112-537: 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 was also applied to some other broadcasters of English-language propaganda from Germany, but it
224-649: 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
336-748: A Protestant and unionist majority and IRA actions were responded to with reprisals against the Catholic population, including killings (such as the McMahon killings ) and the burning of many homes – as on Belfast's Bloody Sunday . The IRA in Belfast and the North generally, although involved in protecting the Catholic community from loyalists and state forces, undertook a retaliatory arson campaign against factories and commercial premises. The violence in Belfast alone, which continued until October 1922 (long after
448-593: A civil war against the Free State Army in 1922–1923, with the intention of creating a fully independent all-Ireland republic. Having lost the civil war, this group remained in existence, with the intention of overthrowing the governments of both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland and achieving the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916. The Irish Volunteers , founded in 1913, staged
560-703: A guerrilla campaign against the British occupation of Ireland in the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence . Following the signing in 1921 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty , which ended the War of Independence, a split occurred within the IRA. Members who supported the treaty formed the nucleus of the Irish National Army . However, the majority of the IRA was opposed to the treaty. The anti-treaty IRA fought
672-653: 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the BBC noted that the Lord Haw-Haw of the early war days (possibly Mittler) was now rarely heard on the air and had been replaced by a new spokesman.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
784-680: 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
896-698: 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
1008-698: 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
1120-615: 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
1232-516: A campaign of passive resistance to the British rule. The Dáil belatedly accepted responsibility for IRA actions in April 1921, just three months before the end of the Irish War of Independence . In practice, the IRA was commanded by Collins, with Richard Mulcahy as second in command. These men were able to issue orders and directives to IRA guerrilla units around the country and at times to send arms and organisers to specific areas. However, because of
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#17327838761021344-547: 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 the BBC to distinguish among obviously different speakers. Poor reception may have contributed to some listeners' difficulties in distinguishing between broadcasters. By
1456-466: A cease-fire. Many left political activity altogether, but a minority continued to insist that the new Irish Free State , created by the "illegitimate" Treaty, was an illegitimate state. They asserted that their "IRA Army Executive" was the real government of a still-existing Irish Republic. The IRA of the Civil War and subsequent organisations that have used the name claim lineage from that group, which
1568-540: 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
1680-708: 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
1792-556: 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
1904-489: A football crowd at Croke Park , killing 14 civilians. Towards the end of the day, two prominent Republicans and a friend of theirs were arrested and killed by Crown Forces. While most areas of the country saw some violence in 1919–1921, the brunt of the war was fought in Dublin and the southern province of Munster . In Munster, the IRA carried out a significant number of successful actions against British troops, for instance,
2016-815: 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
2128-484: A number of exceptions such as Emmet Dalton, Tom Barry and Martin Doyle. The IRA divided its members into three classes, namely "unreliable", "reliable" and "active". The "unreliable" members were those who were nominally IRA members but did not do very much for the struggle, "reliable" members played a supporting role in the war while occasionally fighting and the "active" men those who were engaged in full-time fighting. Of
2240-430: A number of well-planned ambushes and successfully defended the village of Ballinalee against Black and Tan reprisals in a three-hour gun battle. In County Mayo, large-scale guerrilla action did not break out until spring 1921, when two British forces were ambushed at Carrowkennedy and Tourmakeady . Elsewhere, fighting was more sporadic and less intense. In Belfast , the war had a character all of its own. The city had
2352-562: 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
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#17327838761022464-539: 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 the British Army overran Hamburg . The next scheduled broadcast
2576-722: Is attributed to the Volunteers, having accepted the authority of the Dáil, being referred to as the "army of the Irish Republic", popularly known as the "Irish Republican Army". Already in September 1917, a group of men from counties Clare and Tipperary charged with illegal drilling were claiming to be soldiers of the "Irish Republican Army" and refused to recognise the legitimacy of the court, and insisted they should be treated as prisoners of war. A power struggle continued between Brugha and Collins, both cabinet ministers, over who had
2688-497: 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
2800-654: 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
2912-475: 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
