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1:02

Hello

1:02

and welcome to We Are

1:05

History. I'm Jono Farrell. And

1:07

I'm Angela Barnes. So I've got bits of we've

1:09

just had a granola bar and they're really in my teeth.

1:12

That's right. This is all live radio. I

1:15

worry that people can hear the granola bar

1:17

as I speak. I've got to look at them. I've got a little bit of seed

1:20

coming out between their mouth. Just flying

1:22

each other across the table. This

1:25

week, granola bars aside, Angela

1:27

has chosen our story and surprise,

1:30

surprise. It's about bloody Germany again, Angela. Well,

1:32

I have

1:32

just been to Berlin, Jon. And

1:34

our Patreon listeners will know that if they've watched

1:36

our Berlin, my little Berlin

1:38

photo album. Angela's slideshow. Which might come up once

1:40

or twice in this podcast. So

1:44

this is a story that was definitely inspired by my

1:46

recent trip to Berlin. And

1:48

a book that I read by

1:50

Labour MP Chris Bryant. He's a mate of mine,

1:52

actually. Well, I sort

1:53

of know him a bit and he's always been very nice about things can

1:56

only get better. And he

1:58

chose it as one of his books.

1:59

best ever books in the week. Oh,

2:02

thank you Chris. Thank you. Well

2:04

I hope he likes this episode. It is

2:06

very much based on the book that he wrote that's

2:08

called The Glamour Boys. As always

2:11

please get the book and read it. It is so fascinating

2:13

and there's so much in it that

2:15

I couldn't fit in the pot. My original notes for

2:17

this podcast episode were about 40 pages.

2:19

So I've

2:22

tried to pick out the

2:24

highlights but there's loads more in it so please

2:26

do read the book. It's a story

2:28

of

2:28

a group of MPs in the 1930s, many

2:30

of whom were gay and bisexual

2:33

and they were

2:41

really among the first people in Britain

2:43

to stand up and warn the government about

2:45

the threat that Hitler posed to peace

2:48

in Europe. And this is at a time when the general

2:50

mood was not only to appease Hitler

2:52

but certainly among

2:53

right leaning members of the government to support

2:55

Hitler. Right. I mean generally it's Churchill

2:58

and Anthony Eden that are credited

3:00

with the stand against Chamberlain's actions.

3:03

But they were part of a wider group of MPs

3:05

in opposition to a peace man and many

3:08

of these ones have sort of been written out of history. Is

3:10

that right?

3:10

Yeah, they have a bit and the reasons why will

3:13

be obvious. In fact before we get going I

3:15

think it might be good to just say a little something here about

3:17

terminology and stuff that we use because neither

3:19

of us as far as I know John identify as

3:22

part of the LGBTQ plus

3:24

community. So I just want to say I'm

3:26

taking guidance for the language we use here

3:29

very much from Chris Bryant himself from his book

3:32

and an interview I've heard

3:34

him do about it. So

3:37

we'll come on to it as we go

3:40

but hopefully anyone listening who is a part of that

3:42

community hopefully we're not saying anything

3:44

that is in any way. It all keeps changing

3:46

Angela. In the period

3:49

we're talking about, the 2030s, homosexuality

3:51

was illegal

3:53

and sodomy had been illegal for centuries but

3:55

in 1885 the Le Bouchard

3:57

Amendment section 11 of the criminal law Amendment

4:00

Act made it gross indecency

4:02

a crime and in practice this

4:04

law was used to prosecute male homosexuals

4:07

where actual sodomy couldn't be proved.

4:10

Exactly up to that point sodomy was illegal

4:12

but they wanted a way to make any sort

4:14

of homosexual relationships illegal

4:16

so by calling it gross indecency obviously that's

4:19

very vague and open to interpretation

4:21

I mean one man's gross indecency is another man's Friday

4:23

night right so we got

4:25

to the point where even writing a suggestive

4:28

letter could get you arrested and in fact

4:30

that was the law that both Oscar Wilde and

4:32

Alan Turing were convicted under

4:35

and so it wasn't

4:36

a safe or easy time to be homosexual

4:38

and also the concept of homosexuality

4:41

as it's understood today didn't really exist in the

4:43

same way and Chris Bryant says

4:45

in his book that probably if he met the men that

4:48

he's talking about in the book today they

4:50

wouldn't necessarily agree with being called

4:52

homosexual it wasn't something you inherently were

4:54

it was maybe something that you did sometimes

4:56

okay

4:57

and there were other words that they would have used for it they

4:59

wouldn't have used the word homosexual at all probably

5:01

they would have used something

5:03

called earnings was a way that was from a

5:06

theory in the early 20th century called Iranian

5:09

theory which was to do with you know

5:11

that theory was it was a woman in a man's body

5:13

and all these other ways of looking at another word that

5:15

they used was inversion but they probably

5:17

wouldn't have seen themselves as homosexual in the

5:19

way we understand it today okay so

5:21

Chris Bryant uses the word queer

5:23

to talk about them though at the time this would have had

5:25

disparaging connotations that's what I was trying

5:28

to have in fact as a word that newspaper

5:30

headlines used about these MPs at the

5:32

time these men were sometimes married

5:35

but would conduct simultaneous homosexual

5:38

relationships sometimes with their spouses

5:40

knowledge sometimes not

5:42

yeah so it's hard to describe that they want to

5:44

put words in anyone's mouth with regards to how

5:46

they would have identified themselves but the men

5:48

we're talking about were known to have had

5:50

same-sex relationships and it

5:52

was challenging at that

5:53

time to be gay or bisexual

5:55

in Britain. And London had its share

5:58

of spaces where homosexual men felt

6:00

comfortable and free. Is that right? Cafes and bars,

6:03

Turkish bars and so on. Well, there

6:05

was always the fear of an undercover policeman.

6:08

Absolutely. And sort of as the

6:10

30s went on, that really ramped up the

6:12

prosecutions. And there were places

6:14

like, for example, the German street bars

6:16

were very famous, Turkish bars. And

6:18

they were known as amongst gay men,

6:21

they were known as the Savoy, so that you could talk about

6:23

going to the Savoy and anyone listening in would think

6:25

you were going to the hotel or the grill. Because

6:27

if you were called, you could be sentenced

6:30

to two years in prison, hard labour. But

6:32

that's not it. Of course, you then got a deal out with

6:34

the family shame, losing your career,

6:36

your home, everything. So discretion was really

6:39

important. And in 1927, there

6:42

was a book that was written by an anonymous

6:44

author who called themselves Anomaly.

6:47

And it was called The Invert and His

6:49

Social Adjustment. And basically, it was a sort of

6:51

handbook on how to be a homosexual without getting

6:54

caught. Things like being discreet,

6:56

using female pronouns to discuss your

6:59

lovers. Don't be too meticulous

7:01

in the way that you dress, because that

7:03

was often used as a sign of somebody being homosexual

7:06

if they're a bit of a natty dresser. Don't

7:08

let your enthusiasm for particular male friends

7:10

make

7:10

you conspicuous. If you knew

7:13

where to look and how to go about it, you

7:15

could certainly find men who wanted to have sex with

7:17

men. There was

7:20

plenty of company to be had with people who

7:22

were in the know and tolerant.

7:23

Yeah, and obviously more bohemian

7:25

artists, literary communities, they were

7:27

more accepting. And so there were places

7:30

where people were safe to be more open, more

7:32

houses, more musical

7:34

theatre, writers, we're

7:36

the tolerant ones. Exactly.

7:38

Artists, basically, you're pretty

7:40

safe in

7:40

the art. Okay, adjacent in my job. Yes.

7:43

Right, so who are the glamour boys

7:45

of the title of this episode? Well,

7:47

let's start in 1931.

7:50

It's Ramsay McDonald's National Government. But

7:52

John, I feel like as our Labour Party historian, you might

7:54

want to say something about that.

7:55

No, the National Government. Well, Ramsay

7:57

McDonald had won the election.

7:59

Before this, I was a Labour Prime Minister.

8:02

You think, oh, Labour Prime Minister, but he's very

8:04

minority government, massive

8:06

financial crisis. And instead

8:09

of calling election or trying to force

8:11

the issue, he joins with the Conservatives,

8:13

keeps himself as Prime Minister, sort

8:16

of destroys the Labour Party in the process

8:18

and forms a national government with them. Of course, they've

8:21

been using the Newsykkimau as soon as they're ready.

