endangering the British way of life. Although she admired Mussolini, she appeared to be unaware of the violence used by the Fascists in Italy against communists and socialists opposed to their regime.
Special Branch regarded the friction between BF and left-wing activists as a possible threat to public order and in 1923 reported to the Cabinet:
On 7 October about 500 people attended the inaugural meeting of the London Branch of the British Fascisti. Miss Bennett, a former suffragette, opened the meeting but she and two subsequent speakers were interrupted to such an extent by extremists that the meeting became pandemonium and ended with the singing (by the opposing factions) of the National Anthem and ‘The Red Flag’.2
By the end of 1924, with hundreds of new recruits enrolling each week, the British Fascisti opened an office at 71 Elm Park Gardens, London, SW10. In 1926 they were reliably reported to boast a membership of 185,000.3
Once the movement was up and running, Lintorn-Orman surrendered the leadership to Brigadier R. B. D. Blakeney, who became President of the Grand Council. Lintorn-Orman assumed the role of president of the women’s units. The Grand Council included some very senior former military officers and the BF could hardly be described as a subversive force. Other active members included Arnold Leese and Henry Simpson, the first fascists to be elected, in 1924, to a local council, and William Joyce, executed for treason at the end of the Second World War. Maxwell Knight, who later became a valued member of the Security Service, joined the movement in 1924 at the request of the Service, for whom he claimed to have served as an agent until 1930.4
Although (or maybe because) Blakeney was determined to build the organisation into an effective and disciplined body, membership began to decline and by 1930 was virtually moribund. Members continued to leave and by 1934 the movement, now called the British Fascists Ltd., was also in serious financial trouble. Special Branch continued to maintain a watching brief on its activities and in July reported that its leader, Henry Christopher Bruce Wilson, had met Oswald Mosley at the Grosvenor Hotel to discuss a possible merger of the BF with the British Union of Fascists (BUF), but Lintorn-Orman, still a force in the organisation, albeit a spent one, vetoed the move.5
As with many extreme right-wing organisations, break-away groups formed, and by the time of Lintorn-Orman’s death in 1935, the BF had been consigned to history, amidst rumours that its founder was addicted to drugs and alcohol, which caused her death, and that she had formed a lesbian relationship, leading to a breach between herself and her mother.6
One of the several fascist groups that took its place was the Imperial Fascist League, set up in 1929 by Arnold Leese, a veterinary surgeon from Stamford in Lincolnshire. Leese, a eugenicist and an anti-Semite, was a disillusioned member of the BF. He was prosecuted for seditious libel when he wrote that the Jews engaged in the ritual murder of Christians, and was imprisoned for six months when he refused to pay the fine imposed by the court. On his release he campaigned against war with Germany. The Imperial Fascist League tended to be, as Roger Eatwell has pointed out, ‘a talking shop for cranks’,7 and was of little interest to Special Branch.
The same could not be said of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and its leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, who posed a problem, not only to the Special Branch, but to the British Police in general for many years to come.
Oswald Mosley, born 16 November 1896, came from an aristocratic family of landowners and was distantly related to HM Queen Elizabeth. He entered Parliament in 1918 as the Conservative MP for Harrow, a seat he held until 1924 (the last two years as an Independent). He switched his allegiance in 1924 and joined the Labour Party as well as the Independent Labour Party, winning the Smethwick seat for Labour in a 1926 by-election.
Yet again his restless temperament prompted him to seek new political pastures and in 1931 he left the Labour Party to create his own movement, the New Party, which only survived for one year (1931–32). However, during its short life Mosley demonstrated quite clearly that he had now embraced the fascist cause and henceforth he deployed his undoubted charisma and powers of oratory to creating a viable British fascist movement.
In 1932 he travelled to Italy and studied first-hand the activities of Mussolini and his fellow Fascists; on his return later that year, he set about uniting the various fascist factions in Britain and formed the BUF. MI5 continued to discount fascism as a threat to the country’s security and it was not until June 1934 that they saw fit to send the first of a series of reports to the Home Office on ‘The Fascist Movement in the United Kingdom’.
But the Special Branch was well aware of the fascist threat – to public order – and its officers were kept busy supplying their uniformed colleagues with intelligence regarding Mosley’s intentions; reporting to the Home Office on the frequent violent confrontations between the BUF and its communist and Jewish opponents and taking shorthand notes of the inflammatory speeches that were a feature of BUF meetings. The merging of Jewish and communist elements that characterised these hostile clashes is explained by Henry Srebrnik: ‘In the face of these [fascist] and other provocations it is not surprising that Jews increasingly regarded the Communist Party as their only form of self-defence. Disgusted with both the Labour Party and the Irish they turned to the only Party in which they constituted an ethnic majority.’8
It was a particularly unruly BUF rally held at Olympia on 7 June 1934 that finally convinced MI5 of the threat they posed. Mosley, the sole speaker, was constantly heckled by the hostile groups which were present in large numbers despite the fascists’ stringent security precautions. When the hardline fascist stewards, commonly referred to as ‘Blackshirts’ (on account of their black uniforms), moved in to eject the hecklers, widespread brawling ensued and the meeting developed into chaos.
