Hitler's Munich Man

by Martin Connolly

  The diary for 9 November shows that Domvile was friendly with Norah Elam (Dacre Fox). He has dinner with her and her husband and describes them both as ‘red hot members of BUF’.

  On 22 November, Domvile attends Oswald Mosley’s talk on ‘The menace of freedom’. He meets up with Mosley again on 6 December 1939 and takes pleasure in noting that Mosley ‘congratulates’ him for his articles in Action. There is also a meeting with Fascists and others in which Domvile joins in a drink and a ‘silent toast to the leader’ which ‘makes the old bitches eyes round’. He does not indicate who ‘the leader’ is, however, this was a term used by Lady Mosley of her husband. In late December, he also confirms he is writing to Truth criticising Churchill. Early January 1940 sees Domvile visiting ‘BUF HQ’ and his entry on 30 January is strange. He writes, ‘listened to Hitler’. This presumably was via the NBBC and appears to confirm his understanding the German language.

  The diary has details of the meeting Domvile was invited to by Lord Tavistock regarding the Dublin peace proposals to prevent the war. A number of Fascists were present and they ‘perused Hitler’s peace terms from German Embassy in Dublin’. Domvile felt ‘they were quite reasonable’.

  The result of the meeting was that they ‘settled on a policy. We must fix Chamberlain and Halifax down’. Two days later Domvile is at the BUF HQ meeting Mosley, who ‘was interested in Tavistock’s meeting’. The following day, Action printed an article from Domvile entitled, ‘Britons Beware’. Domvile attends a second meeting on Tavistock’s plans on 29 February.

  In March 1940, Domvile introduces Olive Baker to Mosley. The entry for 13 March 1940 details a meeting with Tavistock and Mosley ‘on peace talks’. When Domvile was questioned by the appeals committee, he did not mention this particular meeting. The entry ends ‘L G to lead peace Government’. This can only refer to the elderly Lloyd George who, as we noted, had met Hitler in 1936.

  There are a number of entries that record Domvile meeting Mosley and attending the BUF HQ. On occasions he notes that the chats were ‘good’. He also has entries confirming his listening to Lord Haw-Haw on NBBC.

  He did not keep a diary whilst in internment in Brixton. On his release he once again began to write his diaries. He still remains anti-Jewish with one of his first entries declaring his resentment of ‘Jewish controlled media’. After his release the diaries hold little of interest as his influence wains. He remains a figurehead of a past era and useful to the new fascist blood. In the 1945 diaries he records his comments on his Patriot articles. He remains in contact with Carroll and other old Fascist connections. The entry for 1 May 1945 records Hitler’s death being announced and Domvile’s view that it was ‘a better way to go than Mussolini’. In 1946, he carries out a few speaking engagements, usually around Empire matters. The 1947 diaries record his reunion with Oswald Mosley and they exchange books they have written. They also reveal that Domvile is still trying to create another form of the Link or Fascist movement along with Carroll. He is in touch with the League for European Freedom, an organisation that was anti-Communist and connected to criminal Nazis who had cooperated with America and Britain. Oswald Mosley had been approached to join this new ‘Fellowship’ but was ‘not interested’. By now MI5 are losing interest in him but he is still feels under suspicion on one occasion writes of a café visit and claims, ‘Freud’s son works there as a waiter and I expect an MI5 spy.’ He also notes in his diary that he ‘suspects the mail is being tampered with’.

  Overall, the first thing that strikes the reader about all the diaries is the mundaneness and often boring nature of the entries. Domvile delights in recording his daily walk with his dogs and his dining out. He also records the films he went to see, the theatre visits, along with comments on the happenings of a normal household. He delights in dining both out and at home and in the back of the diaries lists the books he had read in that year.