8:24

But it destroys the Labour Party. And in 1935, the

8:26

Labour Party completely wiped

8:28

out and he is a stain

8:31

on the history of the Labour Party ever since. Well,

8:32

you might have something to say about it, John.

8:35

I just gave that over to you. So

8:38

in this government, this national government, about 42.5%

8:41

of the conservative MPs in that government

8:43

were bachelors. Bachelors?

8:47

Is that a heavy inverted commas you put on that? It's one of

8:49

those words, innit? It's, we all

8:51

know what confirmed bachelor means. Of course,

8:54

what the statistics mean is they were unmarried.

8:56

Unmarried doesn't necessarily mean homosexual.

9:00

But 42% of

9:02

unmarried men was a much

9:04

higher figure than the general population. So

9:07

in the general population, 27% of men were

9:09

unmarried. And that figure includes those

9:11

that had been married before and weren't at the time.

9:14

So it's a much, much higher

9:16

number of unmarried men in the

9:18

conservative ranks of that government.

9:20

It reminds me of something I once read an interview

9:22

with, you know, Armistead Morpin,

9:24

the writer.

9:25

And he said, years ago in England,

9:27

I said, scratch a tori and you'll find

9:29

a homo. I was wildly generalising.

9:32

But if you do want to keep the lid on your own

9:34

secret life, the best way of doing it is to

9:37

insist

9:37

others be as pure as you're pretending

9:39

to be. Right, it's not a denial too much thing, isn't

9:41

it? Are they American preachers who have enough with

9:43

everyone? Absolutely. Yes.

9:47

And the papers every now and then would use

9:49

the bachelorhood of these MPs to raise

9:51

doubts about them, wouldn't they?

9:53

Yes. So if you were a bachelor

9:55

MP, regardless of what your sexuality, but,

9:57

you know, chances are for a lot of them... were

10:00

homosexual. You have to have

10:02

your reason ready for the press as to why

10:04

you remain on marriage. I've

10:06

just never found the one. I've been taking

10:08

some time to learn to love myself. Exactly,

10:11

that sort of thing. I'm quite proud to say this. There

10:13

was a coincidence that Parliament had such a high

10:16

proportion of fascists. Well, Chris

10:18

Bryan, who is a gay MP

10:20

yourself, obviously, he describes

10:22

Parliament of the time as being homosocial,

10:25

is the word they use. So, you

10:27

know, out of 615 seats in Parliament at

10:30

the time, there's only 15 female

10:32

MPs in 1931 and only nine in 1935. Yeah,

10:38

so if you're a man like the company of other men, it's pretty

10:40

much an ideal place to be, I suppose.

10:41

Yeah, exactly. And they've gone

10:43

from public school to part,

10:46

you know, it's pretty much the same. I hear

10:48

what you're saying, Angela. So the

10:50

main protagonists of this story are

10:52

a group of MPs that came together for a common purpose

10:55

in the House of Commons around 1935.

10:57

Give us a bit of background on that. OK,

11:00

so

11:00

the first of them is Robert Bernays.

11:02

So he became a liberal MP for Bristol

11:05

North in 1931. He's probably

11:08

out of the men we're talking about, the least comfortable in

11:10

his own sexuality. He had

11:12

a stammer that really affected his confidence.

11:15

He'd been a speech writer for well-known

11:18

homosexual Earl Beecham, who'd

11:20

been disgraced and had been forced

11:22

to live in a sort of homosexual exile. He

11:24

had been a governor of New South Wales. And

11:27

rather than face prison, he chose to live

11:30

really in exile. So Bernays knew

11:32

that there could be extreme consequences

11:34

for your reputation. He traveled with this man

11:37

and realised that, you know, he's lived a

11:39

discretion, as he's done for, really. And

11:41

so he knew what happened if people found out you're

11:43

a homosexual. And he I don't think

11:45

there's any evidence in the book that Bernays actually was

11:47

a practising homosexual.

11:50

I don't know. Who knows? And

11:53

that's what come to see Bernays as

11:55

really the first person in Parliament to raise

11:58

alarm about Hitler's intentions in Germany. He

12:00

really was. He was also close friends

12:02

with Harold Nicholson who had entered

12:04

government in 1935 as a member of National

12:07

Labour winning Leicester West. He

12:09

had actually previously stood for his power, Oswald

12:11

Mosley's new party.

12:12

Oh, we have a podcast about that. We do have a podcast

12:15

about that. Listen to that. A hurrah for the black shirts.

12:17

And Harold was

12:19

actually married to novelist and journalist Vita

12:22

Sackville West.

12:23

Yes. Now they famously had a pretty

12:25

open marriage, didn't they? Both of them had sexual

12:27

affairs. She famously had a relationship with

12:29

Virginia Woolf.

12:30

She did amongst others, yes. And

12:32

then there was Victor K He

12:36

was a wealthy

12:36

Conservative MP for Chippenham. Ah yes, godfather to Churchill's youngest

12:38

daughter and to Elizabeth Taylor of course.

12:40

Yes, indeed. And then there

12:42

was Jack McNamara. He'd been

12:44

in the Indian army as a young man, then in the London

12:47

Irish Rifles where it was said quite

12:49

a lot of the offices in the regiment were gay, but nobody

12:51

really thought much of it at the time. He

12:54

had a long term partner, Maddy, who

12:57

would act as his manservant in public

12:59

to sort of avoid suspicion. But you

13:02

also had the friendship stroke, relationship

13:04

stroke arrangements with a married Anglican

13:07

arch deacon who was called Herbert

13:09

Sharp. And Jack

13:11

McNamara seems to be financially reliant

13:13

on Herbert Sharp and Herbert Sharp is sort

13:16

of a company's in more, lots of trips abroad

13:18

and things. Also,

13:21

interestingly, as a little aside, after he was

13:23

elected Jack McNamara, he looked for the services

13:25

of a young man to be his speech writer and parliamentary

13:28

assistant. And do you know who he

13:30

ended up employing? I do actually.

13:32

I do know this because it's within your notes.

13:35

It was Guy Burgess when he came to spy.

13:37

There's a whole lot of other

13:39

stories there. We've never actually done that thing. Amazingly, we've never done

13:41

it. I've pitched it a

13:42

few times but never actually got around to it. Maybe I'll do that next.

13:44

Maybe we should do that next time because

13:46

that seems to be like a complete set of the

13:48

Cold War stories. Yes, maybe I will. Who else

13:50

actually? Who else? No, you had Ronnie

13:53

Cartland, who was younger brother of

13:56

famous novelist Barbara Cartland. Fucking hilarious.

13:58

He was only in his twenties when he was a kid. who was elected in 1935 as

14:01

a Conservative MP for Kings Norton

14:03

in Birmingham. The

14:04

Carlins were Conservative. I know. I

14:07

know.

14:08

At this time Barbara was a sort of gossip

14:11

columnist. She was very woman about town

14:13

and pretty cool. He was a little bit in the shadow I

14:15

think. Wow. But they were very close.

14:18

And then there was Bob Boosby. He

14:20

was the Conservative MP for Aberdeen. He

14:23

publicly claimed not to be gay, and

14:25

he actually had a 30 year affair with Harold McMillan's

14:28

wife. But he definitely had

14:30

had some same sex relationships at Oxford.

14:32

Okay. I think there was a quote where

14:35

he said something like, yeah, but everyone's gay at Oxford. No,

14:37

it's not. Something like that. I wouldn't

14:39

know. And he once successfully sued the Sunday Mirror

14:42

for saying that he'd had a relationship with Ronnie

14:44

Craig. But it later turned out

14:46

from some MI5 files that they definitely

14:49

did go to gay parties together. Well,

14:51

everyone in the old days knew each other. Didn't they? Didn't

14:54

they? Well, it's just because I suppose if you had any money

14:56

then you did and everyone else was just pouring.

14:58

A little bit of Taylor walks on, you know, Ronnie

15:01

Craig walks in. Exactly. The

15:03

Cambridge spies walking around. It's insane.

