Helen Fry
Behind Enemy Lines: Austrian Jewish Refugees in S.O.E

Dr. Helen Fry - Behind Enemy Lines: Austrian Jewish Refugees in S.O.E.

- Thank you very much. It’ great to be back talking today about something which our audience may or may not know. And it’s about the German-Jewish Austrian. Well, German in the sense that German occupied Austria, but the Austrian-Jewish refugees who served with SOE, the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. Now, these are refugees who fled Austria, made it to Britain, and eventually went on to do the most incredible secret operations behind enemy lines and in particular, I’m going to focus on one major story, although it’s not the only story, and that is about Sigmund Freud’s grandson, Anton Walter Freud, known to everybody as Walter. So, I hope you’re going to enjoy some of what I’m going to discuss this evening. So, I’ve outlined some basic notes there about the Austrian section of the Special Operations Executive. The SOE was formed not just the Austrian section, but the whole of SOE was formed in Churchill’s words to set Europe ablaze.

It was about sabotage behind enemy lines, incredibly risky. We think of the men and women who were sent behind enemy lines into France with Vera Atkins. She sent many of them behind enemy lines. So many were compromised, captured, and those harrowing stories of what happened, particularly to the women, who ended up in Ravensbrück and met horrifying deaths also who survived just by the skin of their teeth. So, we mustn’t underestimate, and I think we don’t now, just how dangerous it was to be parachuted behind enemy lines. But if we think about the group we’re talking about tonight, former Austrian-Jewish refugees, if they’re captured, they’re going to be treated as traitors and not according to the Geneva Convention. They’re not going to be taking prisoner of war. You know, they’re going to end up in concentration camps, but they may even be shot immediately. So, the dangers were very, very real. And in 1942, it was decided that those with the right mindset would be sort of invited to potentially be dropped behind enemy lines. Austrian-Jewish refugees who were serving in the British forces, they would be trained to see if they’re suitable for special missions behind enemy lines. Some of them, the Austrians went also into Yugoslavia on special… I’ve got their SIS missions. There are MI6 missions still shrouded in a lot of mystery, highly top secret, and a lot of those files haven’t been declassified. Anything to do with Yugoslavia, the Balkans very, very messy even in this period. But there are examples. Next slide, please.

Of those who were parachuted. We just have the names of some of them who were parachuted into… One back please Yugoslavia and didn’t make it. One of them, Peter Giles, original name, Otto Hess. And by that, you can assume that those that were going behind enemy lines, if they were originally of German or Austrian nationality and particularly Jewish, it was mandatory for them to change their names to English-sounding names so that they would have some hope behind enemy lines if they were captured. So, Peter Giles, you can read about his book, sorry read about his story in my book, “Churchill’s German Army.” He’s dropped into Yugoslavia. We think it’s a joint operation between MI6 and the SOE. It’s all a bit murky. The files still have not been released even to his daughter. She was very, very young when he died behind enemy lines. And she’s never really found out what his mission was and whether it was in fact German forces, whether it was the partisans that just didn’t trust him. Another refugee, Walter Roome, was dropped into the Rhineland. Again, we have very sketchy pictures of those that were dropped back into Germany. And again, I’m hoping in the future the material will be declassified. So, he was dropped in in German uniform as a wounded soldier and his main role was to send reports back, to message reports back, to look on the ground at how successful the allied air raids had been. He was also to pass back anything of military value, intelligence, but he ultimately didn’t survive. Next slide, please. And when we’re talking about the Special Operations Executive, I want to to look tonight at the Freud family. I’m not going to go into any detail on Freud’s escape from Vienna, that’s for another session, possibly myself, possibly another lecturer. But I think we mustn’t underestimate just how difficult it was to get Sigmund Freud out of Vienna. 12th of March, 1938.

He doesn’t finally leave Vienna until the second of June as I’ve put there 1938. And he prepares as I’ve put there to leave Vienna the place that had been his home for over 50 years. Next slide, please. And it’s believed that if the rest of his family hadn’t been at threat, he may well have stayed. He was so reluctant to leave Vienna. We’ve got a wonderful picture of Martin Freud, his eldest son. Sigmund sat there on the left next to the bride. You just see him there. This is Martin Freud’s wedding in 1919 and you can see a very dashing Martin Freud there in the bottom of the picture. And he will go on to serve in the British forces and it will be their son, Martin’s son, Sigmund’s grandson, who would ultimately be dropped behind enemy lines. And this is a family. Next slide, please. Who had served the Austro-Hungarian army and served in the first World War. Three of Sigmund Freud’s sons served and were very loyal. Believed that they were very loyal, but that of course changed with the Anschluss. So, we have some well rather fuzzy photographs there of Freud leaving and because he finally agreed to leave, it was possible to get the rest of his family out. And they arrive in London where of course he lives in freedom just for a very short time, for just over a year because he is by now desperately ill.

