Irish in WW2 fighting for Germans ?

Delancey

An acquaintance claimed to me recently that during the Second World War there were a number of Irishmen serving in the German military for no reason other than to fight the British.
I'm very skeptical about this claim that an ' Irish Unit ' served in the Wehrmacht - anyone else ever heard about this ??

R.Dub.Fusilier

i have read in a couple of books about irish men fighting for the German in WW2, the most well know of these would be James Brady who fought in the Waffen SS in eastern europe and was one of Otto Skorzenys men. also read that there was some Dirlewanger and British Free Corps.

P.S i expect that this will be disputed by others.

FiSe

There's even a book from one of the Irish guys who found themselves in the WH - or was it LW? - manning AA half track.
He's been sent to get education to Germany and during his time at the college war broke out and he's been drafted, as a volksdeutsche, to the HJ and latter to the WH/LW.
Not that he would want to fight 'em British, but because it just happened that way.
Can't remember the name of that book, though, some others will, I believe.

Anyway, I doubt that there was some en masse exodus from Ireland to the mainland Europe to continue the war of Independence in German uniform. Those handfull of 'volunteers' were pure chancers and it had nothing to do with fighting the Brits, in my limited view .

Border-Rat

Aside from the IRA's 'arrangment', another one was a man free'd from a Channel Islands prison who fought with the Germans.

Manach

From wiki on James Brady.

Fuinseog

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

i have read in a couple of books about irish men fighting for the German in WW2, the most well know of these would be James Brady who fought in the Waffen SS in eastern europe and was one of Otto Skorzenys men. also read that there was some Dirlewanger and British Free Corps.

P.S i expect that this will be disputed by others.

James Brady was supposedly from Roscommon, but nobody there knew him, so perhaps this was an alias.

There was also a Frank Stringer from county Meath and a John Codd from Dublin.

Fuinseog

Delancey wrote: »

An acquaintance claimed to me recently that during the Second World War there were a number of Irishmen serving in the German military for no reason other than to fight the British.
I'm very skeptical about this claim that an ' Irish Unit ' served in the Wehrmacht - anyone else ever heard about this ??

some Brits joined up to fight communism. The Irish would have joined for similar reasons, not to fight the Brits.

Try reading The Shamrock and the Swastika or
Hitlers Irish Secrets

ejmaztec

Manach wrote: »

From wiki on James Brady.

He surrendered to the British Army in 1946 and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He was released in 1950 and returned to Ireland

I wonder what he was supposed to have done to get sentenced to 15 years?

R.Dub.Fusilier

Fuinseog wrote: »

James Brady was supposedly from Roscommon, but nobody there knew him, so perhaps this was an alias.

There was also a Frank Stringer from county Meath and a John Codd from Dublin.

i have a copy of bradys interview with british military after the war knocking around somewhere.

OS119

ejmaztec wrote: »

I wonder what he was supposed to have done to get sentenced to 15 years?

one assumes it would be some variation of Treason - an NZ citizen, Roy Courlander, who also ended up a prisoner of the Germans and who got involved, however reluctantly or otherwise, was also eventually sentanced to 15 years and served 5.

i don't believe there was ever a stream of people heading off to Germany to fight da' Brits, just a few the unhinged, some of the very unlucky, and a small number of the opportunistic.

most of those - both Brits and Irish - who got involved with the Nazi's seem to have spent their time on endless training courses, flitting between organisations, and avoiding any actual deployment or fighting like the plague.

i may despise such people for the side they 'ended up on', but i don't doubt that when they got to Berlin they felt a significant 'or else' whether the Germans said it or not - i imagine that wartime Nazi Germany was a pretty scary place to be, and that faced with that environment it would be easy to persuade yourself of the dangers of not co-operating.

Fuinseog

ejmaztec wrote: »

I wonder what he was supposed to have done to get sentenced to 15 years?

he was a serving member of the British army when he joined the German army. most armies do not look kindly upon turncoats.

Fuinseog

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

i have a copy of bradys interview with british military after the war knocking around somewhere.

so what became of Brady after 1950? What was the Roscommon connection?