15:05

Sorry, you need to... Yeah. And

15:07

there were other people in the group of rebels, but

15:09

these are the main focus of this book

15:12

and the story we're doing today. So we're in Britain

15:14

in the early 1930s and the feeling is broadly,

15:17

it's

15:17

quite pro-Germany at this point. I

15:19

mean, I think there's a sense of desperate

15:22

not to repeat another war. I thought that something

15:24

that everyone went through. Felt that the Treaty of Versailles

15:27

was overly punitive, the financial

15:30

reparations, territorial concessions and

15:32

so on. Also, Britain was struggling

15:34

economically and needed good relations with one

15:36

of Europe's biggest markets, I guess. Yeah,

15:37

exactly. So many people felt that

15:40

the way to avoid war in Europe, which

15:42

is what everyone wanted, was through

15:44

mutual disarmament. And certainly

15:46

that was the feeling in parliament. The majority were against

15:49

any expenditure of building up arms. Yeah.

15:52

It's more than 10 years after the war. Germany

15:54

is a place that many British politicians like

15:56

to visit. Well, they do because,

15:59

John, it's a time of... Weimar Berlin. Bärköl,

16:01

bärköl, bärköl. Exactly. It's cabaret.

16:05

It's Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Warden hanging

16:07

out in transgender bars. It's sexual freedom,

16:09

jazz permissiveness. Berlin was

16:12

the place to be, and especially

16:13

for your gay man about town. I went to the P-districts

16:16

on the weekend. Not the same, John. Not

16:19

the same. Not the same. Homosexuality was

16:21

also illegal in Germany, of course, according to

16:23

paragraph 175 of the German

16:25

Criminal Code. But it was sort of

16:27

more tolerated, especially in the cities.

16:29

Yeah, any Patreon subscribers listening that

16:31

did see my Berlin slideshow, you might remember

16:34

one of the clubs in Berlin that was quite famous was

16:36

the El Dorado, very popular with

16:39

transgender people and gay people in Berlin,

16:41

and also pretty popular with British politicians.

16:43

If I remember rightly from your photos,

16:45

it's now a posh supermarket. That's

16:47

the one. And there's actually, on Netflix, I

16:49

do recommend you watch it, there's a documentary

16:52

called El Dorado. And I can't remember

16:54

what the, there's another line, something like, the things

16:56

the Nazis hated or something, but it's about

16:58

that club and what happened to it. So do

17:00

go and watch that. It's really interesting. And there was, of

17:02

course, the failed BBC soap opera called El Dorado. Don't

17:04

watch that in my advice. Don't watch

17:06

that. That's got nothing to do with Weimar Berlin.

17:10

So during this period, there's quite a lot

17:12

of British people heading to Berlin

17:13

and other German cities for their sexual

17:16

adventures, John. Yes, but while all this

17:18

is happening, there is another Germany. Hitler

17:22

is starting to rise in popularity and

17:24

he's appealing to the Germans that don't live in

17:26

big cities, aren't young and sexually

17:28

liberated and that are still poor and

17:30

hungry after fighting and losing a war.

17:33

Yes. And funny enough, though,

17:35

John, although

17:36

the Nazis officially condemned homosexuality,

17:40

in the early days, there were a surprising

17:42

amount of openly gay Nazis and

17:45

a lot of them were stormtroopers, the, you

17:47

know, the power of military wing of the Nazi party.

17:49

Yeah. And the co-founder and leader

17:51

of the essay, the Ström Abteilung,

17:54

was a man called Ernst Korn.

17:57

Korn? Yes, no, he's famous. sort

18:00

of hardcore psychopathic murderer

18:02

and double hard bastard like he was proper

18:04

he committed

18:07

what they called the femme murders you know like we just murder

18:09

people ruthlessly if they felt they disagreed politically

18:11

and like the leader of the Wagner group which is copied in

18:14

Russia yeah yeah you know it wasn't

18:16

a nice man I don't think he

18:18

was a decorated World War one fighter he took

18:20

part in the 1923 Beer Hall push

18:24

and as leader of the essay he led this campaign

18:26

of political violence against communist Jews

18:28

and other groups that were deemed hostile

18:31

right but he was also openly

18:33

homosexual he even wrote about it in his 1928

18:36

autobiography he referred to himself

18:38

the same sex oriented and

18:41

he built these barracks for the essay

18:43

and that became known as the brown house over

18:45

the brown shirts of course they were the brown shirt

18:47

yeah

18:48

and it seemed to

18:50

be quite a palace of homoeroticism

18:52

by the way people describe it you know full of gyms

18:55

full of live Nazis working

18:57

out and yeah and Hitler seems to have

18:59

a sort of do we like in private life just

19:01

don't shout about it attitude to gay

19:03

Nazis at this stage

19:05

he knew that attempts have been made to

19:08

blackmail wrong but they were still close friends weren't

19:10

they

19:10

yeah yeah I mean that was always the biggest worry

19:12

about you know people in power that were homosexual

19:15

it's why a lot of spies end up being homosexual

19:17

because they're recruited because they can be blackmailed

19:22

so yeah the stormtroopers were

19:24

happy though to be seen in the El Dorado bar

19:26

and other bars well into the

19:29

1930s yeah the British politicians knew them and hung

19:31

out with them and some of them started to see things

19:33

that made them think well maybe these Nazis

19:35

weren't good guys exactly

19:37

in 1932 that's as early

19:39

as that Bob Boosby he was actually

19:41

invited to meet Hitler on one of his trips

19:44

to Berlin and this line in his office

19:46

maybe a laugh of it he talks

19:48

about this meeting with Hitler

19:49

he says Hitler sprang to his feet

19:51

lifted his right arm and shouted Hitler I

19:53

responded by clicking my heels together raising

19:55

my right arm and shouting back Boosby He

20:02

did also write that he came away from that meeting

20:04

seeing

20:05

quote

20:06

the unmistakable glint of madness in

20:08

his eyes and the meeting convinced

20:10

him pretty early compared to most

20:11

of the government in Britain that maybe

20:14

Hitler wasn't on the right track and

20:16

maybe they weren't on the right track when it came to

20:18

dealing with Germany. Wow, love that story. A

20:20

few months later, Rob Bernays

20:22

went to Germany in his capacity as

20:25

a journalist. He was even there

20:27

at the Reichstag on the 12th of September 1932

20:29

for the key meeting when

20:32

Göring allowed communists to

20:34

table a motion of no confidence in Chancellor

20:36

Patton, which carried.

20:38

Yeah, and Bernays wrote

20:40

then that the communists should have been more

20:42

reluctant to vote with the Nazis, quote,

20:45

for they were next

20:46

to meet in the concentration camps with Nazis

20:49

as guards, which is pretty prophetic. Yeah,

20:51

blimey. He also warned that Germany was rearming.

20:53

He noted that pacifism had become

20:55

a crime in Germany. He didn't see the man

20:58

beaten up for refusing to sell tin

21:00

shoulders in his shop. Yeah, so

21:02

Hitler and Bufbe,

21:03

they weren't there. They were hanging out in these places and they

21:05

seemed to be the first British politicians who came back

21:07

distrustful of Hitler and concerned about the prospect

21:09

of what was happening in war. Then

21:13

of course, 30th of January 1933, Hitler becomes

21:15

Chancellor. Yes, so Bernays

21:17

goes back to Germany the following year and

21:20

on his trip he was taken to see Breslau

21:22

concentration camp that was set up for

21:25

inverted commas, protective custody. And

21:28

in the camps he saw forced labor and

21:30

he noted that the

21:32

inmates he spoke to would trot out the same

21:34

line over and over again about being well

21:37

fed and cared for. And he

21:39

wrote when he got back, he

21:41

said, we have seen no evidence of cruelty

21:44

and yet we had the haunting sensation

21:46

of nameless evil in that camp.

21:49

And again, quite

21:49

prophetically, he wrote, if this spirit

21:52

is allowed to continue, it means war in 10 years.

21:54

Well, like we said in Britain, the mood remained

21:57

fairly pro-German or certainly pro-pink.

22:00

Other politicians visiting at this time didn't

22:03

seem concerned by Hitler or what was happening and

22:05

Britain still wanted to give Hitler the benefits

22:07

of the doubt in 1933.

