The Scotsman

Exposing the Scottish aristocrat­s who welcomed the Nazis

Scottish aristocrat­s actively conspired to welcome the Nazis during the Second World War but, as writer Tim Tate reveals in his latest book, they all too often escaped any punishment

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On Tuesday, 9 December, 1941, the regional security officer in Edinburgh added a new name to the top-secret list of Scottish citizens to be detained in the event of a German invasion.

Hastings William Sackville Russell, the 12th Duke of Bedford and the fourth richest man in Britain, was then sitting out the war in the comfort of his country seat in the historic Stewartry of Kirkcudbri­ght; he was, however, far from inactive.

A passionate admirer of Hitler and National Socialism, he had cultivated contacts with senior figures in the Third Reich and had deliberate­ly flouted the law by privately negotiatin­g peace terms with the German ambassador to Eire. For two years he had financed a succession of British pro-nazi organisati­ons, and was the designated leader-in waiting of a planned fascist coup d’état. Little wonder, then, that the RLSO wrote a stark justificat­ion for adding Bedford’s name to the Scottish Suspect List.

“In the event of the duke falling into the hands of the enemy he would be likely to be set up as a Gauleiter or the head of a puppet British government.”

Bedford was one of a surprising­ly large number of pro-nazi Scottish traitors – part of Hitler’s so-called Fifth Column – whose activities are detailed in scores of oncesecret MI5 and government files, quietly released to the National Archives between 2000 and 2017.

The official history of the Second World War dismisses the idea of wide scale domestic treachery as either pressdrive­n scaremonge­ring or a cynical ploy by the Security Service to justify its role in the shameful mass internment of Italian and German nationals, many of whom were Jewish refugees from Nazi persecutio­n.

But the de-classified files show that the Fifth Column was very real – and that Hitler’s British traitors spied, committed acts of sabotage and provided assistance to Berlin during some of the darkest days of the war. At least 70 were tried and convicted in secret prosecutio­ns; four were sentenced to death, two executed, with the remainder serving lengthy prison sentences.

Beyond them, hundreds of other British fascists were interned without trial under emergency wartime regulation­s on specific and detailed evidence that they were spying for, or working on behalf of, Germany. The MI5 files detail three separate and advanced conspiraci­es by Fifth Columnists to launch a violent “fascist revolution”, intended to replace the government with Nazi puppet régime just as soon as German troops landed in Britain.

But the files also make clear that social class and privilege were the dominant factors in deciding whether conspirato­rs were prosecuted, interned or left free throughout the war. And nowhere was this more apparent than in the treatment of Hitler’s Scottish traitors.

The first was Jessie Jordan, an otherwise unassuming Dundee hairdresse­r who sent maps detailing military bases along the Firth of Forth to German intelligen­ce, the Abwehr, while simultaneo­usly acting as the hub of a transatlan­tic Nazi spy ring. She was jailed for four years in 1938.

Eighteen months later William Wishart, a 34-yearold private recently discharged from the Royal Scots Regiment, was interned indefinite­ly for supplying details of British military vehicles and the technical specificat­ions of British artillery to Jordan’s Abwehr handlers in Hamburg.

Jordan and Wishart were unquestion­ably guilty of betraying their country. Author Tim Tate, main; his new book, above. But their punishment was in marked contrast to the leniency shown to more privileged Scottish Nazi sympathise­rs who worked on behalf of the Third Reich.

Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, eighth Duke of Buccleuch, was Lord Steward of the Royal Household and related by marriage to the King’s younger brother. In April 1939 Buccleuch was an honoured guest at Hitler’s 50th birthday celebratio­ns in Berlin.

Despite being rebuked by Buckingham Palace, after the outbreak of war Buccleuch used his position to lobby the government on behalf of Germany, provided financial backing for a second illegal peace treaty mission, and was listed as a senior defence minister in the secret plans drawn up for a puppet regime to follow the fascist coup d’état. Yet although he was sacked by the King in spring 1940, he, like the Duke of Bedford, was never arrested or interned and spent the rest of the war in the safety of his Scottish seat at Drumlanrig castle, in Dumfriessh­ire.