But his family would go on to make, and particularly his grandson, an incredible contribution in the wartime. Next slide, please. And I’ve picked out throughout this talk tonight a couple of quotes from Sigmund’s grandson Walter. There you can see him on the right in uniform when he’s with the SOE. He’s there with Martin on the left. That’s taken in Highgate, by the way, in North London in the top sort of flat in in Highgate. And he said, now I’ll just quote, “We were driven out of Austria like mangy dogs "and we considered ourselves lucky to escape alive. "And if at that time a profited forecasted in 50 years, "the reconstituted Austrian currency "would have a picture of grandfather "on its 50 shilling note, "one would not have given much for the crystal ball.” I love some of this. That’s in his memoirs. His memoirs, as you’ll see, he calls before the anti-climax. So, everything that happens to him during the Second World War is really… He describes as like the highlight because everything after that, nothing could be as dangerous or as exciting as what he goes on to experience during the Second World War. Next slide, please. They come to England, Sigmund dies towards the end of September, 1939.

Walter is studying in Loughborough College. He’s studying aeronautical mathematics. Incredibly bright. He’s pictured there. If you look at the back row, you can just see in the doorway there, the man with the sort of posh cravat thing. That’s him. A very distinctive, a very charismatic man he was. So, he was studying at Loughborough College. He is technically as were thousands of German-Austrian refugees in England. They were technically enemy aliens restricted on their movements. But he continues his studies at Loughborough College until the summer of 1940 when he’s sitting his mathematics exam. Next slide. And in walks a police officer literally in the middle of his exam and he’s taken off arrested and that’s when he’s interned on the Isle of Man. Next slide, please. So, thank you. This will possibly touch base with some of you who are listening today whose families, whose fathers, would’ve served eventually in the British forces, but many of them, thousands of them were interned. It’s estimated between 27,000 and 30,000 German and Austrian ex-Jewish refugees. That’s how they like to refer to themselves as ex-refugees. But obviously, still Jewish. Were interned in Churchill’s Collar the Lot. The Germans have invaded pretty much most of Western Europe In that May, June, 1940, they’re well into Belgium, Holland. In April, they’ve already occupied Denmark, and Norway, and as far as Paris. Britain is thought to be next. And so this almost panic measure really… One back please. This panic measure that we are going to intern thousands of German-Jewish refugees because of the invasion threat.

And Walter Freud finds himself behind barbed wire on the Isle of Man. His father, Martin Freud, so Sigmund’s eldest son, is also interned. And there was an extraordinary series of letters between them in the wartime. You know, “Where are you? "I’m at an unknown location.” He’s just care of the camp. And for a long time they don’t know that they’ve both been interned in camps alongside each other. But for Walter, it will take another turn. And in June, early July, 1940, he is one of 2,000 Jewish refugees who are put on the Dunera, the infamous troop ship Dunera, and are transported to Australia. And you think about this horrendous nine-week journey amidst the possibility of being torpedoed. In fact, they just narrowly missed being torpedoed. Nine weeks in what he describes as a floating concentration camp. The conditions are utterly horrendous. There are 500 Nazis on board. Those that are looking after them, the guards don’t realise, they don’t distinguish properly between the Nazis, although they’re held separately, they don’t really distinguish in their treatment between the Nazis and these Jewish refugees and their belongings are all thrown overboard. And it really was a particularly horrendous time. Next time, please. Next slide. And those files haven’t totally been declassified. Ultimately the ship’s captain was court-martialed at the end of the war, but still a fair amount of the files haven’t been released about that infamous affair with the SS Dunera.

Sigma Freud’s grandson then finds himself in Australia with 2,000 other German-Jewish refugees and there they are in camps. And one of those internees has sketched what the camp was like in Australia. Hay was the camp where Freud was sent. And he discusses in his memoirs how well pretty much like the Isle of Man, it becomes a sort of cultural centre. A microcosm of German and Austrian intellectual life. And just as an aside, one day he has an accident and he falls across a sort of greenhouse and cuts his hand right across his hand with some of the glass. And one of the Jewish surgeons without anaesthetic performs an op, you know, actually stitches it all up and he says it saves the use of his hand. So, he gave mathematical lectures. There was an orchestra. A microcosm of German and Austrian society. Excuse me. And he’s there for a year. And the way he can come back, as did around two to 300 of them. Some stayed on in Australia. But the first batch that came back in 1941 had agreed in Australia to enlist in the British forces. And now he thought, like so many others of those refugees, now is my chance to fight Hitler.

This is my war. It was a sentiment, and you’ll heard me possibly speak about this before, these German-Jewish refugees who served eventually in the British Army were saying, “This was our war. "We are going to do our bit.” So, he comes back to Britain, he swears allegiance to George the Sixth and George the Sixth’s successors. Is given the king’s shilling and becomes one of the king’s most loyal enemy aliens. And he’s posted to Ilfracombe. Next slide, please. And that’s where he carries out his army training for a few weeks with those other refugees who’ve come over from Australia. This next slide please. We should have a photograph coming up of Ilfracombe. Yes, this is actually a wartime photograph of Ilfracombe taken in around 1940. So, it gives you, I don’t think it looks very, very much like that even today. Nothing much has changed. But he found himself here with thousands of other German-Jewish refugees, some of whom, the vast majority of whom, had not been interned in Australia. But they’d come out of internment camps elsewhere around the United Kingdom and they’ve enlisted to the British forces. Next slide, please. And they were training, but of course they were only training in a… I’m not supposed… It’s a non-combatant unit of the British army. They were not given guns and training. They were basically digging for victory. We got the next slide, please. Thank you. So, there are some images of those Jewish refugees in Ilfracombe endlessly marching up and down those Victorian streets, square bashing they called it. But in their spare time again transporting that unique Austrian and Viennese culture to this little Victorian seaside town of Ilfracombe in North Devon on the coast there.