22:09

Yeah, so in fact Jack McNamara

22:11

and Victor Kazile at this point, Jack McNamara

22:13

was not an MP yet, but he was working

22:16

to push Anglo-German relations, they had an Anglo-German

22:18

association, they were really pushing to foster

22:20

relations between the two countries. Kazile,

22:23

on one of his visits to Germany, he actually

22:26

asked to go and see the concentration camp at Dachau

22:29

and Hitler had just converted from an old munitions

22:31

factory and he wrote of it then, he

22:33

said, great fun, great

22:35

fun, I visited the concentration camp, it was not

22:37

very interesting, quite well run, no undue

22:39

misery or discomfort. And

22:42

it would take some quite profound personal

22:44

experiences later

22:45

on to really change their minds. That

22:48

might be a good place to take a break Angela

22:51

and we'll come back and find out what happens

22:53

next.

22:59

You might not think that a few simple words could

23:01

make

23:01

you crave McDonald's breakfast sandwiches

23:04

but

23:04

have you listened closely to the sound of me

23:07

saying, McChordles,

23:09

McChordles, you may

23:11

be wrong. Bada-ba-ba-ba

23:14

We are brave, makers

23:16

of the tried and true apple cider vinegar that you've

23:18

had in your cabinet for as long as you've had a cabinet.

23:21

And you trust that bottle sitting in your cabinet because

23:24

we were in your mom's cabinet and her mom's

23:26

cabinet. You use us as a wellness

23:28

drink, your mom used us in salad dressing,

23:31

her mom's mom used us as a glass cleaner.

23:34

And while there are many ways to use us, one

23:36

thing is always the same, our recipe.

23:39

It has never changed since we've been putting cabinets. Brag,

23:42

it's not weird if

23:42

it works.

23:45

Resource Welcome

23:50

back to We Are History, where we are

23:52

talking about the group of MPs that led

23:54

the charge against Nazi Germany and British politics.

23:58

Yes, we are now in 1934. Britain

24:00

remains not overly concerned about what Hitler is up

24:02

to despite Rob Bernays reporting back

24:05

on concentration camps and

24:07

the treatment of Jewish people that he's witnessing

24:09

on his trip. Yeah you have to remember that Britain also

24:12

has a pretty

24:13

big share of anti-Semitic sentiment

24:15

itself. Lord Rothermere had written that

24:17

editorial in the Daily Mail headlined Hurrah

24:20

for the Blackshirts calling the nation to

24:22

black Mosley's Union of Fascists. Yes

24:24

we also did an episode on that which you can

24:26

go back

24:27

and listen to. The Sunday Pictorial

24:29

even ran a competition to find Britain's

24:32

prettiest fascist. Stay one from

24:34

GB News listening to this that'll be a feature

24:36

on their breakfast show by Thursday. Yes so

24:39

Rob Bernays didn't take long to condemn

24:41

the article he called it a fascist call

24:43

for dictatorship so he's really swimming against

24:45

the tide. Yeah but fascism was embraced

24:47

by many on the right and there were plenty of advocates

24:49

of anti-Semitism on the commons

24:52

benches with at 16

24:54

Jewish MPs in the house often bearing the brunt

24:56

of it.

24:56

Yeah and this continued long after

24:58

news of Hitler's

24:59

treatment of Jewish people reaching Britain.

25:02

Yeah meanwhile in Germany Hitler was

25:04

ramping up his campaigns of violence stormtroopers

25:07

were stirring up brutality on the streets. Ernst

25:09

Röhm had grown the essay from 60,000

25:11

to 427,000 members in just 18 months. Yeah that's crazy isn't it?

25:15

But

25:18

Hitler was starting to have a problem with these openly

25:21

gay Nazis and not least because

25:23

his political opposition had

25:25

started using it against him so where he'd been

25:28

tolerant of it before things

25:30

changed. So the left-wing SPD they'd

25:32

published an article entitled homosexuality

25:35

in the brown house sexual life of

25:37

the Third Reich and they published

25:39

these leaked private letters that Röhm had

25:42

written to a psychologist about his sexuality.

25:44

So

25:45

by this time the SS the Schulstoffel

25:48

protection squadron led by Himmler had

25:50

a significant increase in power they knew

25:52

something had to be done about the problem and that

25:55

solution came on the night of

25:57

the long night. Yes from the 30th

25:59

of June

25:59

until the 2nd of July.

26:02

Yes, now this is my big problem with

26:04

the Night of the Long Knives. I mean it's not

26:06

that loads of innocent people were murdered in cold

26:08

blood. It was not one night. It was several

26:10

nights. And that's what really looks me about

26:12

this. Three days of the Long Knives doesn't roll off the tongue quite as

26:14

easily, does it, Charles? How upsetting. So

26:17

the Night of the Long Knives, three days of the Long

26:19

Knives, Hitler had ordered a series

26:21

of extrajudicial murders, intended

26:24

to help him alleviate these troublesome

26:26

forces and consolidate his power. Exiled

26:29

a lot by Himmler and the SS.

26:32

So Ernst Röhm was amongst

26:34

those killed that night. And

26:36

these reprisals took place around the country.

26:39

Yes, and of course because the Nazis dominated

26:41

the Reichstag, they declared the executions

26:43

all legal. Yeah, they absolutely find nothing to

26:45

see here. I mean they were very killed people. They got the wrong name with some

26:47

people. They killed them. Hitler had

26:49

someone killed because he had an abridged

26:52

version of Mein Kampf without asking him. So this writer

26:54

was killed on the Night of the Long Knives. He was a bit

26:56

mad, I think. Do you think Hitler was mad? What

26:58

a revolution. I don't know,

27:00

John. I'm going to wait and see what happens. So what happens?

27:03

The Nazis then begin this

27:05

unambiguous campaign against homosexuality.

27:08

And they are shutting down the clubs and bars that the

27:11

Weimar Republic have been famous for. There

27:14

was the picture that I showed you in my little slideshow

27:16

that our Patreon members might have seen.

27:19

There was a sign outside the El Dorado that was replaced

27:21

with the one that said Vote Hitler. Yeah.

27:25

The Sarpa units were set up just to deal with homosexuality.

27:28

Homosexuals were sent to concentration camps, who

27:30

were often chemically castrated. Yeah.

27:34

And in the camps they were labelled with a large black

27:36

dot initially, or the number 175, from

27:39

the paragraph of the Criminal Code, and eventually,

27:41

of course, with pink triangles.

27:44

Which are now worn, of course, as a badge of pride by a guy. Yeah.

27:47

Yeah. Many of these people were lost to history.

27:49

They often had no family or

27:50

community to remember them. Because

27:52

their families didn't want to be tainted with the shame

27:54

of homosexuality. It's a

27:55

really sad thing about, you know,

27:58

the gay people that were locked up. In 1960,

28:01

the mayor of Dachau was asked whether there should

28:03

be a memorial to those who'd perished in

28:05

the concentration camps. And

28:07

he replied, you must remember that

28:10

many criminals and homosexuals were also

28:12

in Dachau. Do you want a memorial for such people?

28:16

And back in Britain, the Times newspaper

28:18

referred to the attacks on the night of the Long Knives,

28:22

the attacks particularly on the homosexuals, as

28:24

clearing

28:25

up. Wow. Yeah.

28:27

It was the following year in the 1935 election

28:30

that Jack McNamara, Ronnie Cartland

28:33

and Harold Nixon were elected to parliament and

28:35

provided Rob Bernays with three

28:37

new parliamentary friends. Yeah.

28:39

So now there's this nucleus of gay MPs

28:42

in the house. And of course, for these men in parliament,

28:44

they've been coming to Germany for their sexual adventures

28:46

for the last 10 years. So those people

28:49

being cleared up, as the Times put

28:51

it, were their friends or their lovers or the people

28:53

they hung out

28:54

with in the bars that they hung out

28:56

in.

28:56

So the Germany that they

28:59

knew and they got to know in over 10 years

29:01

since the war was changing. And over

29:03

the next few years, for them,

29:05

the political was becoming really personal.

29:08

They were seeing the changes firsthand.

29:11

For example, Ronnie Cartland and his sister Barbara,

29:13

they visited Germany and they were horrified by what

29:16

they saw, particularly the things that were happening to Jewish

29:18

people. They were horrified by seeing the Hitler

29:20

Youth Marching. And Barbara

29:22

was horrified by signs telling women

29:24

not to wear makeup. Imagine telling Barbara Cartland

29:26

not to wear makeup. Too far now, Hitler. Too

29:28

far. You've crossed the line. Yeah.