3024-653: The Easter Rising , which aimed at ending British rule in Ireland , in 1916. Following the suppression of the Rising, thousands of Volunteers were imprisoned or interned, leading to the break-up of the organisation. It was reorganised in 1917 following the release of first the internees and then the prisoners. At the army convention held in Dublin in October 1917, Éamon de Valera was elected president, Michael Collins Director for Organisation and Cathal Brugha Chairman of
3136-612: The Government of Ireland Act 1920 , Ireland was partitioned, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland . Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish agreement of 6 December 1921, which ended the war (1919–21), Northern Ireland was given the option of withdrawing from the new state, the Irish Free State, and remaining part of the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland parliament chose to do that. An Irish Boundary Commission
3248-503: 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
3360-514: 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
3472-456: 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 the haw-haw, damit-get-out-of-my-way variety". Four days later, he gave him
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3584-646: 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
3696-651: 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
3808-487: 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
3920-587: The Soloheadbeg Ambush , when members of the Third Tipperary Brigade led by Séumas Robinson , Seán Treacy , Dan Breen and Seán Hogan , seized a quantity of gelignite , killing two RIC constables in the process. The Dáil leadership worried that the Volunteers would not accept its authority, given that, under their own constitution, they were bound to obey their own executive and no other body. In August 1919, Brugha proposed to
4032-705: 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
4144-556: The guerrilla warfare . In May 1921, the IRA in Dublin attacked and burned the Custom House . The action was a serious setback as five members were killed and eighty captured. By the end of the war in July 1921, the IRA was hard-pressed by the deployment of more British troops into the most active areas and a chronic shortage of arms and ammunition. It has been estimated that the IRA had only about 3,000 rifles (mostly captured from
4256-668: The "Old IRA", it was descended from the Irish Volunteers , an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916. In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly ( Dáil Éireann ), and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army. Thereafter, the IRA waged
4368-566: The "Squad" and elements of the IRA Dublin Brigade were amalgamated into the " Active Service Unit ", under Oscar Traynor , which tried to carry out at least three attacks on British troops a day. Usually, these consisted of shooting or grenade attacks on British patrols. Outside Dublin and Munster, there were only isolated areas of intense activity. For instance, the County Longford IRA under Seán Mac Eoin carried out
4480-559: The (anti-Treaty) IRA Executive issued statement stating that Minister of Defence ( Richard Mulcahy ) and the Chief-of-Staff ( Eoin O'Duffy ) no longer exercised any control over the IRA. In addition, it ordered an end to the recruitment to the new military and police forces of the Provisional Government. Furthermore, it instructed all IRA units to reaffirm their allegiance to the Irish Republic on 2 April. The stage
4592-579: The 2nd Southern Division led by Ernie O'Malley – repudiated the authority of the GHQ. A month later, on 18 February, Liam Forde , O/C of the IRA Mid-Limerick Brigade, issued a proclamation stating that: "We no longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army, and renew our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic". This was the first unit of the IRA to break with the pro-Treaty government. On 22 March, Rory O'Connor held what
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4704-518: The Aireacht. Brugha and de Valera both urged the IRA to undertake larger, more conventional military actions for the propaganda effect but were ignored by Collins and Mulcahy. Brugha at one stage proposed the assassination of the entire British cabinet. This was also discounted due to its presumed negative effect on British public opinion. Moreover, many members of the Dáil, notably Arthur Griffith , did not approve of IRA violence and would have preferred
4816-569: 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
4928-609: The British) during the war, with a larger number of shotguns and pistols. An ambitious plan to buy arms from Italy in 1921 collapsed when the money did not reach the arms dealers. Towards the end of the war, some Thompson submachine guns were imported from the United States; however 495 of these were intercepted by the American authorities and the remainder only reached Ireland shortly before the Truce. By June 1921, Collins' assessment
5040-570: The Constabulary. One of the strongest critics of the Black and Tans was King George V who in May 1921 told Lady Margery Greenwood that "he hated the idea of the Black and Tans." The IRA was also involved in the destruction of many stately homes in Munster . The Church of Ireland Gazette recorded numerous instances of Unionists and Loyalists being shot, burnt or forced from their homes during
5152-415: The Crown, leading to a greater chance of radicalisation. Finally, the British tactic of blowing up the homes of IRA members had the effect of discouraging many farmers from joining the struggle as the destruction of the family farm could easily reduce a farmer and his family to destitution. Of the "active" IRA members, three-quarters were in their late teens or early 20s and only 5% of the "active" men were in