And Walter finally meets up with his father Martin. Martin had been released from internment, he hadn’t been sent to Australia, and his father an eminent lawyer from Vienna finds himself peeling potatoes in the Osborne Hotel. Not his idea of fighting Hitler. And certainly Walter has more ambition than to stay in the Pioneer while digging for victory. Next slide, please. And while he’s in the Pioneer Corps, he meets a fellow refugee that I’m pretty sure… Yes, he did know him from Vienna. I’m pretty sure he did. Eric Sanders. Have we got the next slide? Maybe there’s a bit of lagging. Yes. Eric Sanders pictured on the left there. Dear Eric, he has just last month passed away at the age of 101 and like Walter, he and Walter and Eric were so-called digging for victory. They were undertaking duty in the ports. They were conducting forestry work for the next couple of years, but really feeling that surely they had skills which would make a difference to the war effort. And in 1942, as I said at the very beginning, Churchill sets out the Special Operations Executive to set Europe ablaze. And there’s a sort of gradual realisation in the government that here you have a resource, you have these fluent German speakers, that surely we can put them to good effect on special duty secret missions.

And I’ve spoken in a previous lecture about how some of them were taken up for a special commando unit, others in small scale raiding forces. In secret sites and in Britain and bugging conversations of German prisoners of war. There are any number of intelligence roles. Some were involved in the political warfare executive, so propaganda against Nazi Germany. But Eric and Walter along with about 25 others, we don’t have a a precise list of all of the Austrians who joined the SOE, but there were only 25 to 30 of them. There was one day in the camp when a mysterious gentleman, he happened actually to have been from MI5, was moving amongst them and just casually chatting, he stayed for about 12 days trying to suss out who would be prepared to do something special for Britain. Would they be prepared for example to go into enemy territory in civilian clothes? Would they be prepared to be dropped in uniform? And they had underwent a number of psychological tests. Very, very subtle. And Walter and Eric eventually were transferred. Next slide, please. To train with a new group of SOE that was separate from the others that we traditionally know about, like particularly the French sections that are completely different, trained separately, and they became, well they named themselves 12 force. So, this was just why 12 force? I’m not sure.

And the idea of the British government informing the Austrian section of SOE was ultimately to, as I’ve put this summarised for you, drop them back into Austria. The idea was if possible to link up with anti-Nazis to begin the resistance to provide allied presence behind enemy lines. Now, Walter is going to be dropped towards the end of the war. So, it’s really important to have native German speakers dotted around that can come out as the allied forces are advancing. But ultimately there is one golden treasure to capture and that’s Zeltweg aerodrome in southern Austria in the Styria region. It’s really crucial the allies need that aerodrome on their side ahead of the Russians. Next slide, please. So, Walter trains with SOE looking dashing there on the left in his uniform. You have a lovely photograph. I don’t have a full uniform photograph with Eric. Eric in the bottom of the screen there. Some of their colleagues sat on the bench there. Marcel Clech is one of them. All of them sent behind enemy lines as part… All of them former Jewish refugees from Vienna who would ultimately be dropped back into Austria. So, what about the training that they undergo? And this is fascinating because they have pretty much similar training to commando training pretty tough. And there were colleagues who actually didn’t make it. We can’t assume that because they’ve started on this gruelling training that they’re going to make it. Next slide, please. So, it’s a pretty ruthless way to sort of weed out those that… Well, quite rightly wouldn’t actually make it.

So, they were trained in these special training schools known as STSs and these were dotted all over the country. There was a special house in Buckinghamshire where the Poles were trained, for example. The Austrians were trained here at Stodham Park in Liss. I’ve got a couple of pictures up for you to give you a visual of the places that they’re training and they’re doing weaponry, unarmed combat, how to kill with bare hands. It’s not quite like Tarantino’s film but not far off. Next slide, please. And at some point they’re posted for a short time to the commando training centre, Arisaig in Scotland. You’ve got a picture of the house there. Famously, there is a commando memorial nearby now. But you get a sense they’re doing parallel commando training. You get a sense of some of that training from the photograph on the right hand side. The sheer cliffs that they have to mountaineer. So, they’re doing really physical stuff, unarmed combat, but the real physical survival, if you like, in incredibly difficult terrain. Next slide, please. And then after this pretty gruelling weeks and weeks of training, they have parachute training near Tempsford, which is in Bedfordshire.

Sorry, that’s where they fly from. Ringway outside Manchester. There was an aerodrome there where they would practise their parachute jumps. And then finally they went to Anderson Manor in Dorset. This beautiful country house again. Next slide. And as I’ve mentioned some of their training already, unarmed combat, sabotage, how to derail trains, how to, well, coding and messages, how to resist interrogation by the enemy. Really, really important. How to crack open safes. And at the top there is a demonstration of some of using actually a commando knife, killing psychs weapon, killing some of those, well not literally in training there, but learning how to train and kill in combat. Next slide, please. So, a rare photograph of a group of Walter’s colleagues there just before they’re sent on their mission. We don’t know who the woman is in the photograph. It’d be really nice to know who the woman is there possibly. We think this is taken in Anderson Manor and probably someone who’s involved in their training. So, we don’t know. If anybody knows, recognises that as their mother please do email me. Next slide. So, there would be a number of drops of small groups of three or four Austrian-Jewish refugees back into southern Austria. The first group consisted, or some of you may have known or heard of him, he’s friends with your parents, Stephen Dale. His original name Heinz Spanglet, survivor of Sachsenhausen. And his mission was to link up with the partisans on the border there between Austria and Yugoslavia to sort of go in and out across the border.

