Was Lord Haw-Haw a Traitor?

William Brooke Joyce was born on 24th April 1906, into an Irish Catholic family, in Brooklyn, New York, United States. A few years after his birth, the family returned to Ireland permanently, setting up home in Salthill, Galway. After leaving school, William crossed the Irish Sea to England, to study at Birkbeck College of the University of London, where he entered the Officer training Corps. He gained a first class honours degree, but also an interest in Fascism.

 

On 22 October 1924, Joyce was acting as a steward at a meeting supporting a Conservative Party candidate in the forthcoming general election, when he was set upon by a group of Communists, resulting in him being slashed across the face with a razor. He was left with a permanent scar across his right cheek, from his ear to the corner of his mouth.  Even at this young age he was an anti-Semite, claiming that his attackers were Jews.

 

By 1932 Joyce had joined the British Union of Fascists, led by Sir Oswald Moseley. He was soon appointed to the position of Director of Propaganda, and was an eager participant in violent confrontations with anti-Fascists. However, he eventually fell out with the BUF over a number of policy issues, including his own fervent anti-Semitism. He was eventually dismissed from the organisation after the 1937 elections, following which he formed his own political party; the National Socialist League.

 

William Joyce (1906-1946)

 

By 1939, with war clouds gathering, Joyce fled with his wife, to Germany. The British Government had passed a new defence law, permitting the detention of suspected Nazi sympathisers, and it had become apparent that the authorities in Britain were about to arrest him. William Joyce became a naturalised German citizen in 1940.

 

Propaganda was an important weapon during World War II, and Japanese, Italian and German broadcasters dedicated significant air time to transmitting disinformation, aimed at weakening the morale of allied troops and citizens alike. Two of the most famous propagandist broadcasters were Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose, but for British radio listeners, it was the name Lord Haw-Haw that became synonymous with the demoralising transmissions.

 

The moniker Lord Haw-Haw was initially given to a broadcaster by the name of Wolf Mittler, but after auditioning for the job of announcer for German radio’s English service, William Joyce replaced Mittler and made the alias his own. With an upper class English accent, he always began his broadcasts with the words “Germany calling, Germany calling, Germany calling.” His messages were frequently sarcastic and menacing, urging the allies to surrender in the face of Germany’s overpowering superiority.

 

Whilst the British public were discouraged from tuning in to his broadcasts, many did so. At the height of his influence it is estimated that he was attracting 6 million regular, and 18 million occasional listeners. As time went on, Joyce became increasingly confident, even to the point of revealing his true identity on air. However, as the war progressed, and the tide started to turn against Nazi Germany, so his confidence and demoralising influence started to wane.

 

Joyce recorded his final broadcast on 30th April 1945, as the battle for Berlin raged. Clearly drunk, it was a rambling affair that concluded with a defiant “Heil Hitler and farewell.” He was captured by British forces on 28th May 1945, near the German border with Denmark. After engaging him in conversation, he was asked whether he was Joyce, whereupon he reached into his pocket. Believing him to be armed, he was shot, sustaining wounds to the buttocks. It transpired that he was actually reaching for a false passport. Joyce was subsequently driven to a border post, and handed over to British military police. Taken to London, he was charged with high treason and tried at the Old Bailey.

 

An Injured Joyce, Under Armed Guard, 1945

 

On 19th September 1945, William Joyce was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. He appealed against the sentence, but his conviction was upheld by both the Court of Appeal, on 1st November 1945, and the House of Lords, on 13th December 1945. As he prepared to die, Joyce made the following unrepentant statement; “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 greatest danger in the West, may the standard be raised from 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.” 

 

William Joyce was executed at Wandsworth Prison on 3rd January 1946. He was 39 years old. His remains were buried in an unmarked grave, within the walls of the prison. In 1976 his body was exhumed and re interred in the Protestant section of the New Cemetery in Bohermore, Galway, Ireland.

 

As a traitor to his country, he surely could not have expected anything less? Except there is a problem. William Joyce was not British! As mentioned above, Joyce was born in the United States, and his father, although Irish by birth, had become an American citizen in 1894. Joyce himself had taken German citizenship in 1940. So, if, during the period that he was broadcasting, he was either American or German, how was it that he was convicted by the British judiciary of treason? Surely, to be guilty of treason against Great Britain, you have to be British?

 

The argument put forward by Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross, and on which Joyce was convicted, was tenuous in the extreme. It transpired that while living in the United Kingdom, he had obtained a British passport under false pretences, by lying about his country of origin. In normal circumstances, once the deceit had been revealed, the passport would have been declared null and void. However, Shawcross argued that, for so long as the passport was deemed to be valid, Joyce had owed allegiance to the King. Consequently, since he did not take German citizenship until 1940, his early broadcasts, while still in possession of a British passport, were treasonable. It was on this basis that he was convicted, and the conviction upheld on appeal.

 

Sir Hartley Shawcross (1902-2003)

 

That Joyce conspired with an enemy of both the United Kingdom and the United States is undeniable. However, the United States did not enter World War II until December 1941, by which time he was a German citizen. Presumably, therefore, he could not have been tried for treason by the United States, as for the period of time that he remained an American citizen, Germany was not an enemy of the U.S., and by the time hostilities had been declared, he was German.

 

It seems likely, therefore, that the decision by the British to prosecute Joyce for treason, was based on the fact that it was the only conceivable option available to secure a conviction. Morally speaking , it is probably reasonable to regard William Joyce as a traitor, but from a legal perspective, it is highly questionable whether he should ever have been tried and convicted. So, was Lord Haw-Haw a traitor? What do you think?

 

Sources:

http://mysteryinthehistory.com/who-was-lord-haw-haw/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joyce