Ideologues, opportunists, or plain old traitors,
this is the unbelievable story of the British and Dominion soldiers who WILLINGLY turned their backs
on King and country to join the Waffen-SS during the Second World War. In this video,
we’re unmasking the commonwealth traitors who fought in the British Free Corps.
The man who came up with the idea of the British Free Corps was British fascist
John Amery. As the son of a prominent conservative politician and, later,
Secretary of State for India and Burma, Amery was born into the lap of luxury. Despising standing in
his father’s long shadow, Amery struck out into the world alone. After several failed
business ventures, he was hard up and looking for someone to blame. Such a privileged upbringing had
given him a hatred of communism, so he looked elsewhere, embracing German fascist ideals.
The war was the best thing Amery could have hoped for,
and he eagerly joined a fascist group in France, staying there for several years.
In 1942, he was invited to Germany by several prominent Nazis and suggested forming a British
legion to fight the Soviets in the East. Hitler and the Nazi officials were impressed and ran
with the idea. They had had success with many other foreign legions, so why not a British one
It might seem strange in hindsight, but recruiting Brits to fight
for fascism wasn’t as crazy as you’d think. Since 1932, the British Union of Fascists
had been spreading a Nazi-style message of antisemitism and, in 1934, reached 40,000 members.
Violence by the party’s paramilitaries shocked Britain, and membership dropped off as war loomed.
By 1942, the BUF was virtually non-existent,
but its initial success convinced the Nazis they had plenty of British sympathizers.
The Nazis immediate goal was to gather 1,500 volunteers from POW camps into a newly formed
Legion of St George. The SS posted propaganda across POW camps to convince captured British
soldiers to join. This was pretty unsuccessful, and Amery lost interest in the unit after constant
heckling by crowds of patriotic POWs. In the end, there were 54 recruits for the British
Free Corps, but the unit never had more than 27 members at one time.
Even though the ideas-man behind the BFC wanted an excuse to fight communists, the unit spent most
of its time doing propaganda work. The BFC was kitted out in SS uniforms and spent considerable
time in Paris and Berlin. The traitors were also paid a wage and taken to events to be shown off.
Compared to the German soldiers crawling through Russian mud, the BFC had a luxurious lifestyle.
But some of the more hardcore fascists wanted a chance to test their mettle.
After lobbying their SS commander, the BFC was re-designated a combat unit on January first,
1944. They then began training, but as most of the men didn’t speak German, it took ages. After a
year and three months of training across Germany, the BFC was ready for combat on March 8th, 1945.
Correctly guessing the Soviets didn’t like traitors,
nearly half the BFC *ran off* the night they were due to leave for the front.
Turns out the Germans didn’t like traitors either, as none of the SS commanders trusted
the BFC, who were now below platoon strength because of desertions, enough to let them fight.
The men were assigned as medical orderlies and truck drivers well behind German lines. By April,
Germany’s situation was looking hopeless, so the last men of the British Free Corps
donned civilian clothes and crossed Allied lines — pretending to be escaped POWs.
Unbeknownst to them, the British intelligence service Mi-5 had been collecting information on
the traitors since the BFC was established. At the end of the war, all men known to have been a part
of the BFC were pulled in for questioning. In some cases, this led to trials with charges of treason.
But most were let off lightly because they weren’t really fascists at all...
So who were the men who gave up good ol’ roast beef for sausage and sauerkraut?
They weren’t exactly a devious bunch of renegades. In fact, most of them
couldn’t care less about politics. What they *did* care about was food, booze, and women.
Let’s start with Private Charles Munns. Munns was a Scotsman of the Durham Light Infantry,
taken prisoner during the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force from France in 1940.
Imprisoned in occupied Danzig, Munns had been assigned to a working party,
giving him a chance to travel outside the camp. He must’ve had a good time
because it wasn’t long before he had a pregnant girlfriend by the name of Gertrud Schroeder.
The Gestapo was furious and came after him. Guessing he was soon to be in a spot of bother,
Munns joined the BFC to escape justice. He stayed with the BFC until there was a chance
he would have to fight, at which point he returned to Danzig to be with Gertrud.
