John Amery

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John Amery (March 14, 1912–December 19, 1945) was a British anti-Communist who proposed to Hitler the forming of a British volunteer force (what became the British Free Corps), made recruitment efforts and propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany. He was hanged for treason after the war. He should not be confused with Jean Améry, an Austrian writer and close contemporary, who was a victim of Nazi Germany.

John Amery was the son of Conservative Member of Parliament and cabinet minister Leo Amery. He was a staunch anti-Communist and accepted the fascist doctrines of Nazi Germany. He left Britain and joined Franco's Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, being awarded a medal of honour while serving as an intelligence officer with Italian "volunteer" forces. It was in Spain that he met the French fascist leader Jacques Doriot. After the Civil War, Amery and Doriot traveled together to Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy and Germany before residing in France, under Vichy rule. He ran afoul of the Vichy government (Amery was displeased with their mind set anyhow) and made several attempts to leave the area but was rebuffed. It was German armistice commissioner Graf Ceschi who offered Amery the chance to leave France and come to Germany to work in the political arena. Ceschi was unable to get Amery out of France but later, in September of 1942, Hauptmann Werner Plack got Amery what he wanted and in October, Plack and Amery went to Berlin to speak to the German English Committee. It was at this time that Amery suggested that the Germans consider forming a British anti-Bolshevik legion. Adolf Hitler was impressed by Amery and allowed him to remain in Germany as a guest of the Reich, where he made a series of pro-German radio broadcasts to Britain.

The idea of a British force to fight the Communists languished until Amery met up with two Frenchmen, who were part of the LVF (Legion des Volontaires Francais) in January of 1943. The two LVF men lamented about the poor situation on the Eastern Front but that they saw that only Germany was battling the Russians and thus, despite all, they should still lend support with their LVF service. Amery rekindled his idea of British unit and aimed to recruit 50 to 100 men for propaganda uses and also to seek out a core base of men with which to gain additional members from British Prisoners of War. He also suggested that such a unit could also provide more recruits for the other military units made up of foreign nationals.

Amery's first recruiting drive for what was initially to be called "The British Legion of St. George" took him to the St. Denis POW camp outside Paris. Amery addressed between forty and fifty inmates from various British Commonwealth countries handing out recruiting material. This first effort at recruitment was a complete failure, but he persisted and eventually he recruited a number of individuals to his cause. Amery ended up with two men, of which only Kenneth Berry would join what was later called the BFC. Amery's link to what would become the BFC ended in October of 1943 when the Waffen-SS decided Amery's services were no longer needed and it was officially renamed the British Free Corps.

After the war, Amery was tried for treason; in a preliminary hearing, he argued that he had never attacked Britain and was an anti-Communist, not a Nazi. At the same time, his brother Julian Amery attempted to show that he had taken out Spanish citizenship, and thus would have been incapable of committing treason against the UK, whilst his counsel tried to show that he was mentally ill. These latter attempts failed, and he pleaded guilty at his trial to eight charges of treason. He was sentenced to death on 28 November 1945, and hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on 19 December of that year. (This is believed to be the only case of a man pleading guilty to a charge of treason in the UK). It is speculated that Amery pleaded guilty in the hope that by sparing his family and the wider establishment the embarrassment of a trial, his inevitable death sentence might be commuted. If so, it was a miscalculation.

Albert Pierrepoint decribed him as "the bravest man I ever hanged." Greeted by the hangman at the appointed hour, Amery reportedly quipped:- "Mr. Pierrepoint, I've always wanted to meet you - but not, of course, under these circumstances..."

Amery was part Jewish, his grandmother was from a Hungarian Jewish family which had settled in England and converted to Protestantism. Leo Amery had distanced himself from his Jewish origins due to anti-Semitism in the British establishment. It is quite possible that John Amery never even knew of his Jewish heritage.

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References

John Amery Speaks by John Amery ISBN 1904197000 (brief description)
England and Europe by John Amery ISBN 1899435646 (brief description)
Patriot Traitors: Roger Casement, John Amery and the Real Meaning of Treason by Adrian Weale ISBN 0670884987
Meaning of Treason by Rebecca West ISBN 0670464430 and ISBN 0844671940 aka The Phoenix: Meaning of Treason ISBN 1842120239