And he was to link up and coordinate. He would be dropped with explosives and some arms, but also to link up and connect for later drops. But as would happen so often, he was dropped in the wrong location. They were dropped by Halifax in the wrong location and he had a pretty hairy time there behind enemy lines. He’s ultimately captured and spends the rest of the war first in Udine Prison, which is not far from Trieste in Italy. And then he’s transported to a camp and then Stalag 17A outside Vienna. So, his war comes to, his drop comes to an end pretty swiftly. The next group that, excuse me, it should be dropped, includes Walter Freud. Next slide, please. And I’ve taken a quote from his memoirs because it really summarises I think not only the dangers, the tensions, but the dilemmas. And Walter says, what went through his mind. “What sort of reception would I get in Austria? "Would they receive us with open arms as liberators "or would they treat us as Jews and Austrians "who’d gone over to the enemy? "I had no idea and neither had anyone else.” So, he’s thinking about those Austrians he will possibly meet behind enemy lines. How would he be treated? But ironically, and it gives us an idea. Next slide, please, of his character. Walter refused to change his name. The poor British army officer must have had a pretty worrying time and you know, he sat there absolutely refusing. He said, “I left Austria as a Freud "and I am going back as a Freud.” Yeah, caused no amount of disconcertment in amongst the British Army ranks there because of course this was highly risky. Or was it? And Walter’s calculation is interesting because he said it had been how many years towards the end of the war, the Second World War Freud, his grandson’s books, Sigmund Freud’s books had been banned in Nazi Germany.

There’d been the book burning on the 10th of May 33 in the University Square. He said, “By the time I was going to land in Austria, "that generation had never heard of my grandfather. "They’d never heard of the Freud’s surname.” Very interesting, isn’t it? Over 10 years. Never heard of it. So, he felt that he would not have been at risk. I dunno, I still think it’s a calculated risk. Nevertheless, April, 1945. So, it’s towards the end of the war. He’s finally ready to be dropped and he’s dropped there’s a small group of them. He’s to be dropped by Halifax. But as with Stephen Dale’s mission earlier, unfortunately it was a different pilot, but unfortunately dropped at the wrong place. Not in the landing zone that they’re expecting. There’s no one there to meet him. He’s dropped first, but when he’s parachuting out, he’s the first to parachute out, he’s got no idea who is coming out after him. If the others are also jumping out of that plane. And it’s believed that the pilot realised the error and the others didn’t jump at that point. So, there he is, heading towards the ground, dropped in the wrong location, and of course when he’s dropped, he’s dropped at night the next morning, there isn’t anything he’s prepared for this mission. He’s looking for the sites that he’s seen on the maps and in his training. But he’s not seeing any of this. He’s told to head for a tiny river. This little stream and that will be their rendezvous. ‘Cause they’ll always land at slightly different spots but not hopefully too far away. And he finds himself now surviving on his own behind enemy lines.

And you know, there’s this river. “Brilliant” he says. So, we’re going to rendezvous here, the others will hopefully be coming along. But then he starts to sort of wade in and realises that he has to cross this river but this isn’t really a stream. And he works out that this is the River Mur and he is way off his target. He’s about 100 kilometres from where he should be. So, pretty, pretty devastating. So, he now has to survive behind enemy lines. His stuff hasn’t been dropped after him, the heavy stuff. He’s hidden his parachute. So, he thinks to himself, well my ultimate mission is to capture. Our mission, the group, was to capture Zeltweg Aerodrome. So, that’s what I’m going to do. I mean, there’s just the nerve and the charisma of the man. So, he’s there testing out some of the deserted farm places looking to see or cutting their cables so they can’t telephone. So, he goes to the farm houses. And interestingly, what does he find? All the men of serviceable age are fighting for the Germans. So, you’ve got the housewife with the young baby, you’ve got the grandfather in the rocking chair, so to speak, and he’s very, very fortunate. They don’t ask any questions. He doesn’t say who he is. So, that if they’re ever asked by the SS or German soldiers, they can quite legitimately say “No, no,” you know, somebody passed in, gave him some bread, dunno anything about him. So, that was a protection mechanism. So, he crosses from… He has his map, he crosses from farmhouse to farmhouse shelters in huts in the mountains at one point. And he does manage to walk to Zeltweg aerodrome.

