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89-545: William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw , was an American-born fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War . After moving from New York to Ireland and subsequently to England, Joyce became a member of Oswald Mosley 's British Union of Fascists (BUF) from 1932, before finally moving to Germany at the outset of the war where he took German citizenship in 1940. After his capture, Joyce, who had been issued

178-626: A Jesuit school in County Galway, from 1915 to 1921. His parents were devoted unionists and hostile to Irish republicanism , with his mother being a devout Protestant . There were tensions between her and her family because she married a Catholic. During the Irish War of Independence , Joyce was recruited while still in his mid-teens by Captain Patrick William Keating, an Intelligence Corps officer stationed in County Galway, to work as

267-637: A "renegade", whose broadcasts were "likely only to rouse the fighting ire of the average Briton". In February 1940, the BBC noted that the Lord Haw-Haw of the early war days (possibly Mittler) was now rarely heard on the air and had been replaced by a new spokesman. Joyce was the main German broadcaster in English for most of the war, and became a naturalised German citizen; he is usually regarded as Lord Haw-Haw, even though he

356-723: A British passport and voted in Britain, Joyce owed allegiance to the king. In Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce , the author Nigel Farndale presents evidence that shows that, during his trial, Joyce may have agreed not to reveal his pre-war links with Maxwell Knight , the head of the MI5 section B5(b), as part of a deal to spare his wife Margaret, a Germany Calling broadcaster known as Lady Haw-Haw, from prosecution for treason. As J. A. Cole has written, "the British public would not have been surprised if, in that Flensburg wood [where he

445-731: A British passport when he lived in England, was convicted in the United Kingdom of high treason in 1945 and sentenced to death . The Court of Appeal and the House of Lords both upheld his conviction. He was hanged in Wandsworth Prison by Albert Pierrepoint on 3 January 1946, making him the last person to be executed for treason in the United Kingdom. William Brooke Joyce was born on Herkimer Street in Brooklyn , New York , United States. His father

534-684: A British subject, and it seemed that he would have to be acquitted based upon a lack of jurisdiction; he could not be convicted of betraying a country that was not his own. The trial judge, Mr. Justice Tucker , directed the jury to acquit Joyce of the first and second charges. However, the Attorney General , Sir Hartley Shawcross , successfully argued that Joyce's possession of a British passport, even though he had misstated his nationality to get it, entitled him until it expired to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to

623-454: A German journalist, whose almost flawless English accent sounded like that of a caricature of an upper-crust Englishman. However, Mittler made just five or six broadcasts and was quickly replaced by other speakers, leading to uncertainty over whom Barrington had meant. Some British media and listeners used the name "Lord Haw-Haw" for all English-language German broadcasters, although other nicknames, such as "Sinister Sam", were occasionally used by

712-603: A Roman Catholic priest who fought hard for William's soul". The scar on Joyce's face split wide open because of the pressure applied to his head upon his drop from the gallows . As was customary for executed criminals, Joyce's remains were buried in an unmarked grave within the walls of Wandsworth Prison. In 1976, following a campaign by his daughter, Heather Iandolo, his body was reinterred in New Cemetery, Galway , as he had lived in Galway with his family from 1909 until 1922. Despite

801-625: A close friend of Lintorn-Orman, who hoped the BF could profit from the emergence of prominent Irish republican Éamon de Valera as President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State but the plan was scuppered when the policies of the Irish Free State towards Northern Ireland largely remained the same under de Valera. A small group did exist in the Irish Free State , claiming to have

890-512: A complex structure, being presided over by both an Executive Council and Fascist Grand Council of nine men, with County and Area Commanders controlling districts below this. Districts contained a number of companies, which in turn were divided into troops with each troop made of three units and unit containing seven members under a Leader. A separate structure existed along similar lines for the group's sizeable female membership. The group became notorious for its inflated claims of membership (including

979-526: A contract as a newsreader. After the dismissal of Norman Baillie-Stewart in December, Joyce became the principal reader of news and the writer of six talks a week, thus becoming the station's best-known propaganda broadcaster. In a newspaper article of 14 September 1939, the radio critic Jonah Barrington of the Daily Express wrote of hearing a gent "moaning periodically from Zeesen " who "speaks English of