This remarkable immunity extended even to cases of outright espionage. Lord William Francis Forbessemp­ill, of Craigievar Castle in Aberdeensh­ire, was a decorated First World War pilot and a pioneering civil aviator; he was also a spy. Throughout the 1920s he sold British military secrets – including aircraft camera technology and the blueprints for bombs – to Japan. Although he admitted his crimes, he escaped prosecutio­n with a verbal warning and a promise to refrain from future espionage.

When the Second World War began, Sempill was given a post in the Department of Air Matériel, a highly-sensitive section of the Ministry of Aviation. Despite clear indication­s that Japan would soon join Hitler’s Axis – and in defiance of his previous “gentleman’s undertakin­g” – he continued to act as a paid agent of Japanese intelligen­ce.

Although Sempill’s Security Service file shows that Winston Churchill personally ordered the noble lord’s dismissal from the Air Ministry, and that MI5 planned to have him arrested, inexplicab­ly, neither happened. He was, instead left free throughout the war.

But it is the case of Captain Archibald Maule “Jock” Ramsay, MP, which most clearly shows the kid-glove treatment adopted for privileged traitors from the Scottish aristocrac­y.

In 1931 Ramsay was elected as Conservati­ve MP for the Scottish borders constituen­cy of Peebles and Southern Midlothian. He had, by then, made a very good marriage to the Hon. Ismay Chrichtons­tuart, the daughter of an Irish aristocrat, and enjoyed the luxury of a Scottish estate – the fairytale-gothic Kellie Castle in Arbroath – as well as a fashionabl­e London address in South Kensington.

Both Ramsays were ardent and passionate anti-semites. He was a frequent and popular speaker at fascist meetings, in which he praised Hitler as “that splendid fellow”, expounded on the “Jewish conspiracy” and hinted that he would be prepared to use violence to solve “the Jewish problem”. De-classified Security Service memos shows that he struck a deal with Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, by which Ramsay would become “Commission­er for Scotland” as soon as Germany won the war.

In the meantime he founded his own secret pro-nazi organisati­on, The Right Club; its members included senior figures in Parliament, the civil service, the police, military and intelligen­ce services. In 1940 MI5 officers infiltrate­d the group and discovered that Ramsay and his wife were plotting a violent fascist uprising. “Personally, I should welcome a civil war with shots fired in the streets,” the MP told one of the undercover agents that May.

Six months later, the Ramsays and two senior Right Club officials, Anna Wolkoff and Tyler Kent, were caught in possession of thousands of topsecret military and intelligen­ce documents; they were also found to have sent some of these to contacts in Germany. Yet although MI5 demanded that all the conspirato­rs should be prosecuted, the de-classified files reveal that the government decided Archibald and Ismay Ramsay were too well-connected to be put on trial.

Kent and Wolkoff were convicted at the Old Bailey and sentenced to ten and seven years respective­ly. Ramsay was subjected to the rather less onerous conditions of internment in Brixton Prison. He was allowed regular visits from his wife – left, without explanatio­n, entirely free – who was permitted to bring

Social class and privilege were the dominant factors in deciding whether conspirato­rs were prosecuted

him supplies of food and wine. According to MI5’S de-classified reports, Ismay Ramsay used her freedom to plan a violent assault on the prison during which her husband was to be spirited to safety by helicopter.

Throughout the four years he spent in detention, Ramsay retained his seat in the House of Commons, and kept his £600 annual salary. When he returned to Parliament, in September 1944, he was welcomed back by his fellow MPS. In letters to fellowfasc­ists, intercepte­d by MI5, he wrote that, “On the whole they have been very nice to me… about 20 of the House were sympatheti­c, about 20 hostile and the rest indifferen­t”.

The story of Ramsay’s treachery, like that of Bedford, Sempill and the other members of the Fifth Column, was suppressed for more than half a century. But the de-classified MI5 files show that they, like hundreds of British traitors, worked throughout the Second World War to bring about a German victory.

● Hitler’s British Traitors – The Secret History of Spies, Saboteurs and Fifth Columnists by Tim Tate is published today by Icon books, £25.

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