Nineteen men and two women appeared at West London Police Court the following day, charged with a variety of offences, including obstructing police, possession of offensive weapons, insulting words and malicious damage. Sentences ranging from one month’s imprisonment for possession of an offensive weapon, to a fine of ten shillings for using insulting words and behaviour, were imposed.9
MI5, now fully alert to the threat posed by Mosley and his henchmen, sent a second bulletin to the Home Office drawing attention to the recent growth of the party.10 This report drew heavily on information supplied by Special Branch, particularly in a detailed breakdown of the organisation’s set-up at their offices at 55 King’s Road, Chelsea, including the names of officials, numbers of staff, positions held and salaries.11
The adverse publicity he received following the Olympia rally did not deter Mosley from pursuing his policy of staging confrontational meetings and marches, particularly in areas with a predominantly Jewish population. In October 1936, the East End of London witnessed one of the most dramatic exhibitions of racial bigotry ever enacted on its streets up to that time. Subsequently referred to as ‘The Battle of Cable Street’, this was yet another attempt by Mosley to parade through an area populated predominantly by Jews, specifically to provoke his sworn enemies, the extreme left. His plan was for four separate contingents of Blackshirts to march to meetings in Shoreditch, Stepney, Bethnal Green and Limehouse, but the anti-fascists pre-empted the Blackshirts’ intentions by blocking their path with a barricade in Cable Street. Scuffles ensued between the two factions and with the police; consequently the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Philip Game, banned the march from proceeding and the fascist demonstrators were diverted to the Embankment.
Special Branch reported to the Home Office that Mosley’s opponents mounted what was ‘undoubtedly the largest anti-fascist demonstration yet seen in London’ and the government feared that even worse violence would occur if Mosley was allowed to pursue his devious campaign unchecked.12 It was as a direct result of this confrontation that a Public Order Bill was hastily passed by Parliament (the Public Order Act, 1936). Among other things it prohibited the wearing of political uniforms, which effectively put an end to the life of the Blackshirts, many of whom left the movement. Nevertheless the BUF continued to disturb the peace in the East End of London with their late-night marches, usually accompanied by drummers. Tension was again mounting, with escalating violence displayed on both sides. The local police commander feared that the situation was likely to get out of control. He proposed that demonstrations in the area should be prohibited, but the Commissioner, with Home Office approval, compromised by agreeing to a ban on evening gatherings.13
As war with Germany inexorably approached, the BUF adopted a lower profile and public opinion of Mosley became noticeably more hostile. On 23 May 1940 he was detained under Section 18B of the Defence Regulations, soon to be joined by hundreds of his erstwhile supporters; later the same year the BUF was proscribed and ceased to be a viable organisation. It was Special Branch who had the doubtful distinction of effecting the detentions.
Some of the BUF members joined the Right Club, which had been formed in 1939 by Archibald Ramsay, a Scottish Conservative MP. This organisation, comprising some 235 members, was, like the BUF, extremely anti-Semitic and pro-German but, unlike Mosley’s group, not in favour of public confrontations with its enemies. As its name implies, the club was decidedly right wing and its activities were cloaked in secrecy; its members were reported to be in favour of ‘appeasement’.14
Although the club did not present the police with public order problems, it attracted the attention of Special Branch and the Security Service on account of the treasonable activities of some of its members. According to Christopher Andrew, three MI5 agents had penetrated the Right Club and it was information from one of these, Joan Miller, codenamed ‘M’/‘Y’, that led to the arrest and subsequent conviction of one of the club’s members, Anna Wolkoff, and her confederate, Tyler Kent, an American employed as a cipher clerk at the US embassy in London. On 7 November 1940 Wolkoff was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment and Kent to seven years for offences under the Official Secrets Act. Ramsay was not charged with any specific criminal offence but was interned under Defence Regulation 18B, as were a number of other members. Special Branch was involved in the prosecutions. Another member, William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw Haw, was later to be convicted and executed for treason – an event which will be described later (see pp. 225–6).15
These two associations initially attracted the attention of Special Branch after their foundation in 1935 and 1937 respectively, but were not considered to pose a threat either to security or to public order.