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1068-677: A courier. He was also suspected by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) of working as an informant for the Black and Tans , "which could have had extremely serious consequences in 1920–21." The IRA eventually attempted to assassinate Joyce while he was on his way home from school, and Keating, fearing for Joyce's safety, arranged for him to be enlisted into the Worcestershire Regiment , moving him out of harm's way in Ireland by transferring him to

1157-549: A final defiant, " Heil Hitler and farewell". There are conflicting accounts as to whether this last programme was actually transmitted, although a recording was found in the Apen studios. The next day, Radio Hamburg was seized by British forces, and on 4 May Wynford Vaughan-Thomas used it to make a mock "Germany Calling" broadcast denouncing Joyce. Besides broadcasting, Joyce's duties included writing propaganda for distribution among British prisoners of war , whom he tried to recruit into

1246-476: A more authoritarian government in which the monarch would take a leading role in government, as well as advocating the establishment of a Benito Mussolini -style corporate state . These policy changes were made possible by the departure of Blakeney, who was committed to representative democracy and whose main economic opinion was opposition to the gold standard . Even without Blakeney they retained some of their earlier Conservative-linked views, such as loyalty to

1335-630: A more prominent role in the run-up to the General Strike of 1926 , as it became clear that their propaganda predicting such an outcome was about to come true. They were, however, not permitted to join the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS), a group established by the government and chaired by Lord Hardinge to mobilise a non-striking workforce in the event of general strike, without first relinquishing any explicit attachment to fascism, as

1424-800: A network of German-controlled radio stations in Zeesen, Hamburg, Bremen , Luxembourg , Hilversum , Calais and Oslo . Joyce also broadcast on and wrote scripts for the German Büro Concordia organisation, which ran several black propaganda stations, many of which pretended to broadcast illegally from within Britain. His role in writing the scripts increased over time, and German radio capitalised on his public persona . Initially an anonymous broadcaster, Joyce eventually revealed his real name to his listeners and he would occasionally be announced as, "William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw". Urban legends soon circulated about Lord Haw-Haw, alleging that

1513-635: A proper fascist ideology. Having been hit hard by the split from the General Strike, the British Fascists attempted to move gradually towards a more defined fascism, starting in 1927 by adopting a blue shirt and beret uniform in the style of similar movements in Europe. That same year they attempted to organise a Remembrance Day parade past Buckingham Palace where they requested the King should salute them from

1602-420: A question of fact for the jury to decide, rather than a purely legal question for the judge. Joyce also argued that jurisdiction had been wrongly assumed by the court in electing to try an alien for offences committed in a foreign country. This argument was also rejected, on the basis that a state may exercise such jurisdiction in the interests of its own security. Joyce's biographer, Nigel Farndale , suggests on

1691-574: A role on the Grand Council of the British Fascisti with that of Conservative Party MP for Torquay . Admirals Sir Edmund Fremantle and Sir Reginald Tupper , Brigadier-Generals Julian Tyndale-Biscoe and Roland Erskine-Tulloch , Rear Admiral William Ernest Russell Martin (BF's paymaster), Major-Generals James Spens , Thomas Pilcher and Colonel Daniel Burges were also members. Serving military personnel were eventually banned from joining

1780-594: A role, for the British Fascisti wished, according to General R. B. D. Blakeney , who was the BF President from 1924 to 1926, to "uphold the same lofty ideas of brotherhood, service and duty". At its formation, at least, the British Fascisti was positioned in the same right-wing conservative camp as the British Empire Union and the Middle Class Union , and shared some members with these groups. The group had

1869-468: A room in the House of Commons to host an event for the British Fascists. After 1931 the BF abandoned its attempts to form a distinctly British version of Fascism, and instead adopted the full programme of Mussolini and his National Fascist Party . The already weakened group split further in 1932 over the issue of a merger with Oswald Mosley 's New Party . The proposal was accepted by Neil Francis Hawkins of

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1958-620: A teenager he was an informant to the British forces about the IRA members during the Irish War of Independence . He was also a senior member of the British Union of Fascists , and fled England when tipped off about his planned internment on 26 August 1939. In October 1939, the Fascist newspaper Action identified "one of the subsidiary announcers" on German radio, "with a marked nasal intonation", as one of its former members and distanced itself from him as