29:31

So Howard Nixon's friend Kurt

29:33

Wagenseil was sent to camp for

29:35

being homosexual. He survived but

29:38

told Harold things that he had seen.

29:40

Yeah. And Victor Kazileh, he

29:42

was a great tennis player and he'd met a German

29:44

tennis player called Gottfried von Kramm

29:46

while he was playing at Wimbledon. And von

29:48

Kramm was technically everything the

29:50

Nazis wanted in a poster boy. He was tall,

29:53

blonde hair, blue eyes, champion

29:54

sportsman. But he completely

29:57

refused to join the Nazis, which went against

29:59

him.

29:59

And he refused not least because he

30:02

was homosexual and his lover was a Jewish man

30:04

named Manasseh Herbst Called

30:07

himself Manfred to try and be less Jewish

30:10

and Kavla actually helped von

30:12

Kram to get Herbst out of Germany

30:14

He got him to Portugal first and then he went

30:16

on to Palestine. We don't know exactly how

30:19

probably by sending money But

30:21

we know that he you know Victor Kavla it was part

30:23

of helping him To get away and

30:25

von Kram eventually was in prison for being homosexual

30:28

and having a Jewish lover Wow

30:30

Kaslow had not been troubled

30:32

by what was happening when he went to Dachau

30:34

a couple of years before was now seeing exactly

30:37

how it Affected his friends exactly yet

30:39

for the most part these politicians

30:42

Remained unconcerned by 1935

30:44

Hitler had built up the Luftwaffe

30:47

and reintroduced conscription directly

30:50

Contravening the Treaty of Versailles,

30:52

but they still thought he was in

30:55

his rights to do that

30:56

Yeah, then in March 1936 Germany's

30:58

forces enter the Rhineland Which was an absolute

31:01

finger up to the Treaty of Versailles because

31:03

the Rhineland was a demilitarized zone Protected

31:06

by the treaty to offer protection to Belgium and France.

31:08

Yeah, and Hitler just Remilitarizes

31:11

it and do the Brits leap into action? No,

31:14

their response is still really muted and the

31:16

then Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden He

31:18

didn't think it was a move that implied any sort of hostility

31:21

Britain largely saw it as Germany just reoccupying

31:25

its own territory By

31:27

chance the first British politician to

31:29

visit the Rhineland was Jack McNamara. He went

31:31

with Guy Burgess Herbert

31:34

Sharp, he's clergyman in tow everywhere, you

31:36

know and another young homosexual

31:38

man And so they went over there for usual mix of political

31:40

reconnaissance and sexy times You

31:42

should say that boor as avoid And

31:46

their trip included a visit to Dachau

31:48

and Jack's reports of what he

31:50

saw there were very different to what Victor Casale

31:53

had said

31:53

before and

31:55

The regime had changed you see that

31:57

and terror was now a systemic part of their

32:00

operations. And they were shocked

32:02

by the amount of clergy, the amount of homosexuals

32:04

being held in segregation, torture

32:07

and humiliation were now part of daily life,

32:10

Jewish people were being paid to inform on each

32:12

other, anti-Semitic literature was

32:14

being left around for non-Jewish inmates

32:17

to read, to cause them to turn on the Jewish

32:19

inmates. And Jack had this

32:21

intrinsic belief in personal freedom. And

32:24

he wrote, I have never seen human beings

32:26

so cowed. He said one of the

32:28

most terrible things about it all is

32:31

that people without

32:32

influential friends actually disappear

32:34

in the camps. Wow. So it's all very well for Kazlatt

32:36

and Nicholson to help their friends in trouble. But what

32:39

about those without friends in high places?

32:41

Yeah. Until this point, Jack, like many conservative

32:44

MPs had been ambivalent about fascism.

32:47

But now he is clear in his feelings about it. Yeah,

32:49

absolutely. So he comes back and in July 1936,

32:52

Jack McNamara launches this attack in the comments

32:55

against anti-Semitism, what

32:58

he referred to as Jew baiting. And

33:00

in the comments, he referred to anti-Semitic behavior

33:02

as ungentlemanly and very un-English.

33:05

Onwards. People didn't like it because it was an anti-Semitic

33:07

place at that time. And he apparently

33:10

went to the Carlton Club straight after that debate

33:12

and a member of parliament spat at him, called

33:14

him a Jew lover, and he never went to the Carlton

33:17

again. So now this issue was personal for

33:19

him

33:19

too, for Jack McNamara. Incredible. And

33:21

then of course, the Spanish Civil War

33:23

starts up July 1936. I've got

33:25

an episode about that. Yeah. Pretty well

33:28

everything you mentioned in this episode. You've got an episode

33:30

about that. It is

33:32

seen by the British as a fight against communism

33:35

by much the way the government of these. And

33:37

Baldwin's government adopts a policy of

33:40

non-intervention. That's right. And

33:41

then of course, later that summer,

33:44

it's the 1936 Olympic

33:47

in my little slideshow and some pictures of the Olympic Stadium.

33:50

Now Hitler's been wooing British politicians

33:52

since he came to power

33:55

and before really, but he really

33:57

steps up his game at the Olympics. event

34:00

is a perfect opportunity to show what the Nazis

34:02

can do and

34:03

really batter up some useful idiots.

34:06

There's plenty of those. There's lavish receptions

34:08

and so on. A large number of peers and MPs

34:10

were invited to the Olympics

34:12

in a subsequent Nuremberg rally and

34:15

they lapped it up, some describing

34:17

rallies as very moving.

34:18

And Jack McNamara though

34:20

and Victor Casale were notable exceptions

34:23

when just a couple of years earlier they would have been there at the

34:25

heartbeat but something had changed

34:27

in them. So while by the end

34:29

of 1936 most MPs were more

34:31

concerned about King Edward's affair with Wallace

34:33

Simpson.

34:34

We've got an episode about that. We have

34:35

got an episode about that. There was this group

34:37

of MPs now swimming against the tide

34:40

together including Churchill and

34:42

by now Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden

34:44

is really with them. And they're

34:46

campaigning for rearmament for

34:49

Britain to prepare

34:50

for a war that might come. Yes. But

34:53

in 1937 Stanley Baldwin retired and on

34:55

the 28th of May Neville Chamberlain formed a

34:57

government. We don't actually have an episode on that. We

34:59

don't. Maybe we need to do that. There's also

35:01

something about this period of government but the Labour

35:04

Party had been wiped out in the 1935 general

35:06

election because of what Ramsay Macdonald did in 1931. And

35:10

so when you say the British government or parliament

35:12

was very tolerable to the Nazis just talk about

35:14

a massive massive number of conservative MPs.

35:17

I mean I do think government, I didn't say parliament, I

35:19

thought we were not talking about... But yeah,

35:21

Chamberlain forming a government is not good

35:24

news is it? Like so Ronnie Rob

35:26

Harold et al.

35:27

Chamberlain wasn't known for having much

35:29

in the way of friends but what

35:31

he did have was a man called Joseph

35:33

Ball. And Joseph

35:35

Ball had been an MI5 intelligence officer

35:38

and he played a key role on the Zenoviyev

35:41

letter. What

35:42

was that John? Oh, more Labour history. 1924 there

35:45

was a fake letter, purported to

35:47

have been from the senior Soviet official,

35:50

that demonstrated apparently the ties

35:52

that the Labour government would have with the Soviet

35:54

communists and it was published

35:57

in the Daily Mail of course in 24, just in time for

35:59

the general election. election and was thought

36:01

to have cost Labour that election in 1924 and

36:03

it was only subsequently proven to be

36:06

a forgery.

36:06

That's right and Joseph Ball

36:09

was the man who made sure it fell into the right hands.

36:12

So he's also thought that it was most likely

36:15

him that suggested Guy Burgess

36:17

to be Jack Nomara's personal assistant

36:20

so he might have had a hand in that as well.