In the years leading up to the war, the only domestic fascist organisation to arouse the interest of Special Branch apart from those mentioned above was the Nordic League. A Special Branch report to the Home Office in 1939 indicated that the ‘League’ had been established at the end of 1937 by a group of extreme anti-Semitic individuals who had close ties with other fascist groups, such as the Imperial Fascist League and the National Socialist League. Initially the group held meetings behind closed doors at which they aired their extreme fascist and pro-Nazi views. In 1939 they held a number of public meetings and reports of these, in addition to details of their closed meetings, were regularly sent by Special Branch to the Home Office and MI5.16 But by October 1939, Albert Canning, head of Special Branch, who now held the rank of Chief Constable, was able to report to the Home Office that the Nordic League ‘has to all intents and purpose ceased to function’.17
In 1930, when the Nazi Party became, for the first time, the second largest group in the German Parliament, it sent an official correspondent to London to write articles for its newspaper, Völkischer Beobachter. Hans Wilhelm Thost’s mission was three-fold – to describe what was ‘really going on in Britain; to promote peace between the two nations and to secure justice for the fatherland.’18 The Foreign Office saw no reason to interfere with his activities.
In 1931 the London ‘Ortsgruppe’ (London Nazi group) was founded, with Thost the leader. Gatherings of a social nature were initially held by the group in a Soho café, but from January 1932, meetings became more formal and were held in private rooms – there were now about fifty members and during the next year this number doubled. By 1933 a Special Branch detective sergeant, William East, a fluent German speaker, had been accepted as a ‘sympathetic observer’ and sent regular reports to the Home and Foreign Offices on the Nazis’ activities in London. Later, DI Hubert Morse was also accepted at the German meetings and the two officers’ detailed and well-written accounts satisfied the authorities that the Germans were not using their ‘Ortsgruppe’ meetings to plan illegal activities in this country. What their reports did demonstrate, however, was the intensely patriotic nature of the meetings and the Nazis’ fervent desire not to upset their hosts, the British; the following extracts from an early contribution by Sergeant East illustrate this: ‘British politics were to be avoided, especially such questions as the political situation in India and Ireland’ and ‘They were to be courteous in all things as the new Germany would be judged by its representatives in this country.’
Later in the same report, East describes the proceedings, intensely nationalistic in tone, which invariably followed the same pattern. Both the Foreign and Home Offices received copies of East’s work, which was also forwarded to the British embassy in Berlin minuted ‘a clever feat of Sergeant East to be present at this meeting’.19
It was not until May 1935 that MI5 sent their first report on the NSDAP to the Foreign Office although, in an exchange of memoranda between MI5, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Office, it became clear that by 1937 ‘only MI5 was keeping surveillance on the Nazis’.20
The Nazis in London were still receiving attention from Special Branch, however. In 1938, the Home Office received a number of reports of interference by German embassy officials with ‘the liberty of action’ of individual Germans and Austrians living here. At the request of the Home Office, Special Branch officers interviewed a number of German and Austrian nationals, which revealed that the German embassy’s action did not warrant intervention by the British authorities.21
1 Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 188
2 Special Branch report 226 of 11 October 1923, TNA CAB/24/162, p. 9
3 Report by Maxwell Knight, an agent – later an employee – of the Security Service, dated 22 August 1933. TNA KV 4/331
4 L. Harrison Matthews and Maxwell Knight, The Senses of Animals (London: Methuen, 1963), p. 13
5 Special Branch report, dated 16 July 1934. TNA HO 144/20142, pp. 110–11.
6 Stephen Dorril, Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 198
7 Roger Eatwell, Fascism: A History (London: Chatto & Windus, 1995), p. 179
8 Henry Felix Srebrnik, London Jews and British Communism (Ilford: Vallentine Mitchell, 1995), pp. 32–4
9 The Times, 9 June 1934
10 TNA HO 144/20142, ff. 110 et seq.
11 Special Branch report, dated 18 July 1934. TNA HO 144/20142, ff. 10–22
12 Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 194
13 Letter from Home Secretary to Commissioner, dated 23 April 1937. TNA MEPO 2/3110
14 Richard Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British Anti-Semitism, 1939–1940 (London: Constable, 1998); Robin Saikia (ed.), The Red Book: The Membership List of the Right Club, 1939 (London: Foxley Books, 2010) and Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 224
15 Andrew, Defence of the Realm, pp. 224–2
16 Special Branch reports, dated 23 May 1939 et seq. TNA HO 144/22454
17 Report from Canning to Home Office, dated October 1939. TNA HO 144/22454
18 James J. Barnes and Patience B. Barnes, Nazis in Pre-War London 1930–1939: The Fate and Role of German Party Members and British Sympathizers (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), p. 2
19 Special Branch report of a Nazi meeting at 102 Westbourne Terrace, W2, dated 9 November 1933. TNA FO 371/16751 C10434, ff. 67–71
20 Barnes and Barnes, Nazis in Pre-War London 1930–1939, p. 187
21 TNA FO 371/12607, ff. 127 et seq.