2047-495: A thousand members, although in fact having no more than 25 active in Dublin under H. R. Ledbeater. Favouring reunification with the UK, the group was involved in sending anti-Semitic leaflets to prominent Jews such as Robert Briscoe . It sought a merger with the right-wing Army Comrades Association , but this was rejected by Eoin O'Duffy due to its pro-British stance. Plans for a merger with

2136-457: A train to Liverpool , where he was due to address a National Minority Movement event, and attempted to bundle him on to a different train. The five members arrested for the event insisted that they had intended to send Pollitt on a weekend break and even claimed that he had taken £5 in expenses they offered him for that purpose. The group changed its name in 1924 from British Fascisti to British Fascists , in an attempt to distance itself from

2225-554: A traitor because of his wartime activities. Unlike Joyce, the Elams did not escape detention under Defence Regulation 18B ; both were arrested on the same day as Mosley in May 1940. In later life, Elam reported that, although she disliked Joyce, she believed that his execution by the British in 1946 was wrong, stating that he should not have been regarded as a traitor to England because he was not English, but Irish. In late August 1939, shortly before

2314-410: A weekly to a monthly, and the loss of a number of key leaders and the erratic leadership of Lintorn-Orman, who was battling alcoholism, brought about a decline of activity. The group also became ravaged by factionalism, with one group following Lady Downe and the old ways of the British Fascists, and another centred around James Strachey Barnes and Sir Harold Elsdale Goad advocating full commitment to

2403-490: The 1924 general election , Joyce was attacked by communists and received a deep razor slash across his right cheek. It left a permanent scar which ran from the earlobe to the corner of the mouth . While Joyce often said that his attackers were Jewish , historian Colin Holmes claims that Joyce's first wife told him that "it wasn't a Jewish Communist who disfigured him .... He was knifed by an Irish woman". In 1932, Joyce joined

2492-626: The British Free Corps of the Waffen-SS . He wrote a book Twilight Over England promoted by the German Ministry of Propaganda , which unfavourably compared the evils of Jewish-dominated capitalist Britain with the alleged wonders of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler awarded Joyce the War Merit Cross (First and Second Class) for his broadcasts, although he never met Joyce. On 28 May 1945, Joyce

2581-412: The British Union of Fascists (BUF) under Sir Oswald Mosley and swiftly became a leading speaker, praised for the power of his oratory . The journalist and novelist Cecil Roberts described a speech given by Joyce: Thin, pale, intense, he had not been speaking many minutes before we were electrified by this man ... so terrifying in its dynamic force, so vituperative, so vitriolic. In 1934, Joyce

2670-449: The House of Lords on 13 December 1945. In the appeal, Joyce argued that possession of a passport did not entitle him to the protection of the Crown, and therefore did not perpetuate his duty of allegiance once he left the country, but the House of Lords rejected this argument. Lord Porter's dissenting opinion assumed that the question as to whether Joyce's duty of allegiance had terminated was

2759-624: The Norton Barracks in Worcestershire where the regiment was stationed. However, Joyce was discharged a few months later when it was discovered that he was underage. Joyce remained in England and briefly attended King's College School , Wimbledon . His family followed him to England two years later. Joyce had relatives in Birkenhead , Cheshire , whom he visited on a few occasions. He then applied to Birkbeck College , London , where he entered

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2848-623: The Officer Training Corps . At Birkbeck, he obtained a first-class honours degree in English. After graduating he applied for a job in the Foreign Office , but was rejected and took a job as a teacher. Joyce developed an interest in fascism and worked with, but never joined, the British Fascists of Rotha Lintorn-Orman . On 22 October 1924, while stewarding a meeting in support of Conservative Party candidate Jack Lazarus ahead of

2937-480: The Second World War broke out, Joyce and his wife Margaret fled to Germany. Joyce had been tipped off that the British authorities intended to detain him under Defence Regulation 18B. He became a naturalised German citizen in 1940. In Berlin , Joyce could not find employment until a chance meeting with fellow Mosleyite Dorothy Eckersley got him an audition at the Rundfunkhaus (" broadcasting house "). Eckersley

3026-633: The University of Berlin for SS members in the winter of 1941–42 on the topic of " British fascism and acute questions concerning the British world empire ". Joyce recorded his final broadcast on 30 April 1945, during the Battle of Berlin . Rambling and audibly drunk, he chided the UK for pursuing the war beyond mere containment of Germany and repeatedly warned of the "menace" of the Soviet Union . He signed off with