  Chapter 16

  Domvile in Action, Patriot and Other Writings

  When Domvile retired from the Navy he wrote his memoirs, By and Large. In them, we do get some glimpses of his views. He called the Jews, ‘the bees in the Nazi bonnet’. Domvile at this time is not totally clear in his attitudes. On one hand he complained to Himmler about anti-Jewish banners he saw outside towns and villages, yet whilst he agreed there was harsh treatment of Jews he would not adopt a ‘sloppy sentimental attitudes towards the Jewish race’. He also advised that there was ‘no reason for our being so intolerant with the policy of others, as well as with their methods of conducting it’. In a twisted Biblical reference, he also wrote, ‘Jewish ways are not our ways, neither or their thoughts our thoughts.’ In his book, he also referred to the press being so agitated by Jewish ill-treatment because the press was ‘so thoroughly impregnated’ by Jews. The book leaves us in no doubt that he was totally taken in by the Nazis and their system describing it as ‘excellent’. What this book does show is that Domvile appears to be wrestling with an inner anti-Semitism and yet a humanitarian concern for how they were being treated in Germany.

  He wrote for Fascist papers and it is noticeable that on one occasion he wrote under his own name and he is very careful about what he writes. Domvile wrote for Action in June 1939. The article is under his own name and emblazoned with his titles, ‘Admiral Sir Barry Domvile, K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G.’. In the article, ‘IT SHALL BE PEACE’ the whole argument is that the British government should be making peace with Germany. If only the Government would do as he suggested and appease Germany, then it would be peace. His reason for the possible war is not the Jews or the Masons but oil, which is the closest he comes to referring to the Jews and the Middle East. Just three months before war broke out, he is here advocating that Britain should not go to war with Germany. His argument is from his long held view of Empire first. He considered Britain should ignore a Germany growing in power. He ends the article using a word that has huge weight, but not in the sense used today:

  ‘And what of the end of the Holocaust? [Original article has italics here]

  ‘There will still be 80,000,000 Germans – or what is left of them – in conditions exacerbated by the recent conflict. The problem will remain, but it will become far more difficult to find a solution in the general wreckage of Europe.’

  The 7 December article has Domvile suggest that Britain should have been in an alliance with Germany and France, with Germany taking the lead against Bolshevik Russia. The article is a tirade against Communism but as always, Domvile sees the Jewish conspiracy:

  ‘Already there are signs that the old gang are trying to put over the same confidence trick that succeeded in 1919. It is not called The League of Nations this time but the Federated States of Europe or something of that kind. It is unnecessary to add that many of its sponsors are of Jewish origin.’

  Writing as ‘Canute’ and believing he is under anonymity, the issue of oil is no longer mentioned. Jews have now become responsible for the war.

  Furthermore, he also calls for Mosley and other fascists to be brought into the Government’s council. In January 1940 the article ‘Change of Heart’ in Action, Domvile addresses Lord Halifax who had suggested that Hitler should retire into ‘the obscurity for which his character fitted him’. Domvile derides Halifax and continues his theme of a change of government ‘to bring immediate peace’. Once more, he declares the character of Hitler has been distorted by a ‘Jewish-controlled’ press. He also insists that ‘Herr Hitler did not want this war’.

  By February 1940 Domvile, in his guise as ‘Canute’, is now in a rage. Under the title, ‘Britons Beware’ he is in full anti-Semitic flow. He declares ‘the Jews have had enough of war’ and adds that ‘‘they have cleaned up nicely’. More than this, he claims Jews ‘have provided some excruciatingly enjoyable methods of robbing Christians’. He also goes on to declare, ‘Anti-Semitism is increasing so rapidly that the Jewish position in the land of dreams is seriously threatened.’ He claims ‘they [the Jews] have decided to cash in.’ Then he moves
into conspiracy theory by arguing that Jews have not given up ‘getting their claws into Germany or of funding the Jewish World State’. Then sarcasm becomes his tool. ‘We are told for world peace, sovereignty must be handed over to a central Sanhedrin [the ancient Jewish court system] – beg pardon- council.’ This is followed by more conspiracy theory:

  ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not specifically mentioned as the directors of the new international Paradise, but a brief study of this impudent scheme leaves no doubt. ... The British Empire ... is to be handed over for destruction to the evil power of Jewry.’