But I want to just read from my book “Freud’s War,” just a short extract because he talks about the grandmother that saved his life. And I love this episode. So, remember he’s behind enemy lines on his own. He’s got his gas cape and he pretty much looks like a wood cutter from a distance. So, he’s hoping he’s going to survive. He said, “As I went down the road, "I was joined by an elderly local woman "and she started to talk to me at once.” He’s speaking to her in fluent German. So, he’s got an Austrian accent, so that’s great. “We came to a little footpath branching off our road "and leading across some fields. "She asked me for my direction, "where are you going?” And he said, “Scheifling, "which is just a few miles, "15 kilometres or so from this aerodrome.” “And she said she was going in that direction too. "And that this little footpath will be a shortcut. "So, we left the road and proceeded along the path. "Not long afterwards we came to the main road "along the Mur Valley. "I looked backwards along it "and there where the original road had met,” he said, “I saw a detachment of SS troops controlling the junction. "Had I not met that old woman "who’d shown me the shortcut, "I would’ve run straight into his SS "and they would’ve shot me before I could have "even said anything and surrendered.”

So, now he was a few hundred yards further on and he does make it to Scheifling. Okay, he’s on his own. He goes straight for the mayor’s office for the Burgermeister and he is going to ask for the surrender of the aerodrome, which is just some 10, 15 kilometres away. And again, I love this. He’s got in his mind, you know the British need this, the allies need this aerodrome. And the story which unfolds next is all fabricated. So, I’ll just again read 'cause it’s so colourful from his memoirs. He told the Burgermeister that he was the vanguard of the British army and that he’d got to get to the aerodrome, to Zeltweg, to earmark it for the British rather than the Russians. 'Cause we don’t want the Russians occupying because already he’s linking into the psyche of the mayor who’s realising that the war is nearly over. Do I want to surrender to this British officer? If I don’t, if I hold out, the Russians are coming and well we know how the Russians treated their prisoners. So, he saw Freud’s point at once. So, in his mind he’s thinking to himself, “Right, how can I get this officer, "this British officer to the Zeltweg aerodrome?” None of the cars in the little town had any more petrol, not even for 15 kilometres. And he was mentally sort of out loud going over, it’s all cars available to him. No, no petrol. Then his face lit up. Love this. The fire engine. Yeah, the fire engine still had petrol in it. This was really good news. And he said to me, “Yep, the fire engine will do splendidly.” So, Freud writes, “The mayor drove and I sat next to him in the front,” and he said it was quite a modern engine with all the paraphernalia and at one point there was quite a lot of traffic on the road and this was going to cause a hold up 'cause at this point the mayor’s thinking the Russian, they know the Russians actually aren’t very far away.

So whenever it got a little bit busy. He put the sirens of the fire engine on and they’re heading towards this aerodrome. And I just love that, that there we have the grandson of Sigmund Freud single-handedly going to take the surrender of this aerodrome in a fire engine. I love it. Well, they eventually get into Zeltweg Aerodrome. Next slide. So, I’ve got a picture actually of… Well, as best I could of the aerodrome. It’s still there in southern Austria. It’s still quite strategic. So, he says, he basically goes into the office, the commander of the Aerodrome. Don’t forget it’s militarised. He goes upstairs to the secretary and says, you know, in German, fluent German, “I am Leftenant Freud of the eighth army. "Can I see the commander?” Of course, she’s quite frightened at this point. He walks in and the commander pales and again he salutes him and says, “I’m Leftenant Freud of the eighth British army.” I mean it’s an incredible story. “I’ve come to take over your aerodrome.” And the poor commander is like, he puts his head in his hands, “Oh no,” you know, “it’s all over,” and is he going to surrender to this young officer? And then Walter does admit it must have been pretty humiliating for him. But anyway, he’s going to surrender. And he says to him, “I’ve been specially sent "by General Field Marshall Montgomery "to ensure that this aerodrome "comes under British rule.”

And of course, when they’re coming, they’re on their way, they’re behind us and we think it’s really, really significant because otherwise, you know, it’s the Russians, which do you want? Kind of thing. And then of course he says, “Come with me,” and he drives him to another town where the only person who can give up the surrender is General… Let me see if this is right. Vobrátilek and Vobrátilek who isn’t in at the point says, “You’ll have to see him tomorrow.” So, they put Freud up in the officer’s mess overnight and his room, the bed that they give him, they give him a wonderful supper in the evening. And there’s huge respect for this British officer. I mean, my goodness, he’s a German-Jewish or Austrian-Jewish refugee. I mean, I just think it’s an incredible story. And that night, so he is had a wonderful meal and they’re all laughing and think he’s great and then they put him up in a room overnight and he said there he slept under the portrait of Adolf Hitler. I mean, how ironic. Yeah, how ironic. And the next day finally General Vobrátilek, he doesn’t even come to see Freud. He’s not going to be humiliated. He tells his lower officers, “Yes, surrender to the British.” Next slide, please. So, that is an incredible story, isn’t it? Of how he had the guts to survive behind enemy lines. The charisma. We can probably get a little bit of an understanding why the rest of his life, I think it’s a bit harsh to say it was anti-climax, but he does call his memoirs before the anti-climax and eventually the general orders his men to drive Freud to the American lines.

