It was from those dizzy heights of service to his country that Sir Barry Edward Domvile KBE CB CMG fell. He was not alone in his humiliation. His wife and son Compton were also detained. In his book From Admiral to Cabin Boy he himself wrote:
‘Only the downward slope is in view, and the pitch is so steep that it amounts almost to a fall, against which my family motto ‘Qui stat caveat ne cadat' [‘let he who has status beware, lest he fall’] warned me.’
Domvile had high hopes that Chamberlain’s trip to Munich would bring peace with Germany and that the policy of appeasement of Germany would continue. When he wrote in 1943 that he wanted to be counted among the men of Munich, he was doing so in response to those who had called them Guilty Men. A book with this title was published in 1940 under the pseudonym ‘Cato’ (This was in fact Frank Owen and Michael Foot, journalists at the Evening Standard along with Peter Howard of the Sunday Express). The book held the Munich men responsible for the war especially the devastating events of Dunkirk and an expected invasion by the Nazis. Domvile, now arrested, was now deemed to be a guilty man for his pro-German activity.
What happened to bring this man who had served his country to this state?
A fellow member of the far right and friend of Domvile, Francis Yeats-Brown, a retired soldier, a member of the January Club and the Right Club, a man who praised Franco and Hitler, wrote to The Times, ‘Why, for instance was Sir Barry Domvile arrested? It is true he encouraged Anglo-German friendship before the war, but does that make the distinguished Admiral a traitor?’ Yeats-Brown raised this question because he knew that Domvile was a supporter of Germany and a fellow supporter of fascist groups with which they were both associated. The government’s action to begin to detain fascists raised alarm bells with them and as a military man he believed the best form of defence was attack.
The question he raised is the question we now explore.
Chapter 4
Regulation 18B of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939
T he relevant section of the act that concerns Admiral Domvile was:
‘If the Secretary of State has reasonable cause to believe any person to have been or to be a member of, or to have been or “to be active in the furtherance of the objects of, any such organisation as is hereinafter mentioned”, and that it is necessary to exercise control over him, he may make an order against that person directing that he be detained. The organisa-tions hereinbefore referred to are any organisation as respects which the Secretary of State is satisfied that either— (a) the organisation is subject to foreign influence or control, or (b) the persons in control of the organisation have or have had associations with persons concerned in the government of, or sympathies with the system of government of, any Power with which His Majesty is at war. and in either case that there is danger of the utilisation of the organisation for purposes prejudicial to the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order, the efficient “prosecution of any war in which His Majesty may be engaged or the maintenance of supplies or services essential to the life of the community”.’
18B allowed the internment without trial of British nationals suspected of being Nazi sympathisers or a danger to the State. The Foreign Office gave the following categories:
1. People of hostile origin;
2. People of hostile associations;
3. People who had recently been concerned in acts prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the realm;
4. People who had recently been engaged in the preparation of such acts;
5. People who had recently been engaged in the instigation of such acts.
The effect of 18B was to suspend the right of affected individuals to habeas corpus and to be confined without trial. The bringing in of these powers was not without controversy and in the House of Commons many objections were raised and concerns expressed about detainees’ rights. The situation was compared to the building of the Nazi concentration camps, such as Dachau, Germany, that were beginning to be established.
By September 1939 there were fourteen people detained under the regulation. William Joyce, an extreme fascist and pro-German, was alerted, supposedly by an MI5 officer; he fled to Germany and would be heard of again as the voice of Lord Haw-Haw, through the New British Broadcasting Company, a propaganda arm of the Nazi government. This organisation would figure largely in the case of Admiral Domvile. Joyce’s escape caused the Government to speed up other detentions.
Fascist leader, Vidkun Quisling, attempted a seizure of power in Norway when the Nazis invaded the country in May 1940; however he was not accepted by the Nazis. Instead he was put in joint leadership with a German administrator. He would fully cooperate with the Germans including their ‘final solution’ to destroy the Jews. He would be eventually executed after the war for his collaboration. His name, ‘Quisling’ would become used as a universal name for traitors. Indeed, the British Admiralty would one day use it of Domvile.