36:22

Bit of a wrong one. So Neville

36:24

Chamberlain has now recruited him into Downing

36:26

Street where one of his roles was

36:29

to set up a secret back channel to Mussolini

36:31

that sort of circumvented the normal

36:33

processes of diplomacy

36:36

and he eventually ended up briefing

36:38

against Anthony Eden until he was forced to resign as

36:40

foreign secretary. Chamberlain

36:42

also asked Ball to run black ops on what

36:45

he called this group of insurgents,

36:47

the MPs that were pushing for rearmament

36:51

and he would brief against them, leak stories to

36:53

the press about them, have them followed,

36:55

tap their phones. And it was Ball

36:57

who started to refer to this group

36:59

of insurgents as the Glamour Boys, isn't

37:02

it, the title of Chris Bairns' book and

37:04

he knew what he was doing with that title didn't he?

37:06

He did. It was a really loaded

37:08

word. Glamour then didn't mean exactly what it means

37:11

now. I mean even now it's sort of associated

37:14

with women and has a feminine but

37:16

at that time it also had these sort

37:18

of tones

37:21

of witchcraft and spells

37:23

and enchantment and it was sort of referred

37:26

to female bewitchments, Glamour.

37:28

So it not only insinuated that they were effeminate but

37:31

that they somehow were

37:32

involved in the black art. This has nothing

37:34

to do with glam rock. Nothing to do with glam rock, very different.

37:36

I don't think Slade were dealing

37:38

with black magic. I don't think so. So this

37:40

group continues to rebel and abstain

37:42

from votes but they have to be careful as their

37:45

positions of reputations and personal lives

37:47

and freedoms are constantly on the

37:49

line.

37:50

So in March 1938

37:52

the Wehrmacht crossed the Austrian border

37:54

and by the end of the month Austria is incorporated

37:57

into the Reich. are

38:00

driven out, Austrian gypsies are sent

38:02

to camps, the Anschluss, which

38:04

means joining or connection, is

38:06

now complete. Who loves when you say

38:08

German words as you do? It's such a fine German

38:11

accent. When you started

38:13

doing this podcast you were just learning German.

38:15

Oh, I was just learning German. Well you've

38:17

got more and more into it. I was doing A-level. Have you? I know

38:19

you were doing more and more conversation classes and

38:22

back two years ago you were on the Anschluss. Now you've got the Anschluss.

38:25

It's got a great, great period of young stuff. I

38:27

speak German with a Dutch accent. Oh really? What's that based on? I've

38:30

discovered. Well, when I first learnt German

38:33

at school, my teacher

38:35

was from very near the Dutch border. Interesting.

38:37

And that's where I first learnt it from. And very often

38:40

I was chatting to a waiter in a restaurant

38:42

when I was in Berlin. And he

38:44

asked where I was from and I said I was from England and he just

38:46

wouldn't believe me. Wow. I asked

38:48

because English people never speak German. That's

38:50

confident you're German. Yeah, and

38:51

B, he was like, I would have said Netherlands. I said, everyone

38:54

says that. And then I asked my German

38:56

conversation partner who I speak to every week.

38:59

And she went, oh yeah, no, you do sound Dutch. I was like,

39:01

no, no, no, no. Anyway,

39:03

I love the way you say A-chuss and

39:06

Reich and all these words. But now

39:08

with the Anschluss, Britain has

39:10

to act, doesn't

39:10

it? No, John. Again, the response

39:12

was pretty muted, even though he's marched into

39:15

Austria. Chamberlain said

39:17

that the new Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax,

39:20

had given his German counterpart

39:22

a grave warning. And I think

39:24

at this point it feels like they're like

39:26

sort of ineffective parents just going, now,

39:28

come on, Hitler, I'm going to count to 10 and just

39:31

stop it. And they're now on

39:33

like nine and a

39:34

quarter. I mean it. I'm nearly

39:36

there. Don't make me. Don't make me. They're

39:38

not actually issuing any sort of... Right.

39:41

In fact, they've continued to find ways to praise

39:43

Hitler, didn't they? And they said that terms of the Treaty with

39:45

regards to Austria were irrational anyway.

39:48

Yes,

39:48

they said that if he invaded Czechoslovakia,

39:51

a third of the Czechs would desert to Germany anyway.

39:54

So it seemed that Chamberlain and Ball's

39:56

commitment to a piece was pretty fixed.

39:59

Let's take another break.

39:59

There, I just don't see what happens when

40:02

we come back. Yes. Yes.

40:04

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

40:07

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay.

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40:40

all over. The vibes are just... ...a magnolence.

40:43

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40:45

one goal. I want

40:47

to find my position so badly. True

40:50

love in marriage starts here.

40:53

What someone's bound to make...

40:54

AHHH! ...waves.

40:56

Oh my God, what's happening?

40:58

Can you get the medic to the beach please? Vibes

41:00

just... ...equated. Vax

41:02

we're in paradise. Premieres Thursday, 9-8c on ABC. And

41:06

stream on Hulu.

41:09

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Getting

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41:59

As you may know... We Are History is

42:01

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42:03

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42:06

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42:19

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42:23

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42:26

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42:31

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that'll get you there.

42:53

Welcome back we are in 1938 and

42:56

Hitler is literally pushing boundaries

42:58

in Germany where the British government sort

43:00

of rolls their eyes and goes well boys

43:03

will be boys.

43:04

Yes except for this core

43:06

of insurgents who are really pushing that Britain

43:08

should get ready for war and be ready to

43:10

honor their responsibilities as part of a League

43:12

of Nations. These opponents of appeasement

43:15

now start to organize. There's about two dozen

43:17

of them and with nearly a third

43:20

of them what Chris Bryan in his book calls queer

43:22

or nearly queer. And many of them

43:24

have first-hand experience of

43:25

the atrocities that are happening in Germany from having spent

43:28

so much time visiting there. That's what's so interesting about this

43:30

whole story actually is because they were gay they were attracted

43:32

to the German life and they were the first to

43:34

see the victims of Hitler and sort of had

43:36

their eyes opened earlier than the rest of the British

43:38

people. On the 14th of September

43:41

Hitler starts amassing troops on the Czech border

43:43

and Chamberlain announces he would pay him a

43:46

visit. Let he shit himself. Thank you for

43:48

that image Angela. Chamberlain was absolutely

43:50

convinced he could do business with Hitler about three

43:52

hours of meetings produced nothing of substance.

43:55

Chamberlain then meets with French Prime Minister de

43:57

Lattier and they propose that the Czech president

43:59

should surrender of the Sudetenland in

44:01

exchange for a guarantee of territorial

44:04

independence in the rest of Czechoslovakia.

44:07

Not going to end well, Angela. Chamberlain

44:09

goes back to Hitler, but he changes his demands,

44:12

saying Czechoslovakia should be parceled out

44:14

between Germany, Hungary and Poland. Hitler

44:17

threatens to mobilise in Czechoslovakia. It's not

44:19

going well, it's just not going well. No.

44:22

So in London, the mood is somber

44:25

now. There's air raid notices going up

44:27

alongside notices about where to buy gas masks

44:29

and trenches are being dug in parks. So

44:32

the people are sensing

44:34

something bad

44:35

is coming.

44:36

And Chamberlain does this speech in Parliament, detailing

44:39

exactly what's happened over the past few months. And

44:42

during the speech, a note arrives

44:44

on foreign office paper, and

44:46

it has an invite on it from Hitler

44:49

to meet with Chamberlain the

44:51

following morning along with Mussolini

44:53

and Deladea of France. Well, that's a coincidence.

44:55

That's my dream dinner party, clean up Angela.

44:59

Well, there you go. Deladea, you sit next to Benito. You

45:04

have to go veggie because I've often just

45:06

did. Everyone

45:09

in the chamber except the glamour

45:11

boys rise to their feet

45:13

and cheer. I think this is brilliant. He's going to go

45:15

and he's going to sort it out. Yes. Well, so at 1.30 next

45:18

morning, Hitler, Chamberlain and Deladea agree

45:20

a proposal that ceded the Sudeten

45:22

land to Germany at 10 o'clock on

45:24

the sole promise that he would go

45:27

no further. Pinky promise. Yes.