They’re the nearest lines and he gives himself up to the Americans. And the Americans can’t believe that he secured the surrender of this aerodrome. Quite, quite extraordinary. But I’m going to come back to his story shortly. We’re going to leave him with the Americans for a minute. And if we go on to the next slide, as I’ve underlined and we know incredibly difficult and dangerous to be missions behind enemy line. What kind of courage it took. Did they really understand the dangers? I think they did. Were they prepared to give their lives for the country that had saved them? Yes, they absolutely were. And I’ve just got one example of Michael O'Hara originally Friederich Berliner. So, his mission was actually at the end of 1944 and he flew by Halifax, was dropped into Austria, but he was the only one of that Austrian contingent not to come back. And it really affected their comrades. And I spoke to, I interviewed Eric Sanders many times, Walter’s close friend, and he said it had a profound effect on them to lose 'cause they’re like brothers. They’ve trained together. He was, as I’ve put, they’re sheltered by an elderly woman in southern Austria. But the gestapo raid, he’s on the run. He tries to link up with those Yugoslav partisans but it’s very messy again in that region, as I mentioned earlier. Next slide, please. And it’s not clear initially who denounced him, but he was eventually denounced. Denounced as a traitor and somebody we think a double agent within who’d infiltrated the partisans there’s a wonderful photograph of him, handed him over to the SS and he was shot on that range at Wetzelsdorf. He did survive near just a few months, you know, if he’d just survived another month or two, he’d have been liberated.

But with its thought that because the allies were advancing, that Germany was near defeat, they decided to kill him. Absolutely horrendous. So, he didn’t survive. Next slide, please. He is commemorated on a war memorial. I can’t remember which one off the top of my head. So, photograph back to Walter Freud of him initially in Rome at the end of the war. He’s stationed to Rome and then later he sent back to Germany. Excuse me. So, what I discovered, and something I’ve mentioned before when talking about these German-Jewish refugees, these Austrian-Jewish refugees who fought for Britain, they go through an incredible war. Whatever that was, whatever their contribution was, they were not demobilised when the Armistice was signed. So, when victory comes to Europe, even when victory, some serving in the Far East, when victory comes ultimately, and the Second World War is over, it’s not all over. Because now the biggest challenge is winning the peace. And you find thousands of German-Jewish refugees go back often to the places where they were born. They’re posted back, they can move with ease, and they’re back for the whole de-nazification reconstruction of post-war Europe. So, what role does Walter Freud have? He’s actually, and I’ve worked on the war crimes papers, assigned to the war crimes investigation. He’s working partly with Vera Atkins and with some of those other Austrian-Jewish refugees who served with SOE. Some of them again were dropped behind enemy lines like Walter. I haven’t gone into all their individual stories tonight. Often in the wrong place, surviving. Individual stories. But at the end of the war, even if they’re liberated, even like Dale, if they’re liberated from a camp, they still have a role in British army uniform. And many of them went onto the war crimes trials.

So, Walter Freud was involved in the Tesch and Stabenow case. So, he was collecting evidence with his team and interrogating SS officers, Nazi war criminals, scientists, whoever. And those transcripts of the interrogation signed by him all survive in the National Archives and some of them in Vera Atkins archive in the Imperial War Museum. And Tesch and Stabenow, of course, just to remind ourselves, was making the Zyklon B gas that was being used in the concentration camps. This was a particularly horrifying period for him and something which deeply affected him that we know. And he does reflect on, again, the irony that he is trying to bring well evidence and to justice those Nazi war criminals that made the Zyklon B gas that sent four of Freud’s sisters to their deaths. And I’m not sure how many people realised, but four of Freud’s sisters did not survive the Holocaust. They were in their 80s. They did not survive. Actually, one died in , but the other three were gassed. Horrendous for the family. Next slide, please. But he’s not only investigating the Tesch and Stabenow case. Stabenow and Tesch case. Bruno Tesch making the Zyklon B gas. But he’s also assigned to a concentration camp investigation that some of you may not have heard of. And that is Neuengamme. It’s a little known one, but he was assigned to this and what he discovered at Nuremberg, utterly, utterly horrendous medical experimentation. Experimentation on French Jewish boys. It was the last straw for him. He absolutely couldn’t cope with the material. I mean, I’ve looked through some, it’s utterly, utterly disgusting and horrendous. And he is ultimately transferred back to England.

It really, really disturbs him. And the case is taken on by others of his colleagues. So, a very, very difficult time having had that war, that difficult war behind enemy lines, having that victory in many ways, and not actually being recognised. He was not given any award for what he had done in capturing the aerodrome. And then this difficult period in 1946 and just before he leaves, before he’s transferred, it does have a pretty special ending for him in spite of this incredibly difficult period. Next slide, please. He’s in Denmark on some of his war crimes investigations and at one point in Copenhagen, he’s invited onto a ship for a party. Next slide, please. And that’s where he meets his future wife. Wonderful Annette Carup. C-A-R-U-P. I’ve spelled it right off the top of my head. And what was her background? Look at the screen. Her family owned Vallø Castle in Denmark. This beautiful castle. And the irony, I think the story’s almost coming full circle. They were not Jewish, but her family sheltered some of the Danish Jews in their salt cellar. You know, and their wine. It’s not wine, sorry, they had their ice in the gardens. They’ve got one at Kenwood House actually in northwest London. They’ve got one of these ice cellar. Well, it wasn’t really a cellar. Ice house. And they’re huge. They’re really, really deep. In the days before refrigeration, this would be where, you know, they’d have the ice and they would keep stuff cold.