Delancey

Fuinseog wrote: »

he was a serving member of the British army when he joined the German army. most armies do not look kindly upon turncoats.

I should think he would be grateful he only got 15 years and didn't find himself in front of a Firing Squad.

R.Dub.Fusilier

Fuinseog wrote: »

so what became of Brady after 1950? What was the Roscommon connection?

i'm not an expert on the subject but from what i remember he was sentenced to 12 years , i think, but a judge who was from ulster and a unionist. there is a good account of his military life in "Hitlers Englishmen" if you ever come across it. "Irish Secrets" by Hull gives a good account of the whole subject ,spies and such, in WW2.

Fuinseog

Delancey wrote: »

I should think he would be grateful he only got 15 years and didn't find himself in front of a Firing Squad.

he was not a big fish like John Amery. Most of the Brits who served got off with short prison sentences.

Fuinseog

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

i'm not an expert on the subject but from what i remember he was sentenced to 12 years , i think, but a judge who was from ulster and a unionist. there is a good account of his military life in "Hitlers Englishmen" if you ever come across it. "Irish Secrets" by Hull gives a good account of the whole subject ,spies and such, in WW2.

I have tried to research Brady and the others, but the trail runs dry after 1950. Did they settle here? he seems to have kept a very low profile, unlike others such as Eric Pleasants in Hitler's Bastard.
G2 investigated Brady's Roscommon origins and the locals there had never heard of him.

OS119

Fuinseog wrote: »

he was not a big fish like John Amery. Most of the Brits who served got off with short prison sentences.

yeah, there - surprisingly perhaps - seems to been a diferentiation between the 'nasties' and the useful (or not) idiots.

one of the idiots - forget which one - became a successful businessman in the UK. perhaps people just wanted to forget and get on their lives?

ejmaztec

Fuinseog wrote: »

he was a serving member of the British army when he joined the German army. most armies do not look kindly upon turncoats.

He could have ditched his German uniform and wriggled out of the situation, he being primarily a POW. Perhaps he didn't have time to think?

OS119

ejmaztec wrote: »

He could have ditched his German uniform and wriggled out of the situation, he being primarily a POW. Perhaps he didn't have time to think?

if we're talking about Brady he wasn't arrested in uniform, he surrendered in 1946 to British troops in Germany - presumably he'd spent the best part of a year in hiding and making his way from Berlin, in the Soviet sector, to Ireland (or indeed to anywhere but the Soviet sector), and just gave up.

Germany in 1946 would not have been a fun place to be - vast numbers of refugees, not a lot of food, and crawling with Allied troops who may or may not have been looking for him - he may well have decided that surrender was better than starvation, or indeed that he could persuade the BA that he'd screwed up the German attempts to use POW's as agents, as others undoubtedly did.

Delancey

I suppose that its possible that one reason the Brits who served in the German military got off relatively lightly was a perception that they were motivated by real conviction.
Many people throughout Europe were of the view that communism was the greatest evil facing the world and it had to be stopped at all costs , by 1946 the great alliance was rapidly unravelling and this may have had a bearing on their sentences.
Crucially the British ' Freikorps ' never bore arms against the British Army and that may well have saved them.

It would seem from the replies that the ' Irish Unit ' never existed which is no real surprise , just a few strange characters.

ejmaztec

OS119 wrote: »

if we're talking about Brady he wasn't arrested in uniform, he surrendered in 1946 to British troops in Germany - presumably he'd spent the best part of a year in hiding and making his way from Berlin, in the Soviet sector, to Ireland (or indeed to anywhere but the Soviet sector), and just gave up.

Germany in 1946 would not have been a fun place to be - vast numbers of refugees, not a lot of food, and crawling with Allied troops who may or may not have been looking for him - he may well have decided that surrender was better than starvation, or indeed that he could persuade the BA that he'd screwed up the German attempts to use POW's as agents, as others undoubtedly did.