The Norway incident caused further alarm bells to ring in the halls of the British Government. A real fear of a Fascist revolution by Oswald Mosley gripped the Security Service. They carried out a raid on 20 May 1940 at the home of Tyler Kent, an American who had stolen a vast number of papers from the U S Embassy. He had been introduced to Captain Maule Ramsay, an MP and anti-Semite, suspected of links to fascists, by Anna Wolkoff. The files of MI5 note, ‘she was on most familiar terms’ with Ramsay. She was an extreme pro-Nazi and in constant communication with the traitor, Lord Haw-Haw. Also connected to an Italian Embassy official, Assistant Militaryattaché Col. Francesco Marigliano, the Duke del Monte, she used him to pass documents through the Belgian embassy. Another intriguing contact she had was Wallace Simpson, the future wife of Edward VIII, who was a client of her couture business. MI5 noted this association in their files on Wolkoff. She was very much at the centre of Tyler’s criminal activity and was jailed for ten years. Tyler received seven years. On 22 May 1940, Oswald Mosley was detained under 18B. There then followed an intense program of detention of fascists and anyone suspected of association with them. By December 1940, more than three thousand had been sent to prison and camps throughout England. These included a great number soldiers, naval and airmen, some arrested whilst on duty, actors, shopkeepers, farmers, writers, churchmen, teachers and even an Artic explorer who had travelled with Shackleton. Both men and women were included in the sweep.
The detention of an individual was without warning and there was no court proceedings involved. An Advisory Committee was set up to which a detainee could appeal but they were not allowed any legal representation or assistance at their appeal hearing. They would not have full details of the reason for their detention or the names of any person associated with giving information that may have led to their detention. Until their appeal was heard they would be kept separate from any other detainee that had already been through the appeal process. Civil liberties groups then, and subsequently, have all condemned 18b for its lack of legal procedure and what was often claimed to be arbitrary detention. This claim was addressed by Norman Birkett in a memo to the Home Office:
‘The Committee were satisfied that the absence of legal assistance placed the appellant in no real disability, for they regarded it as a duty to assist the appellant to formulate and express the answers he or she desired to make.’
Security Service files contains comments that ‘many small fry have been detained, yet many leading figures remain at liberty’. In Oswald Mosley’s MI5 secret files, there is a letter from the Prime Minister, referring to these claims and refuting them. However, there probably was a problem for the Government who were aware a number of members of the aristocracy, and even royalty, were known to hold similar views as those of many of the detained.
Chapter 5
A Man Is Known by the Company He Keeps
When the historical files on Admiral Domvile’s detention were released in 2002, the ‘secret’ and ‘most secret’ MI5 files reveal that the Secret Service was
very concerned about the Company that he was keeping. It is therefore necessary, as a prelude to what follows, to identify these people and their activities that brought them to the attention of MI5.
The first major figure of concern was Sir Oswald Mosley. An aristocrat, he inherited his father’s titles and followed the normal education of his class. He entered the Military Academy at Sandhurst and during the Great War he served in France and later with the Royal Air Corps. He was a Conservative member of parliament from 1918 to 1924 and a Labour member of parliament from 1926 to 1931, with a spell as an Independent in between. It was in 1920 that he married Cynthia Curzon, the daughter of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the former Viceroy of India. Mosley was very much a part of the higher social class that Domvile delighted to be moving in. Disillusioned with traditional parties not reflecting his right wing views, Mosley founded the New Party which had no electoral success. Influenced by European Fascists, Mosley was a great admirer of Benito Mussolini and went on to found the BUF which included the establishment of a ‘protection’ wing known as the Blackshirts. This group was based on the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad), the SS of the Nazi system, who also wore black shirts. There was also the Fellowship of the Services which was the secret military organisation connected to BUF and who all were armed.