3115-607: The aristocracy also joined, including Lord Glasgow , The Marquess of Ailesbury , Lord Ernest Hamilton , The Baron de Clifford , The Earl Temple of Stowe , Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge and Leopold Canning, Lord Garvagh , who served as first President of the movement. High-ranking members of the armed forces also occupied leading roles in the group, with General Blakeney joined by the likes of General Sir Ormonde Winter , Rear-Admiral John Armstrong (the BF Vice President 1924–1926) and Colonel Sir Charles Rosdew Burn , who combined

3204-521: The " Bolshevik Revolution", which Lintorn-Orman had set the party up to fight. In fact, the strike was largely peaceful and restrained, and fears of future outbreaks were quelled somewhat by the passing of the Trades Disputes Act. Many of its most prominent members and supporters also drifted away from the group in the aftermath of the strike. The party journal, initially called Fascist Bulletin before changing its name to British Lion , went from

3293-571: The BBC to distinguish among obviously different speakers. Poor reception may have contributed to some listeners' difficulties in distinguishing between broadcasters. By the end of 1939, when Joyce had become the most prominent and regular broadcaster of English-language Nazi propaganda, the name was applied exclusively to him. Indeed, the Germans soon capitalised on the publicity generated in Britain and began announcing Joyce's talks as by "William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw". In reference to

3382-574: The BF became increasingly anti-semitic in its death throes." In 1933 Lord and Lady Downe, as representatives of the British Fascists, entertained Nazi German envoy Gunther Schmidt-Lorenzen at their country estate and suggested to him that the Nazis should avoid any links with Mosley, whom Lady Downe accused of being in the pay of Jewish figures such as Baron Rothschild and Sir Philip Sassoon . Fellow member Madame Arnaud repeated similar allegations about Mosley to another German official, Dr Margarete Gartner of

3471-586: The BF membership had plummeted, with only a hardcore of members left. Various schemes were floated in an attempt to reinvigorate the movement, although none succeeded. Archibald Whitmore announced a plan to turn the British Fascists into an Ulster loyalist group and successor to the Ulster Volunteers , although after claiming that he was preparing to begin recruitment in Northern Ireland , nothing came of this. The scheme had been led by Mrs D. G. Harnett ,

3560-562: The BUF West Sussex division. He was supported in the role by Norah Elam as Sussex Women's Organiser, with her partner Dudley Elam, the son of an Irish nationalist, taking on the role of Sub-Branch Officer for Worthing . Under this regime, West Sussex became a hub of fascist activity, ranging from hosting BUF summer camps to organising meetings and rallies, lunches, etc. Elam shared many speaking platforms with Joyce and worked on propaganda speeches for him. One particular sore point for Joyce

3649-574: The British Army overran Hamburg . The next scheduled broadcast was made by Horst Pinschewer (also known as Geoffrey Perry), a German-Jewish refugee serving in the British Army who announced the British takeover. Pinschewer was later responsible for the capture of William Joyce. Through such broadcasts, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda attempted to discourage and demoralise American, Australian, British, and Canadian troops, and

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3738-457: The British Fascists. In 1925 members of the Liverpool branch of the British Fascists were arrested and charged with kidnapping the communist politician Harry Pollitt . They were acquitted by the jury following testimony that characterised the kidnapping as unserious, and a denial by the head of the Liverpool branch that any kidnapping had been authorised. The British Fascists began to take on

3827-565: The British population, to suppress the effectiveness of the Allied war effort through propaganda, and to motivate the Allies to agree to peace terms leaving the Nazi regime intact and in power. Among many techniques used, the Nazi broadcasts reported on the shooting down of Allied aircraft and the sinking of Allied ships, presenting discouraging reports of high losses and casualties among Allied forces. Although

3916-569: The Conservative Party, feeling that it would add a sense of legitimacy and Britishness to their activities, particularly as they faced harsh criticism from not only the left but also some Tories for their increasingly paramilitary structure. Nonetheless some Tories were close to the group, with Charles Burn sitting on the Grand Council and support being lent by the likes of Patrick Hannon , Robert Tatton Bower , Robert Burton-Chadwick and Alan Lennox-Boyd . Indeed, in May 1925 Hannon even booked