My grandfather was chasing women around Hamburg and Berlin then, so he was happy enough, but then again he stayed fighting on the winning side.:D

OS119

Delancey wrote: »

I suppose that its possible that one reason the Brits who served in the German military got off relatively lightly was a perception that they were motivated by real conviction....

i think its the other way around - the true believers: Amery, Joyce, et all - got the rope or long sentances, the opportunists, the unlucky and the easily lead got relatively light sentances.

few of them could not have found themselves in a noose, but the Judges seem to have been quite sympathetic to those who found themselves at the tender mercies of the Germans as a result of active service, rather than a deliberate trip to Germany.

i don't doubt however that, as you alude to, had the BFC ever been used to fight the western Allies, any British, Commonwealth or Irish citizen subsequently found in Germany would have been strung up from the nearest lampost.

R.Dub.Fusilier

Delancey wrote: »

It would seem from the replies that the ' Irish Unit ' never existed which is no real surprise , just a few strange characters.

i read in a book about the british free corps that there was a unit of Irish soldiers that used to go to different cities and towns , dressed in SS uniforms, for propaganda purposes. i will try root out the source. the same book said that the Irish in the Waffen SS maid their way through Spain and Portugal after WW2.

snafuk35

In Stephen Ambrose's book Citizen Soldiers an American commander was amused when he took the surrender of a German unit and the Kraut commander gave him a long lecture on why the Americans should join Germany and fight the invading Ivans. Years later the American said the German had made some valid points, Nazi or not.
There was a sizable following among the Blueshirts and in the IRA who were fiercely Catholic and anti-communist. Spanish, Italian, French, Scandinavians and many other right wing groups joined the Waffen SS. There was a significant Nazi party in the US before the outbreak of war.
No surprise that fanatical anti-communists in Ireland did so too.

Delancey

snafuk35 wrote: »

In Stephen Ambrose's book Citizen Soldiers an American commander was amused when he took the surrender of a German unit and the Kraut commander gave him a long lecture on why the Americans should join Germany and fight the invading Ivans. Years later the American said the German had made some valid points, Nazi or not.
There was a sizable following among the Blueshirts and in the IRA who were fiercely Catholic and anti-communist. Spanish, Italian, French, Scandinavians and many other right wing groups joined the Waffen SS. There was a significant Nazi party in the US before the outbreak of war.
No surprise that fanatical anti-communists in Ireland did so too.

We hear so much about ' collabaration ' during the War and the inference is that these people were unpatriotic scoundrels , some doubtless were just that but others were motivated by a fierce anti-commmunism.
Just look at somme of the British ' establishment ' figures who wanted an Armistice with Germany to enable the Germans to turn their full attention to the USSR.
At wars end General Patton lobbied hard against the de-nazification programme claimimg it weakened the western allies and strenghtened Stalin.
Revisionism can be cruel.....

InTheTrees

MY uncle spent most of ww2 in various prison camps around germany after being captured at Dunkirk.

AT one point he was approached about joining the german side, and out of curiosity, he took it as far being warned of the seriousness of messing with them and so he dropped it.

I wonder if many irish prisoners changed sides? Maybe as spies? maybe as double agents?

280special

Havent heard anything about a specific Irish group. Some of the surviving British guys who switched sides,were interviewed as part of a Tv documentary that was shown on one of the Sky channels a while back, I think there may have been one Irish guy or someone of Irish descent.

I do recall reading about an attempt to recruit Americans, unfortunatley I cant remember which book it was in and as my book collection is in a mess at the moment I cant look it up. I seem to recall it was a female recruiter, maybe an American national who got a less than friendly welcome ! I know there were a good number of Indians captured in North Africa who were recruited by the Germans and some by the Italians.

Delancey

A large number of Indians fought for the Japanese against the British , they are now feted as heroes although their number was much smaller than that of the regular Indian Army.

snafuk35

Delancey wrote: »

A large number of Indians fought for the Japanese against the British , they are now feted as heroes although their number was much smaller than that of the regular Indian Army.

