John Amery - Britain's forgotten traitor.

 

John Amery

Most of us have heard of William Joyce who was better known as Lord Haw, Haw. Joyce, an American citizen with Irish parents, had been one of Oswald Moseley's fascist 'Blackshirts'. Joyce had lived in Ireland but seems to have got out of the country in a hurry, when he was suspected of being an informant for the Black & Tans. Joyce was dubbed Lord Haw, Haw, by the English because he made propaganda broadcast for the Nazis from Germany, which always began with "Germany Calling." William Joyce was captured by the British and tried for treason, convicted and hanged, even though he was an American citizen who owed no loyalty to Britain or its King.

Fewer people in Britain will have heard of another traitor called John Amery. He also made propaganda broadcast from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. I first heard of John Amery when I saw an interview with the famous English journalist Alan Whicker. He had been in Italy when Italian partisans captured Amery. It seems that Amery had been handed to the British and was grateful to be in British custody as he thought he was about to be shot by the partisans. He appears not to have fully appreciated the seriousness of the situation that he was in. He seems to have thought that his father would get him off the hook. John Amery was the son of the Conservative MP, Leopold Amery and the brother of the Conservative MP Julian Amery. His mother was of Hungarian Jewish heritage, which would have made Amery a Jew in Nazi Germany. As a youth, Amery had been at Harrow public school. After a number of failed business ventures that left him in debt, he fled abroad, married a prostitute and also worked himself, as a male prostitute.

I have just been reading the Wikipedia entry for Julian Amery who was a close friend of Margaret Thatcher's and I can find no mention of his treacherous brother, who betrayed his country. John Amery was charged with eight counts of high treason and eventually pleaded guilty. Before his trial, Leo Amery had tried to use his political influence as a member of Churchill's cabinet to save his son. He had even written to the King hoping that he would intervene. But it was all to no avail. The family tried to argue that John Amery had become a Spanish citizen when he'd been in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and therefore could not be tried for treason. But the legal documentation substantiating this could not be found or was found to be invalid. He was hanged in December 1945 by Albert Pierrepoint. Just before his execution, he supposed to have said, "I've always wanted to meet you Mr Pierrepoint, but not under these circumstances."