So, they sheltered a number of Jews in this ice house and were involved in the rescue of Danish Jews in that autumn of 1943. Amazing. A wonderful, wonderful story. So, this whole experience for Freud affected him, as I’ve said. Next slide, please. And there is a particular quote I think which sums it up. It’s his perspective, whether you agree or not, I’m not sure. But he says, “In a way it’s not what you feel that counts.” This is from his experience, his experiences when he’s come back from war, “It’s what others think. "And their first impression will ah, another Britischer.” But he says, “One is an outsider "and has to stay an outsider until one dies.” So, he always felt, although he had British nationality, he went on to work for a British company, and his family are well settled. He himself always felt an outsider. I’m not sure his father, Martin Freud would’ve agreed with that. Whether he felt the same way. The photograph there is taken in Golders Green Crematorium. His ashes are interred there with his grandson, grandfather Sigma Freud with his grandmother, Martha, and with all the other Freuds with his father and they’re maid. And you think, well what are the flowers there? And I didn’t know this, but every year on the anniversary, and I believe it’s of Freud’s death rather than his birth. But we need to double check that still to this day the city of Vienna send this and it’s a huge, massive, as you can see there, bouquet in memory of Sigmund Freud, but also it’s now there to commemorate his family. Next slide, please. I’ve got a slide of him after the war and of Eric Sanders after the war. So, on the right there you can see, I think this was their 50th wedding anniversary. I never met him in his lifetime. I would’ve love to have met him.

And that’s with his wife Annette. At the top left hand corner there on the left is Eric Sanders. He went on to have an incredible career after the wartime and was involved in restitution but also in Austro, British-Austro relations for which he received a number of awards. He was deeply involved in reconciliation work. So, he bore no bitterness and I think Walter Freud was the same. Bore no bitterness for that period but would go on to make a contribution to improving relations after the war. Next slide. And I’m going to finish with a quote from Walter’s daughter, Ida. Ida. So, she’s the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. Walter pictured there with Martha in the grounds of Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead. There of course in his uniform. Very proud she was of him. And Ida says, and it’s very poignant, “Our bloodline survives because "of the courage of people "like Princess Marie Bonaparte and Ernest Jones.” Those of you who studied the life of Freud and their eventual escape from Vienna knows that people like Marie Bonaparte who got them out with the help of the British passport Control Officer Thomas Joseph Kendrick and Ernest Jones, who was involved in psychoanalysis with Freud, a very close friend without them and their courage, you know, where would that family be?

And so yeah, very poignant I think to the end. And so many families, Jewish families have said that in their own words to me during my research, that we wouldn’t be here today without the rescuers, without the righteous gentiles. And the same for the Freud family. Their bloodline survives because they were saved. Next slide, please. Saved in Vienna. And as we’ve seen, and probably it’s a story which you’ve never heard of, that Freud’s grandson goes on to make a very brave contribution to the war for which, as I’ve said earlier, he was not properly recognised, received no reward. Not that he necessarily would’ve wanted that, but it again highlights something which I’ve wanted to highlight for so long. The contribution that we mustn’t forget of the German-Jewish refugees, not only the men, but also the women who made an extraordinary contribution to Britain. And there’s an equivalent story for America of German-Jewish refugees serving in the American forces.

If you are interested in reading more, it’s got a new jacket cover now. It used to be, you can still get it secondhand, I think “Freud’s War,” it’s got a new jacket cover come out in second edition. If you are interested in reading about their dramatic escape and more about Walter Freud’s war, you can read it in “Freud’s War.” They’ve actually put the apostrophe in the wrong place . It should be at the end of the S and then also the wider story story of the German-Jewish refugees who fought for Britain in “Churchill’s German Army.” So, yeah, I hope that’s given you a taste of some pretty extraordinary wartime stories. Thank you. I think we’ve got time for a few questions, haven’t we Lauren? If anyone has questions?

Q&A and Comments:

• [Lauren] Yes, I think we have time for just a couple. So, apologies if we don’t get to your question.

Q: The first one is from Michael Goldberg who’s asking, is this the story told in the recent book, “X Troop”?

A: - No, it’s different. So, Leah Garrett’s book, brilliant, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it yet. Leah Garrett’s book looks at X Troop. X Troop or 3 Troop, as it was also known. A group of German-Jewish refugees. There were just over 100 of them who trained in the commando unit and then they were detached. They didn’t serve together like a commando troop would normally. The French troop, the Belgian troops, they kind of served together, but the German troop didn’t and they were made up of German-Jewish refugees and they were detached in twos and threes to like the Royal Marine Commandos, 40 Commandos. Some of them landed with a commando bicycle brigade on D-Day, excuse me. And their stories are told in in full in Leah Garrett’s book. So, it’s very, very different. It’s equally dangerous special missions. So, it all becomes part of this secret war. But they are separate. They would’ve had similar training to Walter Freud but this X Troop of the commandos, Walter Freud was not a commando, he was part of the SOE. So, he was a secret agent. A special agent. So, I hope that’s helpful.

Q: - [Lauren] Great. Johnny Hill Cheatle wants to know, he says, “You mentioned Vera Atkins.”

• Yes.

• [Lauren] Can you confirm if she had Jewish or continental connections?