4005-672: The German Radio Metropole , and John Amery . P. G. Wodehouse was tricked into broadcasting, not propaganda, but rather his own satiric accounts of his capture by the Germans and civil internment as an enemy alien , by a German friend who assured him that the talks would be broadcast only to the neutral United States. They were, however, relayed to the UK on a little-known channel. An MI5 investigation, conducted shortly after Wodehouse's release from Germany, but published only after his death, found no evidence of treachery. Bibliography British Fascists The organisation

4094-497: The Headquarters Committee and his allies Lieutenant-Colonel H. W. Johnson and E. G. Mandeville Roe, although the female leadership turned the proposal down due to objections over serving under Mosley. Indeed, the British Fascists had protested against public meetings being addressed by Mosley as early as 1927, when they denounced the then Labour MP as a dangerous socialist. As a consequence Hawkins broke away and took much of

4183-515: The IFL did not get off the ground and plans for a merger with Graham Seton Hutchison 's National Workers Party were also abandoned when it became clear that, far from having the 20,000 members in Mansfield alone that Seton Hutchison claimed, the party was little more than a one-man show. In a bid to reverse its decline the party adopted a strongly anti-semitic platform. Thurlow notes: "it was noticeable that

4272-600: The Italian associations, although this move helped to bring about a split in the group with a more ideologically fascist group, the National Fascisti , going its own way. The group's patriotism had been questioned because of the Italian spelling of the name, while accusations were also made that it was in the pay of the Italian government. Placing emphasis on its support for the establishment, it even wrote to Labour Party Home Secretary Arthur Henderson in 1924 telling him that

4361-512: The King at the time he began working for the Germans. The historian A. J. P. Taylor remarked in his book English History 1914–1945 that "Technically, Joyce was hanged for making a false statement when applying for a passport, the usual penalty for which is a small fine." Joyce's conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal on 1 November 1945, and by Lords Jowitt L.C. , Macmillan , Wright , Simonds , and Porter – although Porter dissented – of

4450-481: The OMS. As a result, a further split occurred, as a number of members, calling themselves Loyalists and led by former BF President Brigadier-General Blakeney, did just that. In the event, the British Fascists formed their own Q Divisions, which took on much of the same work as the OMS during the strike, albeit without having any official government recognition. The strike severely damaged the party as it failed to precipitate

4539-535: The ambiguity of his religious allegiances, he was given a Roman Catholic Tridentine Mass . Joyce had two daughters with his first wife, Hazel, who later married Oswald Mosley 's bodyguard, Eric Piercey. One daughter, Heather Iandolo (formerly Piercey), spoke publicly of her father. She died in 2022. The 1944 film Passport to Destiny features a character played by Gavin Muir as Herr Joyce/Lord Haw, based on William Joyce as Lord Haw-Haw. Lord Haw-Haw appears as one of

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4628-426: The balcony but the requests were rejected and the parade did not take place. The progress towards fascism did not however come quickly enough for Arnold Leese who in 1928 split from the group, which he denounced as " conservatism with knobs on", to establish his own Imperial Fascist League (IFL), a much more hard-line group which emphasised anti-Semitism . Before long, however, the British Fascists began to advocate

4717-455: The basis of documents made public for the first time between 2000 and 2005 that Joyce made a deal with his prosecutors not to reveal links he had to MI5 . In return, his wife Margaret, known to radio listeners as "Lady Haw-Haw", was spared prosecution for high treason. Of the 33 British renegades and broadcasters caught in Germany at the end of the war, only Margaret Joyce, who died in London in 1972,

4806-508: The broadcaster was well-informed about political and military events to the point of near- omniscience . In the summer of 1942 it was decided that he should no longer read the news and, from then on, he read only his own talks in Views on the News . Listening to Joyce's broadcasts was officially discouraged but was not illegal, and many Britons tuned in. There was a desire by civilian listeners to hear what

4895-402: The broadcasts were well known to be Nazi propaganda, they frequently offered the only details available from behind enemy lines concerning the fate of friends and relatives who did not return from bombing raids over Germany. As a result, Allied troops and civilians frequently listened to Lord Haw-Haw's broadcasts despite the often inflammatory content and frequent inaccuracies and exaggerations, in