  However, he argues that it will not succeed because there are organised countries in Europe who will fight to the death to stop it, presumably Germany being one of them. Yet he argues that there is ‘a grave danger’ that the ‘so called democracies’ will create a ‘Federal Union’ which he believes is ‘a world surrender to Jewish finance and chicanery’. He then berates the ‘titled back-sliders’ who he sees as selling their heritage for ‘a mess of pottage’ adding ‘shame on them!’. His final flourish is to decry ‘the all-pervading influence of the Jew’. There can be no doubt that, free from identification, as he thought himself to be, Domvile’s true views are revealed in this particular article.

  It is also interesting that a review of his book By and Large on 23 April 1940, has the Fascist reviewer state, ‘Sir Barry holds no brief for the Jews and the subject of Hebrews in Germany is treated in the manner which we expect from a Briton and not in the mawkish sentimental terms of our “uncontrolled” national press.’ That was an understatement.

  In the action of 7 March 1940, Domvile responded to a speech on the war by Lord Halifax. Halifax had been talking to young men who would be joining the army to fight Hitler and he had made it clear it was Hitler’s fault. He had also told them that the war was their war, in that they had the opportunity to bring an end to Nazi aggression. Domvile as Canute, is in full sarcastic mode:

  ‘Vanished is our belief so many of us honestly cherished that the war began when the international financiers [Jews] cracked their whips over the team of performing seals sitting around the Cabinet table at number 10 and gave instructions for the slaughter to commence. Your pardon, Abraham! Forgive me Isaac! Let bygones be bygones Jacob! It was none of your work.’

  He then then bemoans that Mosley is ‘not being allowed to tell the truth’.

  In the Action article on 21 March 1940, Domvile addresses a retired soldier, who I believe is himself. He writes of how this figure is considered a traitor because he criticises the Government’s handling of the war with Germany. As a response, he joins the BUF and Domvile advises him he has no cause for feeling he is a traitor and is entitled to his pension for services rendered. Once more he derides the Government as ‘performing seals’ and argues again that Germany did not want the war.

  His article on 4 April 1940 in Action, continues to use the derogatory term ‘performing seals’. He refers to ‘Stanley – the War Seal’ and Churchill as ‘the Blubber Seal’. He decries the ‘daily dope from our Jewish National Press’. He then goes on to blame Oliver Cromwell for bringing the Jews back to England. This shows an ignorance of history as the banishment bill to banish the Jews was never revoked and Jewish immigrants simply re-settled in England without harassment. However, he goes on to claim that this gave the Jews ‘an opportunity to establish the stronghold on our national life’. In ending he argues for a negotiated peace. In his article of 18 April 1940 he turns his sights on the government’s decision to drop leaflets onto the German population. He writes:

  ‘The Seals [British government] undoubtedly thought that when they blew their little paper trumpets on the outbreak of war, and showered their confetti on German soil, the wall of Nazidom would fall flat like the wall of Jericho in the Bible story. Whoever could have persuaded them to believe such arrant tosh?’

  He is of course referring to his conspiracy theory that the Jews were behind the war. He does not believe the leaflets will have any effect and continues to deride the government for anticipating German bombing raids on England. He himself ‘never for one moment anticipated air raids’. He believes the Government may not be telling the truth and, as he did before the appeals committee, recommends Falsehood in Wartime. He also claims Hitler was ‘the man who raised them [the Germans] out of the dust’.

  These excerpts from Domvile’s writing can leave no doubt that he held anti-Semitic views and was certainly pro-German/Nazi. There are also strands of evidence that he did want a change of government and one that would include Mosley.