45:29

At the last minute of this meeting, Chamberlain

45:31

goes back to Hitler and asked him to sign an

45:34

Anglo-German agreement. It was three

45:36

paragraphs that were, quote,

45:38

symbolic of the desire of our two peoples

45:41

never to go to war again. Hitler

45:43

nonchalantly signs it. John,

45:45

I feel like you might be able to do an impression here of what happens

45:47

next. I feel like you've got

45:48

this in your locker. I have in my hand a

45:50

piece of paper or some shit. I

45:54

bet it wasn't even the same piece of paper. I just bet he just took his

45:56

milk bill out of his pocket. Yeah,

46:00

it's a famous bit of papery wave when he got off the plane

46:02

and became from the balcony of Buckingham Palace

46:04

to a secured peace for our time. Irony

46:07

flashing up here. Absolutely. I

46:09

feel like the QI alarm going off.

46:13

And the jubilation. There

46:14

are people calling for a Chamberlain day.

46:16

He's the hero, except for

46:18

the insurgents who just remained depressed and infuriated.

46:22

Marnie Cartland told the press exactly what he

46:24

thought of what Chamberlain had done.

46:27

How Nicholson referred to it as the Munich

46:29

capitulation. Yeah, church was jeered, wasn't

46:31

it? When he said to the house, we have sustained a total

46:33

and unmitigated defeat to which

46:36

Nancy Asta screamed, nonsense.

46:38

I thought she said it like that. Nonsense. She said

46:40

it like that. Yeah. But Joseph

46:43

Ball put his dirty tricks machine to work to shut

46:45

them up. The press attacked them. They received threats.

46:48

And for obvious reasons, these queer and nearly queer

46:50

homosexual, however

46:51

you want to describe them, MPs feared

46:54

rocking the boat too much. Yes, of course. So this

46:56

is until the 9th and 10th of November 1938,

46:59

which became known as Kristallnacht,

47:02

when thugs ran them up through Germany and Austria,

47:04

smashing windows of Jewish businesses then, murdering

47:07

Jewish people, all supposedly

47:10

retaliation for the murder of a German diplomat

47:12

by a Polish Jewish teenager. Yeah.

47:14

These actions even managed to shock to The Times

47:16

newspaper who previously praised Hitler's

47:18

efforts like this as clearing up. So

47:22

for the glamour boys, the protection of

47:24

Jewish people was now a moral imperative.

47:27

Yes. They launched a weekly broadsheet

47:29

called the Whitehall News out

47:31

of offices in Kensington with headlines like,

47:34

no more surrender to Hitler and Mussolini

47:36

and wake up Britain. Our only hope of

47:38

national salvation is to arm, arm,

47:41

arm. Yes. And the

47:42

home secretary called them panic mongers,

47:44

basically Project Fear. But on 16th of

47:47

March, Hitler completed his takeover of

47:49

Czechoslovakia as predicted by the

47:51

panic mongering glamour boy group.

47:54

Yet they were still under attack in the comments from

47:56

Chamberlain loyalists and closet Nazi

47:59

supporters. which there were

48:00

quite a number of. Yeah.

48:03

But they continued to meet in secret with

48:05

enhanced security, despite having been

48:07

labelled warmongers. And despite events

48:09

progressing as they did,

48:11

in 1939 Hitler

48:13

was starting to make demands that Danzig, or

48:15

Gdansk as we know it, which had been made

48:18

a semi-autonomous free city by the

48:20

Treaty of Versailles, be restored to

48:22

Germany. Yes. Chamberlain

48:24

at this point wants to call a summer recess

48:26

in Parliament until October.

48:29

But in the current climate, and with

48:31

Hitler's threats in the air, many, including

48:33

the insurgents, obviously felt this was really inappropriate.

48:36

After all, it was in the summer the previous year that Hitler

48:38

made his moves on Czechoslovakia. What

48:40

was to stop him doing the same to Poland? And

48:43

they feared that Chamberlain would head off to Munich

48:45

and try and appease him again. A motion was tabled

48:47

by the opposition liberals to bring the return of Parliament

48:50

after the summer recess forward to the 21st of August.

48:53

Yeah. There's this huge debate, quite a famous

48:55

debate, and it got quite fierce,

48:57

and Chamberlain really went on the offensive

49:00

and started to show himself up for who he really

49:02

was, I think. And the government rebels,

49:05

they knew that now wasn't the time for Chamberlain to

49:07

be stirring up animosity with the opposition.

49:10

If war is coming, he needs to foster unity

49:12

in the house.

49:12

Ronnie Carland was particularly

49:15

incensed, wasn't he, after a conversation with Churchill

49:17

and the gents. He went back into the house,

49:19

determined to speak his mind, and

49:21

when called to speak he said that Chamberlain's speech

49:24

had deeply disturbed. Yeah, this is a really

49:26

brave act from Ronnie Carland,

49:28

what he does in this

49:29

session. He said in his speech,

49:31

quite prophetically, we are in the situation

49:33

that within a month we may be going to fight

49:36

and we may be going to die, to which

49:38

there was laughter.

49:38

And he responded,

49:40

it's all

49:41

very well honourable gentlemen laughing. Very

49:43

much he's in government, you know, on the same benches.

49:46

There are thousands of young men at the moment in

49:48

training camps and giving up their holiday,

49:51

and the least we can do here, if

49:53

we're not going to meet together from time to time and

49:55

keep parliament in session, is to show that

49:57

we have immense faith in this democratic institution.

50:00

And

50:00

he silenced them. In all his

50:02

speech was 12 minutes long but it hit home. And

50:05

Church will thump him on the back saying, well done my boy,

50:07

well done. A little bit patronising, Churchill, but fine.

50:10

The government still went through though. Ronnie

50:12

Cartland knew that the Chief Whip

50:14

could drive anything through. He also knew

50:17

that he had ruined his political future. Despite

50:20

having been at the top of the list of MPs destined to

50:22

be a future home or foreign secretary. Yeah,

50:25

he was only in his 20s at this point to stand

50:27

up, to chamber in, as the new boy in the

50:29

house, was pretty brave.

50:30

Especially with his background,

50:33

really opening himself up to exposure. Within

50:37

days there were calls from Ronnie to be expelled from

50:39

Parliament, be hanged as a traitor.

50:43

So the summer recess starts and the glamour

50:45

boys start spending a pretty normal summer doing what

50:47

they do with family, parties, so

50:49

on. Ronnie spent a lot of time with his family,

50:51

with Barbara. And he also took

50:53

part in army training. They wanted

50:56

to put their money where their mouth was. I think these people that

50:58

were pro-rearmament. And

51:01

he just awaited his parliamentary fate.

51:03

And 28th of August Hitler signed

51:05

a non-aggression pact with Russia. Two

51:07

days later Parliament was summoned. Turns

51:10

out the whole recess debate was a massive

51:12

waste of time. Yeah, they got recalled anyway. Ronnie

51:16

wrote actually that when the house gathered again, the 500

51:18

or so MPs that were present were, quote,

51:21

more silent than usual, more serious,

51:24

but without any sign of fear. Chamberlain's

51:27

looking pretty grave announces the government's

51:29

intention to take an emergency powers

51:31

bill through Parliament and told

51:33

the house that the international

51:35

position has steadily deteriorated until

51:38

today we find ourselves confronted with

51:40

the imminent peril of war. And

51:42

the glamour boys all stood up and shouted, TOLD

51:44

YOU! No, no, they didn't. They bit

51:47

their tongues and he did Chamberlain's calls

51:49

for unity. They thought that was the more sensible option.

51:52

On 31st of August, the government began to evacuate

51:54

three million women and children

51:56

from areas of Kent and southeast London that

51:59

they thought most had really been. risk from air attack.

52:01

Yeah, for Jack Mark Nomaro, who was an officer in

52:03

the London Irish Rifles, it all became very real.

52:05

Territorial units are now being fully incorporated

52:08

into the General Army. Things were moving.

52:11

Then,

52:11

1st of September 1939, you probably don't know anything

52:14

about this, but Hitler invaded Poland.

52:16

Just as the Glauber boys at protected city would. I'm

52:18

not sure they said he'd do on the 1st of September. Not on

52:20

that day, but they knew that this was coming. Yeah,

52:23

yeah. Parliament was summoned again. Chamberlain

52:26

said he had issued an ultimatum

52:28

to the German government requiring assurances

52:30

that they promptly withdraw their forces

52:33

from Polish territory.

52:34

Here he goes again. Now, I mean it Hitler.

52:36

When I get to 10, it's going to be trouble. 9 and 6

52:38

eights, 9 and 7 eights.