5264-424: The Dáil that the Volunteers be asked to swear allegiance to the Dáil, but one commentator states that another year passed before the movement took an oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic and its government in "August 1920". In sharp contrast, a contemporary in the struggle for Irish independence notes that by late 1919, the term "Irish Republican Army (IRA)" was replacing "Volunteers" in everyday usage. This change
5376-675: 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 William Joyce William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw ,
5488-415: The IRA as a "murder gang" up until then. An unexpected olive branch came from King George V, who, in a speech in Belfast called for reconciliation on all sides, changed the mood and enabled the British and Irish Republican governments to agree to a truce. The Truce was agreed on 11 July 1921. On 8 July, de Valera met General Nevil Macready , the British commander in chief in Ireland and agreed terms. The IRA
5600-527: The IRA brigades only about one to two-thirds were considered to be "reliable" while those considered "active" were even smaller. A disproportionate number of the "active" IRA men were teachers, medical students, shoemakers and bootmakers; those engaged in building trades like painters, carpenters and bricklayers; draper's assistants and creamery workers. The Canadian historian Peter Hart wrote "...the guerrillas were disproportionately skilled, trained and urban". Farmers and fishermen tended to be underrepresented in
5712-402: The IRA in Dublin suffered a severe blow. This was also a period of social upheaval in Ireland, with frequent strikes as well as other manifestations of class conflict. In this regard, the IRA acted to a large degree as an agent of social control and stability, driven by the need to preserve cross-class unity in the national struggle, and on occasion being used to break strikes. Assessments of
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#17327838761025824-421: The IRA membership that he found only three Protestants serving as "active" IRA men between 1919 and 1921. Of the 917 IRA men convicted by British courts under the Defence of the Realm Act in 1919, only one was a Protestant. The majority of those serving in the IRA were practising Catholics, but there was a large minority of "pagans" as atheists or non-practising Catholics who were known in Ireland. The majority of
5936-460: The IRA men serving in metropolitan Britain were permanent residents with very few sent over from Ireland. The majority of the IRA men operating in Britain were Irish-born, but there was a substantial minority who were British-born, something that made them especially insistent on asserting their Irish identity. Inactive Defunct The IRA fought a guerrilla war against the Crown forces in Ireland from 1919 to July 1921. The most intense period of
6048-467: The IRA was re-organised into " flying columns "—permanent guerrilla units, usually about 20 strong, although sometimes larger. In rural areas, the flying columns usually had bases in remote mountainous areas. The most high-profile violence of the war took place in Dublin in November 1920 and is still known as Bloody Sunday . In the early hours of the morning, Collins' "Squad" killed 14 British spies. In reprisal, that afternoon, British forces opened fire on
6160-417: The IRA's allegiance was to the (elected) Dáil of the Irish Republic , but the anti-Treaty side argued that the decision of the Dáil to accept the Treaty (and set aside the Irish Republic) meant that the IRA no longer owed that body its allegiance. They called for the IRA to withdraw from the authority of the Dáil and to entrust the IRA Executive with control over the army. On 16 January, the first IRA division –
6272-487: The IRA. Those Irishmen engaged in white-collar trades or working as skilled labourers were much more likely to be involved in cultural nationalist groups like the Gaelic League than farmers or fishermen, and thus to have a stronger sense of Irish nationalism. Furthermore, the authority of the Crown tended to be stronger in towns and cities than in the countryside. Thus, those engaged in Irish nationalist activities in urban areas were much more likely to come into conflict with
6384-466: 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
6496-402: The RIC and sent them to Ireland. Because there was initially a shortage of RIC uniforms, the veterans at first wore a combination of dark green RIC uniforms and khaki British Army uniforms, which inspired the nickname " Black and Tans ". The brutality of the Black and Tans is now well-known, although the greatest violence attributed to the Crown's forces was often that of the Auxiliary Division of
6608-403: The Resident Executive, which in effect made him Chief of Staff. Following the success of Sinn Féin in the general election of 1918 and the setting up of the First Dáil (the legislature of the Irish Republic ), Volunteers commenced military action against the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the paramilitary police force in Ireland, and subsequently against the British Army . It began with
6720-410: The age range of 40 or older. The "active" members were overwhelmingly single men with only 4% being married or engaged in a relationship. The life of an "active" IRA man with the stress of living on the run and constantly being in hiding tended to attract single men who could adjust to this lifestyle far more easily than a man in a relationship. Furthermore, the IRA preferred to recruit single men as it
6832-491: 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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#17327838761026944-399: The ambushing and killing of 16 of 18 Auxiliaries by Tom Barry 's column at Kilmicheal in West Cork in November 1920, or Liam Lynch 's men killing 13 British soldiers near Millstreet early in the next year. At the Crossbarry Ambush in March 1921, 100 or so of Barry's men fought a sizeable engagement with a British column of 1,200, escaping from the British encircling manoeuvre. In Dublin,
