As with all detainees under the Regulation 18B, Domvile was not shown any of the allegations or ‘evidence’ for his detention. He could appeal to an Advisory Committee to ask for a review. In that situation he could not have any legal representation nor could he ask any question as to the sources for the case against him. He would also not be told of the committee’s recommendation to the Home Secretary as to whether he should be freed or remain in detention. He would eventually appeal to this committee after initially seeking a writ of habeas corpus and abandoning that approach, when it became clear that Regulation 18B would deny that route.
Domvile’s activities had not only drawn attention to himself, it also brought the official spotlight on his whole family. Lady Domvile because of her connections to Germany through her father already had been suspected of pro-German sympathies. That was the very first question that was asked of her when she attended an appeals hearing on the October 22 1940. She confirmed that her English mother had ‘become German’ on marriage but took back her ‘British nationality’ on the death of her husband. That was when Lady Domvile was seven. She confirmed that she had been to Germany ‘three or four years ago’ and had met some of the German leaders and had dinner with Himmler and Lord Londonderry and his daughters. She acknowledged knowing Mosley and confirmed she was a BUF member. She had dined with him and his wife but she tried to distance herself from him politically. The committee presented her with a number of names of fascists and pro-Germans which she either denied knowing of had very little knowledge of them. She had supported her husband in Link matters but was not active. She referred often to illnesses preventing her for being so. When asked about Mosley and his being pro-Nazi, she refused to accept that he was in any way inclined to Nazism. After this first hearing the committee wrote to G St C Pilcher of MI5 saying that ‘the case against her simply does not exist’. Further evidence was needed if they were to recommend her continued detention.
She was brought back before the appeals committee on November 5 1940 where she was challenged on the claims made against her. She presented the face of a woman who could not remember certain things that had been reported to the authorities, such as meetings with known fascists. Specifically on meetings with Mosley, she was presented with a number of times she had met and dined with him. Initially she denied this but presented with evidence from her diaries where she had made entries of the meetings she then back peddled to say they were not significant.
When asked if she was politically active and had been so with Mrs Muriel Whinfield another BUF member, she said ‘No. I did not definitely. I have done nothing in the way of active work such as leaflets or propaganda or selling the paper. I promise you I have not’. This was not true. She had actively supported Whinfield when she stood as a BUF candidate in an election. Further pressed with evidence, she would say, ‘I honestly cannot remember that’. As to meetings at her home, despite the reports from the agent’s wife, they never happened.
On closer inspection she was found to be an ardent supporter of Mosley and joined the BUF. She also flirted with other right wing groups and often entertained Fascist ladies groups at her home. One of these ladies was in fact the wife of an MI5 agent (unnamed in the MI5 files), who was reporting back to her husband the contents of the meetings. She was therefore held in detention for another year being finally released in November 1941.
Compton Domvile was also suspected of fascist and pro-German sympathies. He had briefly joined the navy like his father but had left after a brief time. He suffered from sleeping sickness and that may have been the cause of his leaving. He was a member of the BUF and had met Mosley and other leading figures through their association with his parents. He had travelled to Germany on occasions and had met some of the leaders, particularly Himmler. He was taken to an interrogation centre at Ham Common rather than to a prison. It was not a pleasant experience for him: ‘It was not long before my memory began to deteriorate. Certain periods of my life completely disappeared from my mind’. Whilst no physical torture was inflicted on detainees here, they were placed on a starvation diet and prevented from sleeping for long periods. With his illness Compton would have suffered particularly badly. His detention record has been found to be missing and unavailable for inspection.
Admiral Domvile’s other two children were not detained. His daughter Miranda was investigated but she was found not to have been influenced by her parents and served in a government department during the war. Domvile’s son, Barry junior, was serving as a second lieutenant with the army in Jerusalem. In early June, MI5 were concerned as to where his loyalties lay, bearing in mind his various family members’ views. His commanding officer sent a report back stating that he had observed no problems with him and that he was behaving satisfactorily. In an interview with him, Domvile’s son said, ‘I am single-minded in my attitude to the king.’ He would eventually be declared missing, presumed killed in action in Crete in June 1941.
Let us now turn to a review of the known facts around the Domviles.