Mosley’s views were anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi and his meetings attracted a great deal of violence. Parallels with Hitler’s meetings can be seen, with his thugs also causing trouble. As we have already noted, in 1936 he changed his movement’s name to include the term ‘National Socialist’. This reflected his support of the Nazi aims for Europe and his aim for a negotiated peace with Hitler. It was believed that following such a peace, a fascist state could be created in England with all immigrants being expelled. In his own words writing in Action on May 23 1940 he said, ‘I will continue to do my best to provide people with the possibility of an alternative Government.’ This position would form the basis of the charge that he was working secretly to bring revolution to Britain. His friend Domvile would also be tarred with that same brush.
Mosley continually called his Blackshirts on to the streets, especially in the East End where they clashed with large groups of anti-Fascists. He was under the intense scrutiny of the Security Service and their files show their concerns:
‘The general cry was that the entire population of East London had risen against Mosley and had declared that he and his followers should not pass and that they did not pass owing to the solid front presented by the workers of East London. ... There is abundant evidence that the BUF has been steadily gaining ground in many parts of East London and it has strong support ... There can he no doubt that the unruly element in the crowd was very largely Communist-inspired.’
These activities led to the Public Order Act 1936 as a means to bring a halt to his Blackshirts’ activities. Mosley was known to have had affairs and one of these was with the pro-Nazi Diana Mitford, the sister of Unity Mitford. She was an extreme pro-Nazi, like her sister, and was interned during the war. She divorced her first husband to marry Mosley. Mosley had also been married previously to Lady Cynthia Curzon. During that marriage he had affairs with her sister and step-mother. Cynthia died in 1933 which left him free to continue his affair with Diana Mitford. They married in 1936. His closeness to the Nazis was revealed when the marriage was held in secret at the house of the German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. There were only six guests present, one of whom was Adolf Hitler. His gift to the newlyweds was a silver framed photograph of himself.
Thus, when war broke out Mosley was seen as a friend of Hitler and to have become a threat to the country. The Security Service had noted that his support in the country was waning and that membership of the BUF had declined from 11,500 in 1939 to 8,600 in 1940. In May 1940 he, along with many supporters of his movement, was interned under Defence Regulation 18B and sent to Brixton prison.
Captain Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay was a Scot and a former army officer injured in the Great War. He too, like Domvile, was a member of the higher social class. He became a member of parliament and was an active and open anti-Semite. He was a great believer in Jewish conspiracy theories and, like Hitler, he refused to accept the Protocols as the forgery it was. He admitted making a speech in which he advocated the removal of Jewish influence stating, ‘and if we don’t do it constitutionally, we’ll do it with steel’. In April 1939, the Anglo-German Fellowship organised a grand dinner in honour of Reichsfrauenfuehrerin Scholtz-Klink at Claridge’s. She had been described by Hitler as the ‘perfect Nazi female’. She was Reich’s Women’s Führerin and head of the Nazi Women’s League. She was a brilliant speaker and used her time promoting male authority as superior to a woman’s status. She expounded the joys of working at home and the importance of child-bearing. Hitler, promoted her as the example of the Aryan woman that all women should follow. People attending the event were Frank Cyril Tiarks (BUF) and Montagu Norman from the Bank of England. Norman was suspected of being a closet Nazi sympathiser because he helped ensure Nazi gold was sold and the money returned to them in 1939. The full facts are buried in the archives of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) based in Basle, Switzerland. Norman instructed BIS to deduct the gold’s value, some $40m (£24m) at 1939 prices, from the Bank of England’s account in there. There was also Prince von Bismarck and Geoffrey Dawson, editor of the Times who was a member of the AGF and he forbade any mention of anti-Semitism in Germany, whilst the Nazis were in power pre-war. Many Conservative MPs including Maule Ramsay and Lord Brocket who had attended Hitler’s fiftieth birthday celebration and who was a close friend of Joachim von Ribbentrop. Lord Galloway, the Earl of Glasgow, Lord Londonderry, Lord Nuffield, Lord Redesdale, Lord Rennell and the 5th Duke of Wellington were also included. Of course the pro-German Admiral Sir Barry Domvile was at the dinner, mingling with these pro-Nazi friends. One of Scholtz-Klink’s many purposes of coming to London was to meet Ramsay and Nazi supporters in secret talks that led to the foundation of the Right Club in 1939. She also met more openly with fascist members of the Nordic League.
