The history of German Nazi groups abroad is still a relatively neglected subject, and the authors of this book have dutifully researched their ramifications in the British capital. Through an impressive and extremely detailed research carried out in British, American, and German archives, they have brought to life the about four hundred Germans who sought to organize Nazi activity London in the 1930s. Historians of Anglo-German relations and of Fascist and Nazi activities abroad will find this research useful.
James and Patience Barnes have certainly succeeded in explaining who these people were: their biographies, from their birth to their family history; their employment in the United Kingdom; their involvement in the Nazi groups; and finally their internment in 1940 (when not expelled) are thoroughly analyzed. Other questions addressed by this book are the extent to which these organizations were related to anti-British espionage, their relationship with non-Nazi Germans in London, and the extent to which they affected British society.
The story of the London Ortsgruppe precedes the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany. It begins in 1930, when the Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi party newspaper, encouraged by the positive results in the national elections, sent a correspondent to London. Hans Wilhelm Thost, the organizer of the first Nazi group in the city, was a young former veteran and a first-hour Nazi, who believed that Britain represented the past and Germany, once the “chains of Versailles” were destroyed, the future. His mission was not restricted to informing German readers about British events but aimed to improve Anglo-German relations and to make his fatherland greater in the eyes of the British. Until Hitler came to power, his activities caused little concern to the British Foreign Office and were regarded as a matter of internal German policy. After all, the Italian Fasci in Britain had been free to organize since 1921.
Worries began to increase from 1933, as the book shows by presenting a large number of references from Home Office, MI5, and Foreign Office files. The Landesgruppe (operating at a national level) and the Orstgruppen (operating at a local level) organized special events such as Hitler's birthday and the celebrations of the anniversaries of the Nazi conquest of power and worked as a social venue where German sympathizers, either members of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or not, could gather. If the members were never more than about four hundred, at some events they gathered 1,200 people.
Just like the Fasci Abroad, the Auslandsorganisation (which had in many ways imitated the Italian example) was instructed not to interfere in local politics and to focus only on expounding the greatness of Germany among non-Germans, on reminding ethnic German emigrants of their Teutonic roots, and on providing activities for Nazis and attracting Nazi sympathizers. However, particularly after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 and the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the British authorities and the British press began believing that the German Nazis were establishing contacts with local Fascists as well as becoming involved in espionage activities. The control and occasionally the repression of their activities were much stricter than on Italian Fascists, as demonstrated by the decision to expel some of the German Nazis from the country, beginning with Thost himself, whose career in Britain was interrupted by Scotland Yard in 1935. By then, he had come to be regarded as a troublesome journalist who consorted with German intelligence agents. The same fate befell other leaders of the groups in the following years.
The book is particularly interesting when it describes the links between German internal policies and their impact on the London groups and on Germans in London. In 1937 the Auslandsorganisation, previously controlled by the party, moved under the supervision of the Foreign Ministry. In this way, it became easier for the embassy (largely Nazified by Joachim von Ribbentrop's activity as an ambassador from 1936) to control German nationals in the capital. The pressure on the private life of Germans abroad alarmed the British press, particularly when Britain's Germans were required to register at the consulates by giving personal information that went from change of address to religion and race.
Particularly from 1938, intimidation of German Jews by the Ortsgruppen and the dismissal of Jews employed by German firms in Britain brought many Jews to complain to the Home Office. Furthermore, as a result of the Anschluss the number of emigrants in London increased, as well as the number of incidents that came to the attention of the Home and Foreign Offices. Although, as the authors illustrate, the spying activity of the Ortsgruppen targeted mainly German individuals and Jews, the Nazis were increasingly suspected of espionage activities, and several important leaders were expelled before the outbreak of the war.
The strength of the book lies in its thorough, wide, and precise research. Its weakness is reflected in the lack of communication with other historians and historiographical works on related subjects. Very few secondary sources are mentioned, although some parts of this history have already been investigated, even though from different perspectives. The chapters on the British Union of Fascists and on the British Legion, for example, could have explored more recent works on the relationship between German Nazis and various kinds of fellow travelers of the right. The result is that the book provides an extraordinary amount of data and detail but engages little with wider issues and contexts.
The reader would also like to know more on the relationship between the Nazis and the rest of the German community in London, part of which lived a separate life from that of the Nazis. The book would have benefited from more in-depth investigation of the attempts to involve ordinary Germans, through press, propaganda, schools, and social activities. By looking at the sheer number of members, the experiment does not look really successful, if compared with the case of the Italian Fasci in London and their related (religious, sport, youth, and female) organizations. Although the community remains in the background, the authors well illustrate the attempts made by Nazi expatriates to Nazify institutions such as the Embassy, the Chamber of Commerce, London branches of the German Labour Front, and German Churches in the capital. The book concludes with an appendix that reports name, address, place and date of birth, occupation, length of stay in England, date of party membership, and details on internment of all the German party members who were in London before the outbreak of war.