4984-534: The central characters in Thomas Kilroy 's 1986 play Double Cross . Stephen Rea originated the role. Bibliography Further reading Lord Haw-Haw Lord Haw-Haw was a nickname applied to William Joyce and several other people who broadcast Nazi propaganda to the United Kingdom from Germany during the Second World War . The broadcasts opened with "Germany calling, Germany calling," spoken in an affected upper-class English accent . The same nickname

5073-421: The demands of fascism, such as anger at the decline of the large landowning agricultural sector, high levels of estate taxation and death duties, and the dearth of high-ranking civilian occupations considered suitable for the status of officers, were a central feature of the political concerns advanced by the British Fascisti. The party confined itself to stewarding Conservative Party meetings and canvassing for

5162-474: The dust, crowned with the words – "You have conquered nevertheless". I am proud to die for my ideals and I am sorry for the sons of Britain who have died without knowing why. "You have conquered nevertheless" was presumably a reference to "UND IHR HABT DOCH GESIEGT ", a phrase inscribed on the reverse side of the Blood Order medal. Other sources refer to his having said, "May the swastika be raised from

5251-406: The dust." Joyce was executed on 3 January 1946 at Wandsworth Prison , aged 39. He was the penultimate person hanged for a crime other than murder in the UK. The last was Theodore Schurch , executed for treachery the following day at Pentonville Prison . In both cases, the hangman was Albert Pierrepoint . Joyce died "an Anglican, like his mother, despite a long and friendly correspondence with

5340-588: The fame of the Lord Haw-Haw nickname and came to announce him as "William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw". After Joyce took over, Mittler was paired with the American-born announcer Mildred Gillars in the Axis Sally programme and also broadcast to ANZAC forces in North Africa. Mittler survived the war and appeared on postwar German radio, and occasionally television, until his death. Baillie-Stewart

5429-402: The government insisted for the group to remain non-ideological. The structure of the OMS was actually based on that of the British Fascists, but the government was unwilling to rely on the British Fascists because of what they saw as the group's unorthodox nature and its reliance on funding from Rotha Lintorn-Orman (who had garnered a reputation for high living) and so excluded it as a group from

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5518-470: The group by the Army Council however. At a more rank-and-file level, the group attracted a membership of middle- and working-class young men who spent much of their time in violent confrontations with similar men involved in the Communist Party of Great Britain ; William Joyce was typical of this sort of low-level member. This domination by disgruntled members of the peerage and high-ranking officers meant that certain concerns not normally associated with

5607-417: The group was at his disposal if he wished to deploy them against picket lines during industrial unrest, an offer to which Henderson did not respond. Blakeney had replaced Canning as President that same year, with Canning claiming that he lived too far from London to be politically influential enough. London was the group's major base of operation. In December 1925 an attempt to organise a meeting in Manchester

5696-512: The group's policy shift from campaigning for economic revival through corporatism to a focus on antisemitism . He was instrumental in changing the name of the BUF to "British Union of Fascists and National Socialists " in 1936 and stood as a party candidate in the 1937 elections to the London County Council . In 1936, Joyce lived for a year in Whitstable , where he owned a radio and electrical shop. Between April 1934 and 1937, when Mosley sacked him, Joyce served as Area Administrative Officer for

5785-399: The haw-haw, damit-get-out-of-my-way variety". Four days later, he gave him the nickname 'Lord Haw-Haw'. He wrote scathingly: I imagine him having a receding chin, a questing nose, thin yellow hair brushed back, a monocle , a vacant eye, a gardenia in his buttonhole. Rather like PG Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster … The voice Barrington heard is widely believed to be that of Wolf Mittler ,

5874-468: The haw-haw, damit-get-out-of-my-way variety". Four days later he gave him the nickname " Lord Haw-Haw ". The voice Barrington heard is widely believed to be that of Wolf Mittler , a German journalist whose near-flawless English sounded like a caricature of an upper-crust Englishman. However, Mittler only made five or six broadcasts and was quickly replaced by other broadcasters, leading to uncertainty over whom Barrington had been referring to. When Joyce became

5963-437: The hope of hearing clues as to the fate of Allied troops and air crews. Mass-Observation interviews warned the Ministry of Information of this; consequently, more attention was given to the official reports of British military casualties. In a newspaper article of 14 September 1939, the radio critic Jonah Barrington of the Daily Express wrote of hearing a gent "moaning periodically from Zeesen " who "speaks English of