  After his release, we find him again writing as Canute in another Fascist paper, Patriot, and still believing that he was anonymous. In a Canute article in Patriot in October 1946, under the banner WANTED! MORAL COURAGE, Domvile protested that British people should stand up in defence of the Nazis at Nuremberg, as, in his opinion, they were doing their duty, liking them to the suffragettes who suffered and died for their cause. It was under this pseudonym in the following month he wrote another letter to the Patriot about the Nazi war criminals executed at Nuremberg. He argued that ‘the Nuremberg victims died bravely, and are more likely to survive in history as martyrs than criminals.’ One of Mosley’s branch secretaries, unaware that Canute was Domvile, wrote to the Patriot to say that Canute’s views were the same as those of Mosley.

  Continuing to demonstrate his anti-Jewish stance, Domvile, as Canute in the Patriot, wrote on the subject of the Balfour Declaration. This was a proposed homeland in Palestine for a new Jewish State contained in a letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to one of Britain’s prominent Jewish citizens, Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild. Domvile derided the choice of Palestine and suggests that Zionists were behind a conspiracy to make Palestine the homeland. They were a Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state, Eretz Yisra’el (The Land of Israel) in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews. He revives his long held belief that Siberia under Stalin was the right place for Jews. He sarcastically discusses anti-Semitism and suggests Siberia should be offered and if refused then no one could ever charge anyone with anti-Semitism when discussing Jewish matters.

  Domvile was not yet done with Nuremberg. In July 1948, another Canute article returned to the subject. Under the title ‘NÜRNBERG THE AFTERMATH’, he termed the proceedings ‘unsavoury’ and called them a ‘travesty of justice’. Once more he returned to his favourite theme of the Protocols and the Jewish conspiracy theory. He argued the trials were a preparation for the ‘One World Communist State ruled by Zion’. He brings into his argument the execution of Charles I, claiming it a similar case and goes on to suggest that Cromwell was pressurised into the execution by Jews from whom he wanted a loan. This is clearly another case of Domvile believing false ideas circulating in Fascist circles. There is no historical evidence for this claim and is another pointer to Domvile’s anti-Semitic views. The Canute articles all follow a similar theme and invariably took an antigovernment stance, criticising the leading figures of the day. It would also seem that his pro-German views were increasingly now closer to pro-Nazi views in his defence of them at Nuremberg.

  By 1948, Domvile, now seventy, was growing into his old age and still convinced of a Jewish plot to take over the world. A speech he had prepared was taken by his old Fascist friend A.K. Chesterton and produced as a pamphlet. It was entitled, The Protocols and the Push for World Government. In it, Domvile bemoans the ‘moral’ decline of Britain because ‘we have passed more and more the control of our international mentors’. He contrasted the current British government who he argued had ‘began to flirt with the notion of a One World policy’ and ‘our forefathers’ wise conception of Empire’. His belief was that the government had ‘the misfortune to fall under alien influence’. He then makes clear who he believes is that alien influence, ‘international Jewry’. Although clearly blaming the international Jewish community, he sarcastically writes, ‘I am not blaming the Jews
in any way.’ He then proceeds to recount the damage to ‘true British interests’ and lays the blame on the ‘domination of alien councils’. He then argues that The League of Nations was the first step to this One World and immedi-ately links it to the Protocols. Whilst acknowledging that these had long been charged as forgeries, he nevertheless claims that for him ‘they have never been satisfactorily disproved’. This is despite the huge evidence amassed by this time that they were indeed a fiction.

  Domvile continues to outline his views on the conspiracy and attempts to defend the Protocols. He accuses the British politicians of having ‘staked their politics on the horse from the Zionist stables’ and that ‘international Jewry’ had made ‘sweeping charges of anti-Semitism to aid their cause’. All this he insisted ‘was provided for in the Protocols'. With claims of brib-ery and corruption he then sets out his concerns for workers. He storms against Communist ideas of liberty for workers as well as those of Attlee who proposed that workers should have rights and laid out his principles in The Social Worker in 1920 and Churchill with his ideas for social insurance and who both supported the ideas of ensuring good conditions and wages for the employed. In outlining his own views of liberty for workers, he saw it from a right wing nationalist perspective. This was in line with the ideas of Italian Fascists and Corporatism that had crept into Britain and sought a break from democratic government. Mussolini himself had said, ‘Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.’