52:40

He's just not giving him

52:42

a proper... Insurgents were furious

52:44

at this delay to declare war. When

52:47

Parliament was called again the next day,

52:49

they all felt sure that this was it.

52:51

But still, Chamberlain refused to give a time

52:54

limit to the ultimatum. Every Labour leader

52:56

asked for Greenwood. He stands up

52:58

to give a speech in Parliament.

53:00

It was incredible what happens

53:02

because there's this wave of support, not just on the opposition

53:04

benches, but from the government benches, too.

53:07

Finally, they're just so fed up with Neville

53:09

Chamberlain not taking action. They were

53:11

clearly exasperated with the leadership. This

53:13

voice that we think might be Bob Boothby.

53:16

Nobody could quite agree who it was. But a

53:18

voice from the government benches shouted,

53:21

you speak for England. After

53:23

the opposition deputy who stood

53:26

up, and then a whole chamber starts ringing with cries

53:28

of speak for England.

53:31

Arthur Greenwood gives a speech that people wanted

53:33

to hear, plain speaking to the point.

53:36

Even the most loyal Chamberlain supporters

53:38

are cheering him.

53:40

Outside Parliament, there were blackout regulations

53:42

were being enforced, there were sandbags, but

53:44

it all seemed inevitable. The reasons

53:47

for this prevaricating seemed not to make

53:49

sense anymore. War was coming.

53:51

He'd set himself on a path chamber,

53:53

he took it slow to realise what was happening. Afterwards,

53:56

the cabinet forced Chamberlain to hold a cabinet

53:58

meeting. I bet they did. that if

54:00

he didn't declare war, the next time

54:02

the House sat, he would be removed from office.

54:05

The next morning, the papers reported

54:07

the ultimatum that Chamberlain gave in

54:09

a final note to the German

54:12

government that unless they withdraw

54:14

from Poland by 11am on Sunday 3rd

54:17

September, a state of war would

54:19

exist between the two countries.

54:21

Yes, no one has heard that famous radio broadcast

54:23

by Chamberlain, but the bit that you may not always

54:26

hear is a bit immediately afterwards, where he

54:28

starts to go, you will realise how bitter

54:30

disappointment this is for me. And it's like,

54:32

it's not about you mate, you're not going off to the bloody

54:35

northern prand to be outflanked by the Nazis.

54:38

Even then, he was making it all about

54:40

himself. Anyway, the glamour boys,

54:43

those not with their respective battalions,

54:45

gathered together on Sunday morning to

54:47

listen to Chamberlain's declaration

54:49

of war.

54:50

And that was that. World War II had started.

54:52

The glamour boys thought it was inevitable

54:54

and it was. Let's finish up by

54:56

seeing what our core group of glamour boys

54:59

did in the war. Yeah, it makes a pretty sad

55:01

reading, I'm afraid. These guys that

55:03

have stood up for what they knew

55:06

was coming. Ronnie Cartland,

55:08

he joined the Royal Artillery. He went off

55:10

as part of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940.

55:14

He was in charge of anti-tank armoury at

55:16

Cassel, a little fortress town between

55:18

Calais and Dunkirk. And his

55:20

job was to keep the Germans back so more people could be evacuated.

55:23

And one night when he was setting off back to

55:25

Dunkirk, he was captured by

55:26

Germans and shot in the head.

55:28

He was tipped to the top politically. Yeah.

55:31

Well, Bernays had a civilian

55:33

job at first, then enlisted on ordinary

55:35

guard duty. He then went on

55:37

to do morale boosting lectures for troops and

55:39

on a trip to Greece, his plane was

55:42

lost somewhere over the Adriatic. Yep.

55:43

Cassel became a liaison officer

55:46

with the Free Poles. And he travelled

55:48

around the world visiting troops and working with them.

55:50

And he was killed when his aircraft

55:51

tried to take off in Gibraltar and crashed.

55:54

And Jack McNamara was killed in Italy when

55:56

visiting a battalion of the first London Irish

55:58

regiment. Yeah.

55:59

So it's such a fascinating story. Please

56:02

do read the book because there's so much more to it. And

56:04

I wanted to cover it because it really shows how these

56:07

people play such a key part in

56:09

what happened and opposing appeasement,

56:12

yet no one knows their names really

56:14

or what they did. And especially because

56:17

they all died in action

56:19

pretty much, most of them did. I think

56:21

a couple of them, Harold Nicholson survived and a couple

56:23

of others, but most of them, they

56:25

were just written out of that history because,

56:28

you know, their homosexuality was an important

56:30

factor in the story. The fact that that's why they were

56:32

going to Germany, and why

56:35

they were so alert. So it was just sort of written out.

56:37

Yes. That's fascinating. Well, thank you, Chris

56:39

Bryant for that. Yeah, I did. I listened to an interview

56:41

with Chris Bryant actually about the book, and he's sort of motivations

56:44

for writing it. And he said something really interesting. He said how

56:46

this story really goes against

56:48

that common stereotype of gay men as being

56:51

livid cowards and effeminate and weak.

56:54

You know, that's the sort of how gay men are portrayed. But these

56:56

men were fighters. They stood up. On

56:59

the spur of the moment, they did really brave things,

57:02

be it that speech in Parliament, be it going

57:04

to fight in the war. They went to fight

57:06

and many of them died doing so. So, you know,

57:09

yet their stories

57:09

aren't forgotten. Well,

57:12

thank you, Angela. That was really interesting. And

57:15

I'll be reading Chris's book and another

57:18

fascinating episode from the bookshelves

57:20

of Angela Barnes. We'll be back next week

57:23

with another episode of We Are History.

57:25

Yeah, thanks

57:26

for listening. As always, please

57:28

do go to our... I keep

57:30

plugging the Twitter and that. We're a bit... We're

57:33

still on there occasionally. Join

57:35

the Patreon if you'd like extra bits and bobs.

57:38

Give us some money. Patreon.com

57:40

slash We Are History. Go to We

57:42

Are History on Instagram, because I think

57:45

that's more active than the Twitter. And

57:48

while I'm here, I want to do a little plug, John, because

57:50

I am on tour. Oh, that's a good show. With

57:52

my comedy show, Hot Mess. It's John's scene.

57:54

It's great. He saw an early preview

57:56

and then you saw the final version. Great. Everyone

57:58

go and see it. Thank you. I am... like pinching

58:00

him really hard to make him say that.

58:03

There are tickets available from my website

58:05

angelabarnescomedy.co.uk. I'm

58:07

on the road till the end of November,

58:10

so do come and join me. And

58:12

it's not about history. No,

58:14

but it's historical. It's historical. It's

58:17

historic comedy. Yes, there you go. Historic

58:19

comedy. Groundbreaking. We'll be back

58:21

next week, guys. Thank you for listening. Bye.

58:30

We Are History is written and presented

58:32

by Angela Barnes and Dono Farrell, with

58:34

audio production by Lee Simon-Williams. The

58:37

lead producer is Anne-Marie Luce and the group

58:39

editor is Andrew Harrison. With artwork

58:41

by James Parrott, We Are History is

58:43

a Podmasters production.

58:52

Hi, I'm Steve Richards, the presenter of

58:54

the twice-weekly podcast Rock and Roll

58:57

Politics based on a live show

58:59

I do. Each week we gather

59:01

in one podcast to make sense of the

59:04

madness that seems to be erupting around

59:06

British politics all the time, and in

59:09

the second we have a conversation with someone

59:11

in politics or the media. And

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together we try and make

59:16

sense of it all. So do

59:18

join us. Please subscribe. Rock

59:20

and Roll Politics with me, Steve

59:22

Richards.

59:31

Sick of hearing the same old political squabbling

59:33

on the radio every single morning? Start

59:35

your day in a more stimulating way with The Bunker,

59:38

your need-to-know news and politics podcast from

59:40

the makers of Oh God What Now? Every

59:42

morning we bring you explainers, interviews, new

59:45

angles and under-reported stories from

59:47

across the world of current affairs, all in

59:49

20 minutes to fit your commute. That's The

59:51

Bunker with me, Andrew Harrison, and some

59:54

of your favourite guests and presenters. Subscribe

59:56

and get it every day, wherever you get your podcasts.

59:58

Thank you.