6052-451: The king, anti-trade union legislation, free trade within the British Empire and a general preference for the rural, although these were bolstered by fascist-influenced policies such as limiting the franchise, gradual purification of the "English race" and stringent restrictions on immigration and the activities of immigrants admitted to Britain. However, as Martin Pugh has pointed out the British Fascists actively encouraged comparisons with

6141-433: The male membership of the BF with him; soon afterward, the New Party became the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Relations with the BUF were as a result frosty for the remainder of the group's life, and although Mosley dismissed the BF as "three old ladies and a couple of office boys", in 1933 a BUF fighting squad wrecked the BF's London offices after British Fascists members had heckled the BUF headquarters. By this stage

6230-475: The most prominent broadcaster of Nazi propaganda by the end of 1939, the name stuck to him. Joyce himself began to trade on the notoriety of the nickname more than a year later, on 3 April 1941, when he announced himself as "William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw". Joyce's broadcasts initially came from studios in Berlin, later being transferred (because of heavy Allied bombing) to Luxembourg City and finally to Apen near Hamburg , and were relayed over

6319-434: The nickname, an American pro-Nazi broadcaster, Fred W. Kaltenbach , was nicknamed Lord Hee-Haw by the British media. The Lord Hee-Haw name was also used for a time by The Daily Telegraph to refer to Lord Haw-Haw, causing some confusion between nicknames and broadcasters. A number of announcers could have been Lord Haw-Haw: William Joyce replaced Mittler in 1939. Joyce was American-born and raised in Ireland, and as

6408-569: The other side was saying, as information during wartime was strictly censored . At the height of his influence, in 1940, Joyce had an estimated six million regular and 18 million occasional listeners in the UK. The broadcasts always began with the announcer's words, " Germany calling, Germany calling, Germany calling ". These broadcasts urged the British people to surrender and were well known for their jeering, sarcastic and menacing tone. The Reich Security Main Office commissioned Joyce to give lectures at

6497-466: The party. In particular it campaigned vigorously on behalf of Oliver Locker-Lampson , whose "Keep Out the Reds" campaign slogan struck a chord with the group's strong anti-communism . The group also indulged in a series of high-profile stunts, many of which were more in the vein of elaborate practical jokes than genuine subversion. In one such example, five British Fascisti forcibly removed Harry Pollitt from

6586-538: The ridiculous claim that it had 200,000 members in 1926), although at its peak from 1925 to 1926 it had a membership of several thousand. It mustered 5,000 people for a London march on Empire Day in London in 1925. Early membership largely came from high society, often from the "Die Hards" in the Conservative party, and included a number of women amongst its ranks, such as Dorothy, Viscountess Downe, Lady Sydenham of Combe, Baroness Zouche and Nesta Webster . Men from

6675-656: Was Joyce, he reached into his pocket (actually reaching for a false passport ); believing he was armed, Perry shot him through the buttocks, resulting in four wounds. Two intelligence officers then drove Joyce to a border post and handed him over to British military police . He was then taken to London and tried at the Old Bailey on three counts of high treason : "Not guilty" were the first words from Joyce's mouth in his trial, as noted by Rebecca West in her book The Meaning of Treason . The only evidence offered that he had begun broadcasting from Germany while his British passport

6764-573: Was Michael Francis Joyce, an Irish Catholic from a family of tenant farmers in Ballinrobe , County Mayo , who had acquired U.S. citizenship in 1894. His mother was Gertrude Emily Brooke, who although born in Shaw and Crompton , Lancashire , was from a well-off Anglican Anglo-Irish family of physicians associated with County Roscommon . A few years after William's birth, the family returned to Salthill , County Galway . Joyce attended Coláiste Iognáid ,

6853-502: Was also applied to some other broadcasters of English-language propaganda from Germany, but it is Joyce with whom the name is overwhelmingly identified. The English-language propaganda radio programme Germany Calling was broadcast to audiences in the United Kingdom on the medium wave station Reichssender Hamburg and by shortwave to the United States. The programme began on 18 September 1939 and continued until 30 April 1945, when

6942-561: Was broken up by communists, and the BF abandoned its attempts to set up in the city as a result. Despite its close association with elements of the Conservative Party, the British Fascists did occasionally put up candidates in local elections. In 1924 two of its candidates in the municipal elections in Stamford, Lincolnshire , Arnold Leese and Henry Simpson, managed to secure election to the local council. Simpson would retain his seat in 1927 although by that stage both he and Leese had broken from

