British Free Corps

[spidge]

The following is an extract from the site:

http://argo.net.au/andre/renegades_ENFIN.htm

BRITISH FREE CORPS IN SS-WAFFEN – MYTH AND HISTORIC REALITY

Time and again contradictory information about numbers and “battle” feats of the British detachment in SS-Waffen, which included several Australians, keep turning out in various books and Internet publications. For example till recently one could have come across allegations or speculations that this group of people took part in the defence of Berlin in April-May 1945. The most comprehensive data based on document declassified in 1980-90-ties was given in the book "Renegades. Hitler’s Englishmen” (Adrian Weale, 1994). This page is based on that book. It has to be emphasized that this story does not relate to the other group of the British renegades which took part in Nazi propaganda war targeted against Great Britain.

This detachment commenced formation in the second half of 1943 when the strategic-military situation of Germany had greatly deteriorated. Volunteer POWs from Great Britain and her dominions became the main source of servicemen for the detachment. The first Commander of the Corps was Hauptsturmfurer SS Hans Werner Roepke – an English-speaking German.

Officially the British Free Corps (BFC) was founded on the 1 January 1944. All up over the remaining 15 months of war 39 people served in it. Initially 6 men comprised the Corps: Thomas Cooper, Fransis MacLardy, Roy Courlander, Edward Martin and Alfred Minchin. It was so called ‘Big Six” of rather hard line Nazi who were involved into recruitment of new members. What kind of people were they?

Cooper, a son of an Englishman and a German woman, applied to join Police College, RN and RAF before the war but was rejected because of his partially German background. The disappointed man joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and in 1939 went to travel to Germany with his mother. His was caught by the war there and faced a difficult choice – to be interned as a British subject or to be drafted into the German Army. The chose the latter and later served in various detachments of the Totenkoph Division. In 1941 he was in Poland and later bragged of his participation in murders of Poles and Jews. He spent some time at the Eastern Front and was wounded.

MacLardy, former pharmacist and BUF member from Liverpool was captured by Germans in Belgium in 1940 and in 1943 after a series of illnesses joined BFC having decided that he “would not survive another Polish winter” (his POW camp was in Poland – VK).

Roy Courlander, a son of a Lithuanian Jew and an English woman was born in London, served in New Zealand Army and was captured in Greece in 1941. He posed as a “White Russian émigré” and was typical of extremely anti-Russian views. Before he joined BFC he had participated in the Nazi broadcast for England.

Little is known about the past of Canadian Edward Martin who was captured after failure of the Diepp landing. Alfred Minchin – a merchant seaman from SS Empire Range – was captured after his ship had been sunk en route to Murmansk. Later he told that he had joined BFC reckoning that it was purely a propaganda unit. Former Sergeant John Wilson was probably coerced into joining the Corps.

In February 1944 the Corps already numbered 8 “free Britons” although it is noteworthy that the composition of BFC had been constantly changing: people had been coming and going. Former boy seaman of the Royal Navy Kenneth Berry who was captured in 1940 wheb he was only 14 also joined the Corps. But already in March Martin quit and returned to POW camp. Soon a few more people joined the Corps: Robert Heighes, Robert Lane, Norman Rose, Wood (Australian) and Thomas Freeman. The latter was fully acquitted after the war as he had managed to prove that his aim was sabotage the whole project and escape. Once upon a time he was a member of BUF and shared their anti-Communist and anti-Semitic views but during his time in BFC he really conducted anti-Nazi propaganda amongst his co-servicemen and instigated them to escape. Being involved in recruitment he would chose people whose interests were far from the aims of BFC and who as he told the British investigators later, “would bring only chaos”. Thus Freeman and Wilson recruited Australians Chipchase and Albert Stokes and Sergeant Theo Ellsmore – Belgian who masqueraded as South African. Chipchase spent in BFC only several days and returned to the camp. Stokes was Freeman’s friend and initially intended to participate in sabotage of the project…

Read on at the site above!

[sapper]

It is a fact that the youth of many Nations were attracted by the "Heroic" posters proclaiming the strength and vitality oif the SS! and many did join.

During the Autumn of 1944, we used as a base to conduct operations, a large hutted camp near Venraj. Somewhat battered, but usable. This was a Dutch SS training camp, where the the young Dutch lads were trained to become SS soldiers. it is also near where my war came to a sudden end.
Sapper

[angie999]

Before the BFK was officially named as such, it went under the name "Legion of St George", the creation of which was inspired to a large extent by John Amery, son of the British politicial Leo Amery and brother of Julian Amery who had some prominence as a minister in the post war period.

Amery was hanged for treason on 19 December 1945, just 6 days after the executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, had hanged 13 former Belsen staff at Hameln prison in Germany.

The first link has general information and the second has details of Amery's trial and execution:

http://www.feldgrau.com/gb.html
http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/john_amery.htm

[spidge]

Originally posted by angie999@Jul 31 2005, 09:41 PM
Before the BFK was officially named as such, it went under the name "Legion of St George", the creation of which was inspired to a large extent by John Amery, son of the British politicial Leo Amery and brother of Julian Amery who had some prominence as a minister in the post war period.

Amery was hanged for treason on 19 December 1945, just 6 days after the executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, had hanged 13 former Belsen staff at Hameln prison in Germany.

The first link has general information and the second has details of Amery's trial and execution:

http://www.feldgrau.com/gb.html
http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/john_amery.htm

Quoted post

To the end of the first link I posted, it has the details of John Amery and the "Legion of St George"

[morse1001]

it is interesting that Pierrepoint in his autobiography did not mention Amery.

Also, Ronald seth in his book, jackels of the reich, names quite a few former BFK members who faced trial in Britain after the war.

[angie999]

Originally posted by morse1001@Jul 31 2005, 04:12 PM
it is interesting that Pierrepoint in his autobiography did not mention Amery.

Quoted post

I have not read Pierrepoint's autobiography, but Stephen Stratford's site (see link in my previous post) says:

"In his autobiography, Pierrepoint described Amery as the bravest man that he had to execute."

[Kiwiwriter]

The British Free Corps are proof that no matter how ridiculous or horrid an idea, you will find someone who believes in it.

The British Free Corps guys' pasts explain their treason pretty well. However, how they got to where they were in the 1930s seems harder to pin down. I've read Seth's book (he changes some names) and Weale's book (he doesn't), and I come away with a sense that the Free Corps guys were a mix of Nazi adherents and cynical opportunists, who hoped to get an easy and personally profitable war, and realized much too late that they backed the wrong horse.

Traitors are often fascinating people, because they live double lives and have bizarre motivations to commit acts that most people with a sense of honor would never contemplate. The British Free Corps men are no exception...even though they are disgraces to the King's uniform they originally donned.

[morse1001]

Many memebers of the British union of fashists actually joined the british Armed forces because they were anti Nazis at heart

[morse1001]

Many memebers of the British union of fashists actually joined the british Armed forces because they were anti Nazis at heart

[angie999]

Originally posted by morse1001@Aug 1 2005, 09:35 PM
Many memebers of the British union of fashists actually joined the british Armed forces because they were anti Nazis at heart

Quoted post

Was this because they were anti-Nazi, or because they were pro-British? Fascism is nothing if not a form of extreme nationalism.