I was reading a book about the Burmese campaign during the Second World War. A large portion of the British forces fighting there were Indians. In once incident described in the book, a British soldier describes how an Indian fighting in his same unit who he made good friends with told him that after the war the Indians would fight him. In hindsight it is easy to judge. Not everything is black and white.

Similarly many of the Algerians who fought for the Free French were a decade later fighting a guerrilla war for Algerian Independence.

Among the men who fought in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion in Indo-China and Algeria following World War 2 or were guns for hire in Africa in 1950s, 60s and 70s were veterans from Allied and also from Axis armies.

Fuinseog

On the subject of Irish men in the German army I heard this story from the son of the man concerned in the story.

The English captured a group of German soldiers in Italy in 1944. One of the prisoners was a man called O Donel, whose people had come to Austria from Ireland in 1720, was chosen to interpret.
As the names were called out the soldiers stepped forward, but O Donel did not as he was not in the ranks but standing beside the SM, a man from Ireland.
When the officer heard the name O Donel he roared ' what the bloody hell is a Irish man doing in the German army?' to which the SM roared back, 'what the bloody hell is an Irishman doing in the British army?'. The officer was not amused.

laoch na mona

Fuinseog wrote: »

On the subject of Irish men in the German army I heard this story from the son of the man concerned in the story.

The English captured a group of German soldiers in Italy in 1944. One of the prisoners was a man called O Donel, whose people had come to Austria from Ireland in 1720, was chosen to interpret.
As the names were called out the soldiers stepped forward, but O Donel did not as he was not in the ranks but standing beside the SM, a man from Ireland.
When the officer heard the name O Donel he roared ' what the bloody hell is a Irish man doing in the German army?' to which the SM roared back, 'what the bloody hell is an Irishman doing in the British army?'. The officer was not amused.

Paddy equals cannon fodder:rolleyes:
but some in Ireland defiantly supported Germany not the allies only logically a few would fight for Germany (Frank Ryan)

dubhthach

Slightly off topic, but with regards to O'Donnell in Austrian service. One of the titles of Austria is:
Graf O’Donell von Tyrconnell (Graf = Count)

The current holder is I believe a Major in the Austrian Army



Source:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~vod/jahrgang.htm

Obiturary of his father Gabriel Johannes Graf O’Donell von Tyrconnell is in this O'Donnell newsletter from 2005, along with more information about the trip of the "Jahrgang O'Donell" class of Austrian army cadets and their visit to Donegal.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~vod/BinderODA34.pdf

Wikipedia has an article about Maximilian Karl Lamoral O'Donnel who in 1853 prevented the assasination of the young Emperor Franz Joseph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Karl_Lamoral_O'Donnell

Snickers Man

snafuk35 wrote: »

I was reading a book about the Burmese campaign during the Second World War. A large portion of the British forces fighting there were Indians.

60 % according to The World At War.

snafuk35 wrote: »

In once incident described in the book, a British soldier describes how an Indian fighting in his same unit who he made good friends with told him that after the war the Indians would fight him. In hindsight it is easy to judge. Not everything is black and white.

Why would you want to judge? This is a standard dilemma that many subject nations find themselves in. The Irish Volunteers found themselves in just such a quandary in 1914. They were arming up to fight the British, or at least those unionists who were set to oppose Home Rule which had been legally enacted. The actions of the British officers at The Curragh showed that they could have been fighting the Army as well, despite the Volunteers being on the legally correct "Government" side.

Then they get told their real duty is to sign up and go out to fight the Germans. Many did; many others didn't.

snafuk35 wrote: »

Similarly many of the Algerians who fought for the Free French were a decade later fighting a guerrilla war for Algerian Independence.

The leader of those Algerians, or at least of their "army" was one Ahmed Ben Bella who had won the Croix de Guerre TWICE while serving with first the French and later the Free French forces in the second World War.

Many of the Irgun (and even the Hagannah) who fought the British on behalf of the Zionist cause in Palestine had served in the British Army in the war. They had a real dilemma: Nazi Germany was their mortal enemy but the British in Palestine were their immediate foes. Especially following the famous "Government White Paper" which was published before the war which planned first to restrict and gradually to ban Jewish immigration to Palestine.