The Right Club attracted anti-Semitic Fascists, including the Nazi propagandist Lord Haw-Haw. The concern of the Security Service was Ramsay’s fixation with Jewish influence, as he perceived it. The Government believed that if Ramsay felt they were allowing such influence to infect the country, he had contingencies in place for a replacement Government. Indeed, it was to this end that Ramsay sought to have his own people secretly infiltrated into official positions where they could report on any Jewish influences creeping into positions of authority. His attempt at secrecy also led to him taking the name Mr Freeman on certain occasions, to avoid, as he saw it, detection by his Jewish enemies. MI5 were aware of what Ramsay was up to and very concerned about his association with the likes of Mosley and his desire for an alternative Government. Ramsay however always denied that he was a fascist.
He was also connected through the Right Club to Tyler Kent. The Security Service had planted agents at the heart of the Right Club who were monitoring Ramsay’s activities. He had gone to Kent’s flat on a regular basis to read copies of the stolen American documents. The content of these documents could have compromised the Government and undermined state security. In a matter connected to Kent, Ramsay brought a libel action against the New York Times, in which the judge commented that Hitler would call Ramsay a ‘friend’. Ramsay, whilst publicly a member of parliament and part of the Establishment, was also conducting secret meetings with many who the Security Service believed to be a threat to the country. The subversive nature of these meetings and reports from agents that confirmed the hostile nature of Ramsay to the Government’s policy against Germany, led to an increasing desire to control Ramsay and restrict his activities. Ramsay’s continued refusal to be seen to condemn Nazism and his uncertain support for an allied outright victory over Germany, increasingly raised concerns. He was a frequent dining partner of Domvile and was included in many secret meetings which Domv
ile and Mosley both attended. He too was therefore interned under Defence Regulation 18B and sent to Brixton prison.
Professor A.P. Laurie was a Scottish chemist who took a great interest in paintings and their analysis. He was well respected in academic circles and a member of many of the leading British colleges and academies. His main publications were in the fields of chemistry and materials used in painting. However, in 1939 he published a book entitled The Case for Germany. In this he praised Hitler and outlined the Nazi doctrines and polices. He describes Hitler as having:
‘... this charming personality, he [Hitler] is of the stern stuff of which leaders of revolutions are made. He stands apart and like all men of genius who have led great movements he is simple and direct, and puzzles and alarms the complex confused personalities of the ordinary diplomatist: yet anyone who will with an open mind study his speeches and watch his actions can learn to understand him. Dwelling among his beloved mountains he makes his decisions and carries them out swiftly and with absolute certainty.’
He continues to praise Hitler and his policies and embraces the anti-Semitic nature of the Nazis. In many ways he was naive and wrote, ‘There will probably be no war in Europe because Hitler and Mussolini stand for Peace’. Laurie’s book would play a prominent role in the case against Domvile.
Laurie was among those who founded the Link. What is interesting to note in the founding of the Link are comments from E.D.W. Tennant, founder of the pro-Nazi AGF. He wrote, in his memoirs, ‘The Nazis, who possibly expected support from us, were soon disappointed and they encouraged the start of another organisation – the Link – which proved more willing to cooperate with them’. The evidence suggests that this may not be completely true and is an attempt to paint the AGF in a better light after the true nature of the Nazis was exposed by the war. It is hard to understand why the Nazis would prefer an organisation that by and large was composed of the ordinary men and women without influence to one which had many prominent members connected to power. However, it is also true that Ribbentrop and other Nazis welcomed any means to influence British public opinion, which they hoped in turn would bring pressure on the government to favour Germany.
Hitler's Munich Man Page 5