Aside from soldiers, civilian merchant seamen were recruited into the BFC too. One of them
was Kenneth Berry, a 14-year-old boy who had lied about his age to join the Merchant Navy in 1939.
Captured after surviving the sinking of his ship by a commerce raider, Berry decided to
join the BFC after Amery told him it was a good idea. Berry was made a poster-boy for the BFC and
sent to recruit more members from a POW camp called Milag. He met a British Captain there,
who told Berry that joining the BFC had, in fact, been a bad idea. This was enough to convince the
lad, who deserted when his unit was sent to the front. After the war, Berry was sentenced to
hard labour for his actions, but for only nine months. He was described by the prosecutor as
"a young fool who did not know what he was doing" and "an irresponsible youth who was easily led."
Several Australians also served in the BFC. One of them was the Merchant Navy Seaman Ron Barker,
from Goulburn, New South Wales. Barker wasn’t much of an ideological renegade either.
He was described by his squad leader as “A man of very inferior intelligence.” Recruited from
a poorly-supplied POW camp, it quickly became clear that Barker had only joined the BFC
to get more food, alcohol, free cigarettes, and a chance at hooking up with German women.
His Mi-5 file states: “Finally realizing that the British Free Corps was going to have to fight,
Barker lost all of his former enthusiasm for anti-Communism and made himself ill
by smoking aspirins; he was sent back to Berlin by a gullible medical officer.”
On April 9th, 1945, after a miraculous recovery, Barker ran off. The unit never saw him again.
British Royal Northumberland Fusilier Thomas Perkins was let off by the British government
for his involvement with the BFC due to acts of sabotage. The thing is, it’s unclear whether
Perkins actually meant to sabotage his unit, or whether he was looking out for number one.
Perkins always seemed to have more cash than the other members of the unit, especially when things
went missing. He claimed to have been a prison guard before the war, but his commander noted,
“His general character and behaviour led me to believe that his knowledge of prisons
was very probably from the inside rather than the outside of a cell.” Perkins was caught stealing
many times, on one occasion an officer’s pistol during a party, selling it to a foreign worker.
Not all the men of the BFC were so selfish, however. The South African Private Pieter
Labuschagne probably tried his best, but he wasn’t a good soldier. No, Labuschagne was such
a terrible soldier that he reportedly sabotaged the unit’s effectiveness by his mere presence,
and was deemed to be so useless the SS refused to take him anywhere. When put on trial
after the war, the judge found Labuschagne guilty of treason and fined him 50 pounds.
While some men held genuine fascist or anti-semitic views,
these five men are representative of the majority who joined the BFC.
The BFC was a disaster for the Nazis. Their propaganda efforts were continually undermined
by the men’s drunken antics and pervasive interest in the local women. As a combat unit, the BFC lost
nearly two-thirds of its strength to desertions and wasn’t even slightly trusted by SS commanders.
The founder, John Amery, was one of the few Englishmen in Germany who
genuinely believed in the fascist cause, but he never joined the unit himself.
By 1945, Amery had gone to Italy and joined a fascist, pro-Mussolini organisation called the
Muti Legion. He was captured on April 25th by partisans and handed over to the Allies.
Amery pleaded guilty to treason, and his trial lasted a total of eight minutes.
The judge announced: “... [Y]our fellow countrymen ... called you a traitor and you heard them;
but in spite of that you continued in that course. You now stand a self-confessed
traitor to your King and country, and you have forfeited your right to live.”
Amery was hanged less than three weeks later. The rest of the men of the BFC were dealt with
quickly and quietly, as the story of British and Dominion men willingly joining the SS
was not one the British government wanted the public to hear.
THAT was the zany story of the British Free Corps and the men who turned their back on the King for
food, cigarettes, booze, and women. But what do YOU think? Why couldn’t the SS get as many British
volunteers as they could Belgian or French? How much equipment do YOU think Perkins stole and sold
off? How bad must you be to sabotage a unit from your presence alone? Let us know in the comments!