So why did so many Palestinian Jews join up for the war? As their leader Ben Gurion put it "We shall fight the war as if there is no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there is no war."


This is a pretty standard dilemma. There are oodles of other examples I could give. Back to George Washington, even!!!

Fuinseog

dubhthach wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but with regards to O'Donnell in Austrian service. One of the titles of Austria is:
Graf O’Donell von Tyrconnell (Graf = Count)

The current holder is I believe a Major in the Austrian Army



Source:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~vod/jahrgang.htm

Obiturary of his father Gabriel Johannes Graf O’Donell von Tyrconnell is in this O'Donnell newsletter from 2005, along with more information about the trip of the "Jahrgang O'Donell" class of Austrian army cadets and their visit to Donegal.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~vod/BinderODA34.pdf

Wikipedia has an article about Maximilian Karl Lamoral O'Donnel who in 1853 prevented the assasination of the young Emperor Franz Joseph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Karl_Lamoral_O'Donnell

Douglas O Donell pictured above is a major in the reserves. As an Austrian citizen he is not permitted to call himself count as titles of nobility were abolished in 1918.
for those interested in The Wild Geese there was an interesting exhibition in Dublin a few years back. the accompanying book is well worth a read.

280special

snafuk35 wrote: »

Among the men who fought in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion in Indo-China and Algeria following World War 2 or were guns for hire in Africa in 1950s, 60s and 70s were veterans from Allied and also from Axis armies.

Including perhaps the best known of them all, Mad Mike Hoare...but not forgetting guys like Jan Zumbach in his A-26 invader over Biafra !

Delancey

Snickers Man wrote: »

Many of the Irgun (and even the Hagannah) who fought the British on behalf of the Zionist cause in Palestine had served in the British Army in the war.

The famous Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan served as an officer in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army and it was while fighting Vichy French Forces in Tunisia that he lost his eye.

Snickers Man

Delancey wrote: »

The famous Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan served as an officer in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army and it was while fighting Vichy French Forces in Tunisia that he lost his eye.

Lebanon actually.

And in order to join up he had first to be released from jail where he had been put for fighting against.....er, the British!

HavingCrack

snafuk35 wrote: »

I
There was a sizable following among the Blueshirts and in the IRA who were fiercely Catholic and anti-communist.

Interestingly, many of the 1930's IRA were actually staunch Marxists. 100-200 Irish (always forget the exact number) joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Many of these, such as Frank Ryan*, were ex War of Independance and Civil War veterans. The IRA were suspected of being communist at the time. The Blueshirts were the closest to a Fascist organisation.

*Ryan actually ended up in Germany in WW2 after years in Spanih Nationalist prisons. The Germans attempted to smuggle him back to Ireland to link up with the IRA to from a German-IRA alliance. He never made it and died in Berlin. His story is actually fascinating.

laoch na mona wrote: »

Paddy equals cannon fodder:rolleyes:
but some in Ireland defiantly supported Germany not the allies only logically a few would fight for Germany (Frank Ryan)

Ireland was far more pro-allied in the war than pro-axis, even amongst the general population. 50,000 Irish joined the British forces.

jonniebgood1

InTheTrees wrote: »

MY uncle spent most of ww2 in various prison camps around germany after being captured at Dunkirk.

AT one point he was approached about joining the german side, and out of curiosity, he took it as far being warned of the seriousness of messing with them and so he dropped it.

I wonder if many irish prisoners changed sides? Maybe as spies? maybe as double agents?

Not to many. Attempts were made at Friesack camp to turn Irishmen captured fighting for the allies into German soldiers. This was partially referenced earlier. In reality very few would seem to have changed sides, the exceptions rather than the rule. It seems in this book that the POWs commanding officer Colonel McGrath felt he needed to convince his fellow POW's that they should not change sides (*see quote on pages 72 & 73). Further evidence of the attempts made to get POW's to change sides are given in same book.