Chapter 7
Domvile’s Activity and MI5’s Records
It was in February 1935 that Cola Carroll discussed with Schwedler of the Trans-Ocean News Service (also Transocean News Service) the idea of an Anglo-German newssheet funded by the Germans. Transocean was originally a bona-fide news agency in Berlin. When the Nazi party took over it became an arm of their propaganda machine. Carroll had worked for Transocean It was in 1936 when the financing of the news sheet was again raised. Finance would be received from Germany through ‘advertising’. On October 1936, Carroll met with Otto Karlowa, the Nazi diplomat in London, for further discussions. In March 1937, Herr Durchiem of the German Ribbentrop Bureau, wrote to Karl Marhau of the German Chamber of Commerce expressing his greatest satisfaction at how the new sheet was run, ‘It was the first paper brought out by an Englishman which published the truth in our sense.’ Carroll was also in touch with Dr Erich Hetzler of the Ribbentrop Bureau and in a letter on 1 February 1939 he wrote, ‘The membership [of the Link] is increasing slowly but very steadily. It has a deficit of about £5 per week [£300 in 2016], which has so far been covered by the Review.'
Again, on 29 March 1939, he wrote to the Financial Director of the Bureau, ‘I am venturing to bother you in this matter because we are faced with meeting heavy commitments before Easter, that is to say early next week, and since failure to meet them would jeopardise the existence of both the Review and the Link.’ In May, he received £200 [£12,000 in 2016] from the Bureau.
Between October 1936 and July 1937 world events were moving on. Japan had invaded Manchuria and Italy had invaded Ethiopia. Both these countries also signed a treaty with Nazi Germany; the Japanese treaty was specifically against Russia. Japan also invaded China. Against this background Britain was becoming more concerned about her territories and the rise of Nazi influence. The Secret Service continued to watch all those who had any degree of sympathy with Germany. MI5 raised the question about Domvile’s German born wife and her brother’s earlier activity in 1937 when he had been ‘engaged in espionage activity’. The Admiralty also had sent a message to Domvile through his brother that they were ‘getting very concerned about Admiral Domvile and his association with the Link’. It was in November of that year that Domvile wrote to a contact he called ‘Hefferman’ in Munich. He expressed his gratitude ‘for all the work you are doing for THE LINK’ and hoping he would live to see it ‘bear real fruit’. Domvile’s diary also records a meeting with Max von Rogiste of Munich at his home in Roehampton. This entry, and others, shows that Domvile was regularly meeting Germans and was aware of the downside of Nazism: ‘The first time I had seen the bad side of Nazidom.’
The Domviles were therefore still very much under suspicion.
In March 1938, Domvile wrote to Heinrich Himmler (Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel – SS) introducing him to Cola Carroll and told him that Carroll, ‘... is one of the best workers in this country for friendship with Germany and his paper
is most successful in furthering this object.’ He goes on to confirm that the Anglo-German Review is the ‘publicity organ of THE LINK’ and expresses Carroll’s hopes ‘of obtaining certain official facilities for his paper’. He asks Himmler to be of assistance to Carroll for which ‘I shall be very grateful’. We know from the records of the Security Service discussed above that these ‘facilities’ were the giving of cash through the medium of advertising.
In April 1938, an article appeared in World Review and repeated in the Australian press where Domvile was critical of the UK’s Government policy towards Japan. On 29 September of that year the Munich Agreement was signed by Chamberlain along with France and Italy giving the Sudetenland to Germany from the Czechoslovak Republic. This was a great moment for Domvile and those in England who were working for peace with Germany through the appeasement of Hitler. Twenty days later he called a meeting of the Link in Portsmouth titled ‘Anglo-German Relations’. Professor Laurie would be there to talk about his book The Case for Germany and they had a member who was ‘present in Czechoslovakia during the crisis’. Domvile would later deny knowing about the contents of The Case for Germany. Is it conceivable that when giving a talk on the book, Laurie would not mention its contents? In October 1938, Domvile along with others wrote to The Times supporting Chamberlain; it was published on the 6th.
‘TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
‘The undersigned who believe that real friendship and co-operation between Britain and Germany are essential to the establishment of enduring peace not only in Western Europe but throughout the world, strongly deprecate the attempt which is being made to sabotage an Anglo-German rapprochement by distorting the facts of the Czecho-Slovak settlement.