7031-554: Was captured by British forces at Flensburg , near the German border with Denmark, which was the last capital of the Third Reich. Spotting a dishevelled figure while they were resting from gathering firewood, intelligence soldiers – including a Jewish German, Geoffrey Perry (born Horst Pinschewer), who had left Germany before the war – engaged him in conversation in French and English, eventually recognising his voice. After they asked whether he

7120-565: Was captured], Haw-Haw had carried in his pocket a secret weapon capable of annihilating an armoured brigade". This mood was reflected in the wartime film Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce , in which Joyce's broadcasts are shown to predict actual disasters and defeats, thus, according to the storyline, seriously undermining British morale. Other British subjects willingly made propaganda broadcasts, including Raymond Davies Hughes , who broadcast on

7209-590: Was formed on 6 May 1923 by Rotha Lintorn-Orman in the aftermath of Benito Mussolini 's March on Rome , and originally operated under the Italian -sounding name British Fascisti . Despite its name, the group had a poorly defined ideological basis at its beginning, being brought into being more by a fear of left-wing politics than a devotion to fascism. The ideals of the Boy Scout movement, with which many early members had also been involved in their younger days, also played

7298-554: Was not charged with treason. Joyce went to his death unrepentant. He allegedly said: In death as in life, I defy the Jews who caused this last war, and I defy the power of darkness which they represent. I warn the British people against the crushing imperialism of the Soviet Union. May Britain be great once again and in the hour of the greatest danger in the West may the standard be raised from

7387-430: Was probably not the person first so called. He had a peculiar hybrid accent that was not of the conventional upper-class variety. His distinctive nasal pronunciation of "Germany calling, Germany calling" may have been the result of a fight as a schoolboy that left him with a broken nose. Joyce, initially an anonymous broadcaster like the others, eventually revealed his real name to his listeners. The Germans capitalised on

7476-534: Was promoted to be the BUF's Director of Propaganda, replacing Wilfred Risdon , and later appointed deputy leader. As well as being a gifted speaker, Joyce gained the reputation of a savage brawler. His violent rhetoric and willingness to physically confront anti-fascist elements head-on played no small part in further politically marginalising the BUF. After a bloody incident at a BUF rally in Olympia in 1934, Joyce spearheaded

7565-555: Was sacked from his paid position when Mosley drastically reduced the BUF staff shortly after the 1937 elections, after which Joyce promptly formed a breakaway organisation, the National Socialist League . After Joyce's departure, the BUF turned its focus from antisemitism to activism, opposing a war with Nazi Germany . Although Joyce had been deputy leader of the party from 1933 and an effective fighter and orator, Mosley snubbed him in his autobiography and later denounced him as

7654-524: Was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Joyce was captured by British forces in northern Germany just as the war ended, tried, and eventually hanged for treason on 3 January 1946. Joyce's defence team, appointed by the court, argued that, as an American citizen and naturalised German, Joyce could not be convicted of treason against the British Crown . However, the prosecution successfully argued that, since he had lied about his nationality to obtain

7743-485: Was the Government of India Bill , passed in 1935, designed to give a measure of autonomy to India , allowing freedom and the development of limited self-government. Joyce harboured a desire to become Viceroy of India should Mosley ever head a BUF government, and is recorded as describing the backers of the bill as "feeble" and "one loathsome, foetid, purulent, tumid mass of hypocrisy, hiding behind Jewish Dictators". Joyce

7832-481: Was the former wife or second wife of the chief engineer of the BBC , Peter Eckersley . Despite having a heavy cold and having almost lost his voice, Joyce was recruited immediately for radio announcements and scriptwriting at German radio's English service. His first broadcast was reading the news in English on 6 September 1939, just three days after the declaration of war between Britain and Germany. On 18 September, he received

7921-528: Was valid was the testimony of a London police inspector who had questioned him before the war while he was an active member of the British Union of Fascists and claimed to have recognised his voice on a propaganda broadcast in the early weeks of the war – Joyce had previous convictions for assault and riotous assembly in the 1930s. Inquiries in the US, adduced in evidence at his trial, found that Joyce had never been

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