A: - Yes, she was Jewish. Vera Atkins. You can read a little bit about her in my latest book, “Spymaster. Actually I’ve put it behind me. She was quite, quite, had quite an incredible career. So, do read, get hold of "Spymaster.” She’s mentioned in there. She has connections. Definitely Jewish. Her family, her grandparents migrated from the Pale of Settlement in the 20th century. Actually, towards the end of the 19th century, into the 20th century into South Africa. But there’s also a book by Sarah Helm called “A Life of Secrets,” or “A Life in Secrets.” Absolutely brilliant biography of Vera Atkins. But absolutely yes, she was Jewish. And the other thing which might be of interest, it’s certainly on Netflix and I think you can get it as a DVD on Amazon a new film that came out last year. And it is “A Call to Spy,” and it is about Vera Atkins. Morris Buckmaster sending some female agents into France with a special operations executive. It’s so close to the truth. Really, really brilliant film. And I can’t remember the actress who plays Vera Atkins now, but she’s absolutely brilliant. You can just feel that she’s got Vera Atkins character to a T. So, interesting stories to be occupied with. So, that’s “Spymaster,” if you’re interested. Vera Atkins life is told brilliantly, as I said by Sarah Helm. H-E-L-M. Do have a look at that. “A Life in Secrets,” and then this film, “A Call to Spy” is really, really worth watching. So, we have time for, is it one more question do you think Lauren or a couple more?

Q: - [Lauren] Yeah, let’s do two more. So, Barry is asking, what is the reason that these files are still kept secret?

A: - In terms of the personal files of SOE agents like Walter Freud, they’re not released until a death certificate is produced to know that they’ve passed away or they’re not released within 100 years. So, there is a historian by the name of Steven Kippax who’s gradually trying to get personal files of anyone in SOE declassified. And it was a wonderful moment just before the first lockdown when I was able to say to Eric Sanders, do you know what, because he’d reached 100. So, it was one of the few that actually saw his own SOE file. 'Cause they wouldn’t even release it to people in their own lifetime. So, I said to him one day, “Do you know they’ve released your SOE file? "Do you want to know what they thought of you in training?” He was hooked, of course he loved it. So, it was perfectly legitimate. I sent him a copy, I copied it at the archives, sent it to him. So, he actually got to see his own own file. But alongside those personal files, the files of operations, some of them have been declassified, but some of them haven’t. And part of it is to do with an overlap where some of the missions, particularly into the Balkans and Yugoslavia, were joint or the lines between SOE and the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 were a bit blurred. Some of those agents might have started training with SOE but then been sort of transferred across to MI6. A highly top secret organisation still today that does not release its files. So, if any of those originally SOE agents then go on to serve with what we today call MI6, then that MI6 part of the operation is not going to come out. But also I was told that the Balkans is just generally very, very messy. I haven’t studied it in detail myself, but there is still a lot of sensitivities. Well, that’s what it felt and that these files shouldn’t be released. So, that’s why it’s very, very patchy on these missions. But there are other SOE missions that have been declassified and which historians are working on.

Q: - [Lauren] All right. And our last question comes from David who is asking, why was the ship’s captain court-martialed?

A: - This is of the Troop ship Dunera. David is talking about they transported 2,000 Jewish refugees and 500 Nazis to Australia in that June, July, 1940 because of the horrendous treatment and conditions. If you are interested, please do read “Freud’s War.” Get it from the library. You don’t have to buy it or you know, you can probably get it secondhand, quite reasonable. But Walter does describe the horrendous conditions. They don’t even have proper sanitation and food on board. They are crammed into small places. They are not given any daylight or fresh air. They are kept below deck for 23 and three quarter hours in a day. They barely get any breath of fresh air. They don’t have proper toilets, they just have buckets and about nine buckets to 2,000 refugees. I mean absolutely horrific. And you’ve got people being sick everywhere and as I say, he likened it to a floating concentration camp. And because of the inhumane treatment, and some of the refugees said that they were beaten. I mean, not badly beaten but you know, nevertheless, again, on a par with could arguably be a sort of crime. So, yeah, we still don’t know the full details but enough has been released into the archives to know, and I can’t remember off the top of my head, the captain. It’ll probably come to me who was court-martialed for his treatment and Churchill famously said, you know, “It was a total disgrace.” And even Eleanor Rathbone in that summer of 1940, the family were, you know, didn’t know Martin Freud. Didn’t know his son was being transported to Australia when it was finally discovered that his name is on a list. Eleanor Rathbone a makes speech in Parliament, as does Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf’s husband, who’s absolutely furious. And together Elanor Rathbone and Woolf petition and say to the British government, you know, “What the heck is a grandson of Sigmund Freud "doing being transported to Australia as a dangerous Nazi?” I mean, they’re really quite dramatic about it, but it’s a serious point. It was just shocking that they were transported at all to Australia. There’s still a lot, as I say, potentially to come out in the future, but I don’t know whether that will be in our lifetime. It is just, again, very, very sensitive. But do read “Freud’s War” if you’re interested, because Walter gives a very graphic description of the conditions. Yeah.

• [Lauren] Well, thank you so much for another incredibly exciting talk, Helen, and thank you to all our participants for tuning in today and we will see you in a week or two. Have a good night.

• Bye.