7056-409: 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,
7168-416: 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
7280-433: The central characters in Thomas Kilroy 's 1986 play Double Cross . Stephen Rea originated the role. Bibliography Further reading Irish Republican Army (1917%E2%80%9322) The Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish : Óglaigh na hÉireann ) was an Irish republican revolutionary paramilitary organisation. The ancestor of many groups also known as the Irish Republican Army , and distinguished from them as
7392-504: The conflict. Firstly, the British declared martial law in parts of the country—allowing for internment and executions of IRA men. Secondly, they deployed paramilitary forces, the Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division , and more British Army personnel into the country. Thus, the third phase of the war (roughly August 1920 – July 1921) involved the IRA taking on a greatly expanded British force, moving away from attacking well-defended barracks and instead using ambush tactics. To this end
7504-422: 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
7616-409: 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
7728-502: The early 1920s. In County Cork between 1920 and 1923 the IRA shot over 200 civilians of whom over 70 (or 36%) were Protestants: five times the percentage of Protestants in the civilian population. This was due to the historical inclination of Protestants towards loyalty to the United Kingdom . A convention of Irish Protestant Churches in Dublin in May 1922 signed a resolution placing "on record" that "hostility to Protestants by reason of their religion has been almost, if not wholly, unknown in
7840-463: 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 the broadcasts were well known to be Nazi propaganda, they frequently offered
7952-516: The effectiveness of the IRA's campaign vary. They were never in a position to engage in conventional warfare. The political, military and financial costs of remaining in Ireland were higher than the British government was prepared to pay and this in a sense forced them into negotiations with the Irish political leaders. According to historian Michael Hopkinson, the guerrilla warfare "was often courageous and effective". Historian David Fitzpatrick observes, "The guerrilla fighters...were vastly outnumbered by
8064-594: The end of 1919, four Dublin Metropolitan Police and 11 RIC men had been killed. The RIC abandoned most of their smaller rural barracks in late 1919. Around 400 of these were burned in a co-ordinated IRA operation around the country in April 1920. The second phase of the IRA campaign, roughly from January to July 1920, involved attacks on the fortified police barracks located in the towns. Between January and June 1920, 16 of these were destroyed and 29 badly damaged. Several events of late 1920 greatly escalated
8176-468: 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 the nickname, an American pro-Nazi broadcaster, Fred W. Kaltenbach ,
8288-632: The fact that Michael Collins – the de facto leader of the IRA – had negotiated the Treaty, many IRA officers were against it. Of the General Headquarters (GHQ) staff, nine members were in favour of the Treaty while four opposed it. The majority of the IRA rank-and-file were against the Treaty; in January–June 1922, their discontent developed into open defiance of the elected civilian Provisional government of Ireland. Both sides agreed that
8400-606: 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
8512-544: The forces of the Crown... The success of the Irish Volunteers in surviving so long is therefore noteworthy." David Lloyd George , the British Prime Minister, at the time, found himself under increasing pressure (both internationally and from within the British Isles) to try to salvage something from the situation. This was a complete reversal on his earlier position. He had consistently referred to
8624-578: The greater influence. Brugha was nominally the superior as Minister for Defence, but Collins's power base came from his position as Director of Organisation of the IRA and from his membership on the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). De Valera resented Collins's clear power and influence, which he saw as coming more from the secretive IRB than from his position as a Teachta Dála (TD) and minister in
8736-693: 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
8848-593: The guerrilla war. In 1919, Collins, the IRA's Director of Intelligence, organised the " Squad "—an assassination unit based in Dublin that killed police involved in intelligence work (the Irish playwright Brendan Behan 's father Stephen Behan was a member of the Squad). Typical of Collins's sardonic sense of humour, the Squad was often referred to as his "Twelve Apostles". In addition, there were some arms raids on RIC barracks. By
8960-469: 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
9072-623: The localised and irregular character of the war, they were only able to exert limited control over local IRA commanders such as Tom Barry , Liam Lynch in Cork and Seán Mac Eoin in Longford. The IRA claimed a total strength of 70,000, but only about 3,000 were actively engaged in fighting against the Crown. The IRA distrusted those Irishmen who had fought in the British Army during the First World War as potential informers, but there were
9184-529: 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
9296-400: 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 , a German journalist, whose almost flawless English accent sounded like that of
9408-434: 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 the hope of hearing clues as to the fate of Allied troops and air crews. Mass-Observation interviews warned
9520-574: 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