‘We believe that the Munich Agreement was nothing more than the rectification of one of the most flagrant injustices of the Peace Treaty. It took nothing from Czecho-Slovakia to which that country could rightly lay claim, and gave nothing to Germany which could have been right-fully withheld. We see in the policy so courageously pursued by the Prime Minister [Neville Chamberlain] the end of a long period of lost opportunities and the promise of a new era to which the tragic years that have gone since the War will seem like a bad dream.
‘Signed by:
‘Lord Arnold, Captain Bernard Ackworth, Prof. Sir Raymond Beazley, Mr. C.E Carroll, Sir. John Smedley Crooke, M.P., Mr. W.H. Dawson, Admiral Sir, Barry Domvile, Mr. A.E.R Dyer, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, Viscount Hardinge of Penshurst, Mr. F.C Jarvis, Mr. Douglas Jerrold, Sir. John Latta, Prof. A.P Laurie, The Marquess of Londonderry, Vice-Admiral V.B Molteno, Captain A.H Maule Ramsey, M.P., Mr. Wilmot Nicholson, Lord Redesdale, Captain Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, Capt. Arthur Rogers, OBE, Maj-Gen, Arthur Solly-Flood, Mrs. Nesta Webster, Mr. Bernard Wilson.’
Domvile’s diary suggests that the letter originated from the offices of the Link and was composed by him. He notes about the letter, ‘Went well’. Domvile had originated the letter and gathered signatures from more respectable members of society in order to cover the more unsavoury names; Carroll, Beazley, Dyer, Redesdale, Pitt-Rivers, Laurie, Ramsay, Nicolson, Londonderry, Mount, Dawson, Arnold, Smedley-Crooke and Webster were all well-known pro-Germans, Fascists and pro-Nazis. As a result, The Times was reluctant to publish the letter, both on the grounds of unease with appeasement and the fact that the signatories were connected with the far Right and Fascism.
On 21 December 1938, at the opening of a branch of the Link in Wells, Somerset Domvile again spoke on the need of a good relationship with Germany and appears to be in sympathy with Hitler’s reaction to the Versailles Treaty and his action against Czechoslovakia. A ‘Most Secret’ report by MI5 on Domvile’s diary on 2 February 1939 gave the Security Service’s opinions on the admiral. In it, they describe Domvile as not being of ‘first class importance to Germans except as a contact man’ and that they use him to ‘make propaganda among the right people’. His character is described:
‘He is enormously enamoured of all Germans. A great snob. An anti-Semite, pro-Franco, thinks Mosley magnificent, Hitler a marvel, Gregarious; enjoys German Embassy dinners to the full; enjoys seeing his letters in the Press, enjoys wearing decorations, enjoys being busy;
Of no great intellectual ability. Drinks too much; has mistresses.’
Professor Charles Saroléa, a Belgian teaching at Edinburgh University, was a speaker at a meeting of the Link on 25 February 1939. Saroléa was a right-winger, anti-Semitic, pro-Franco and a Nazi Government supporter; in many respects a suitable bed-fellow for Domvile. He had welcomed many Nazis who visited Scotland pre-war. He had also visited Germany on numerous occasions and was invited to the Nuremberg rallies, being given the ‘best seat in the house’. It is therefore no surprise that in his address at the Link meeting he was supportive of Hitler and his actions. Domvile did not contradict Saroléa but simply added that, ‘... friendship with Germany was made difficult by the many persecutions and expulsions; but these were only symptoms of the revolutionary period in Germany’s recent history.’ He then went on to criticise the British approach of allowing Jews to enter Palestine and upsetting the ‘Moslems and Arabs’. Two nights later he was speaking at Leeds, again supporting peace with Germany and showing sympathy to Hitler’s reaction to the Versailles Treaty. He notes in his diary on the day of this meeting, ‘Everywhere I go I am asked about the Jews. What are we going to do about them?’
In March 1939, Hitler occupied further areas of Czechoslovakia, raising more concern in Britain, who, along with France, guaranteed the borders of Poland. In the following month Carroll was writing to Dr Hetzler in Berlin asking him to ask ‘the Fuhrer to invite Admiral Sir Barry Domvile’ to the Nazi ‘Party Day’. In the following month, Fascist Italy invaded Albania. The tension throughout Europe was very high as the growth of expansionism of Germany and Italy were watched with apprehension. In England, concern was reaching a high level in government circles.