9632-465: The truce in the rest of the country), claimed the lives of between 400 and 500 people. In April 1921, the IRA was again reorganised, in line with the Dáil 's endorsement of its actions, along the lines of a regular army. Divisions were created based on region, with commanders being given responsibility, in theory, for large geographical areas. In practice, this had little effect on the localised nature of
9744-472: The twenty-six counties in which Protestants are in the minority." Many historic buildings in Ireland were destroyed during the war, most famously the Custom House in Dublin, which was disastrously attacked on de Valera's insistence, to the horror of the more militarily experienced Collins. As he feared, the destruction proved a pyrrhic victory for the Republic, with so many IRA men killed or captured that
9856-463: The war was from November 1920 onwards. The IRA campaign can broadly be split into three phases. The first, in 1919, involved the re-organisation of the Irish Volunteers as a guerrilla army and only sporadic attacks. Organisers such as Ernie O'Malley were sent around the country to set up viable guerrilla units. On paper, there were 100,000 or so Volunteers enrolled after the conscription crisis of 1918. However, only about 15,000 of these participated in
9968-664: 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
10080-583: 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 ,
10192-424: Was 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
10304-401: 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
10416-564: 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
10528-569: 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
10640-454: Was found that singles could devote themselves more wholeheartedly to the struggle. Women were active in the republican movement, but almost no women fought with the IRA whose "active" members were almost entirely male. The IRA was not a sectarian group and went out of its way to proclaim it was open to all Irishmen, but its membership was largely Catholic with virtually no Protestants serving as "active" IRA men. Hart wrote that in his study of
10752-560: Was led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins . The most contentious areas of the Treaty for the IRA were abolition of the Irish Republic declared in 1919, the status of the Irish Free State as a dominion in the British Commonwealth and the British retention of the so-called Treaty Ports on Ireland's south coast. These issues were the cause of a split in the IRA and ultimately, the Irish Civil War . Under
10864-496: 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 the British population, to suppress
10976-421: 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 a teenager he was an informant to the British forces about
11088-569: 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
11200-457: Was planning a clandestine guerrilla campaign against the Northern state using the IRA. In early 1922, he sent IRA units to the border areas and sent arms to northern units. It was only afterwards, when partition was confirmed, that a united Ireland became the preserve of anti-Treaty Republicans. The IRA leadership was deeply divided over the decision by the Dáil to ratify the Treaty. Despite
11312-429: 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
11424-493: 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
11536-566: 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
11648-529: 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
11760-401: Was set for civil war over the Treaty. The pro-treaty IRA soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army created by Collins and Richard Mulcahy. British pressure, and tensions between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions of the IRA, led to a bloody civil war, ending in the defeat of the anti-Treaty faction. On 24 May 1923, Frank Aiken , the (anti-treaty) IRA Chief-of-Staff, called
11872-417: Was that the IRA was within weeks, possibly even days, of collapse. It had few weapons or ammunition left. Moreover, almost 5,000 IRA men had been imprisoned or interned and over 500 killed. Collins and Mulcahy estimated that the number of effective guerrilla fighters was down to 2,000–3,000. However, in the summer of 1921, the war was abruptly ended. The British recruited hundreds of World War I veterans into
11984-434: 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
12096-486: 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
12208-479: Was then set up to review the border. Irish leaders expected that it would so reduce Northern Ireland's size, by transferring nationalist areas to the Irish Free State, as to make it economically unviable. Partition was not by itself the key breaking point between pro- and anti-Treaty campaigners; both sides expected the Boundary Commission to greatly reduce Northern Ireland. Moreover, Michael Collins
12320-469: Was to become an infamous press conference and declared that the IRA would no longer obey the Dáil as (he said) it had violated its Oath to uphold the Irish Republic. He went on to say that "we repudiate the Dáil ... We will set up an Executive which will issue orders to the IRA all over the country." In reply to the question on whether this meant they intended to create a military dictatorship, O'Connor said: "You can take it that way if you like." On 28 March,
12432-475: Was to retain its arms and the British Army was to remain in barracks for the duration of peace negotiations. Many IRA officers interpreted the truce only as a temporary break in fighting. They continued to recruit and train volunteers, with the result that the IRA had increased its number to over 72,000 men by early 1922. Negotiations on an Anglo-Irish Treaty took place in late 1921 in London. The Irish delegation
12544-538: 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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