The activities of the Fascists and pro-Germans were attracting even greater interest from the Security Service who in turn made the Prime Minister aware of their anxieties. In August 1939, it was raised in parliament by the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare:
‘The professed object of this organisation [the Link] is to promote understanding between England and Germany, but it does nothing to enable Germans to understand the English view, and devotes itself to expressing the German point of view. The information I have [from MI5] shows that the organisation is being used as an instrument of the German propaganda service and that money has been received from Germany by one of the active organisers [Carroll]. As regards the last part of the question, I have no power to intervene unless an organisation breaks the law.’
This statement became a major newspaper story with large bold headlines in papers across the whole of the country. Domvile’s name appeared prominently and the Link now was connected with German propaganda. One example was the Edinburgh Evening News which bore the headline:
‘DISCLOSURES ABOUT “THE LINK” Activities of Anglo-German Body’
Beneath the headline, the newspaper related the details of the Link’s formation and its aim to promote links between Germany and Britain. It reported that the claim of German finance was ‘based upon the most accurate information’, without knowing that the source was MI5. The Admiral was on a visit to Salzburg to promote the Ring, a version of the Link in Germany. He was seated in ‘Herr Hitler’s Box at the Salzburg Festival’.
Domvile was enraged when he heard the reports and spent a day on the phone from Salzburg to newspapers in Britain, denying Hoare’s claims and insisting the Link was not financed by German money. On his return, he, along with Laurie and Carroll, set about giving press conferences to deny the claims.
The Leeds Mercury ran its story with Domvile offering to close the Link if the Government did not want people like him ‘establishing friendly feelings and relations between two great nations’. Laurie acknowledges that some members do get payments for articles and books as he himself had done because
British publishers would not publish his book. The constant defence was that the Link was simply an organisation that wanted to build understanding with Germany. However, the British press, and indeed it would appear public opinion, were not prepared to accept that view. An example was an editorial in the Sunderland Daily Echo which concluded:
‘The trouble with the Link – and other groups like it, such as The Anglo-German Fellowship – is that invariably such societies are founded in Britain with the genuine and originally commendable desire to obtain ‘understanding’ with Germany, but that sooner or later such bodies become propagandist tools of Berlin’s publicity machine.’
As we will see later, German funding was a topic for discussion before the appeals committee. The newspapers began to print letters from Link members who were resigning. One, Alison Outhwaite, wrote to the Daily Express:
‘I joined because Sir Barry Domvile is a personal friend. The first meeting I went to was last November in a South Kensington hotel. A parson was in the chair. A young Englishman spoke who announced that he had worked for the German Propaganda Ministry doing broadcasts from Munich. He ranted for one hour against our freedom of the press, and extolled the German press and the German Government. Anti-Semitic pamphlets and literature of the Friends of Franco-Spain were handed round.’
The Portsmouth Evening Herald carried a report from Captain Gosson, a retired army officer, who had founded the Link branch in Portsmouth, on his resignation and suggestions to Sir Barry to close the Link.
The Star reported on a visit to Berlin by the vice-Chairman of the Leeds branch of the Link, Mr Dickenson. He had written back to the secretary of the branch urging immediate disbandment. He was alarmed by conversations he had with German SS officers in an Anglo-German Club, where the secretary of the club ‘practically admitted that the Link was an integral part of the German propaganda system’. He also spoke of the secretary of the German Economic and Political Organisation in Berlin and ‘he confessed that the Link was a branch of the Propaganda Ministry and that it would not exist without the permission and the assistance of the German Government’. The Daily Express also commented on the photographs of Domvile with Himmler ‘very smart in his uniform’ taken in Germany. The Jewish Chronicle complained of anti-Semitic pamphlets distributed at the North-West London branch of the Link. Domvile was appearing in these newspapers frantically denying and refuting any charges against the Link but without offering any substantive evidence to support his claims. On 7 August 1939, once again in Portsmouth, Domvile and Carroll joined Professor Laurie for the announcement of The Case for Germany now being accepted for printing in Italy on behalf of a German publisher. No British publisher would accept it. Laurie refuted claims that the Italian publisher was pro-Nazi, although Germany would be the main place for distribution of the book. He confirmed that he had received £150 (£9000 in 2016) from the publisher. This in itself was interesting as this sum was three times what would normally have been paid at that time. It suggests that the book was of great importance to Germany in its propaganda war. We again see Domvile present at the announcement of a book he claimed he never read.
Hitler's Munich Man Page 7