SPECK AND THE NAZIS
Corresponding with Speck’s progress to Australia was the rise of Hitler and Nazism in his home country. The further he paddled the greater the suspicion about his political sympathies and the ‘true’ motive for his voyage. particularly after reaching Dutch Batavia (in modern-day Indonesia) when he began to fly a swastika pennant on the kayak’s bow and on its sail.
He had been jailed briefly as a spy in India, and was arrested when he arrived in Australia in September 1939, spending the rest of the war in an internment camp.
But the record doesn’t support the spy theory, nor his supposed Nazi sympathies. Consider that he left Germany in 1932, well before Hitler became a festering blot on the European landscape.
Through letters from friends and family he would have become increasingly aware of the escalating war effort in his native country. And it seems he was chastised by all of them, accusing him of shirking his moral duty – gallivanting across the world while everyone else was committed to the cause. Where was his backbone and pride? Hardly a committed Nazi.
Ironically, his first exposure to Nazism occurred only after he’d become an international celebrity. The Third Reich hierarchy saw Speck as an opportunity to promote the purity and physical prowess of the Aryan model. A demi-god who could overcome everything nature threw at him, and more.
Having crossed the Java Sea from Singapore, he arrived in the Dutch colonial city of Batavia (now Jakarta) where among the well-wishers was the German consul general, a Dr Vallette. Speck was paid good money for speeches at the German Club and received help from the German Aid.
He was also introduced to a Herr Trautmann, the Ortsgruppenleiter, or district group leader, of the Nazi Party. At one of the lectures he presented Speck with a Nazi pennant to fly from his kayak. Later, in a note to Speck, Trautmann wrote: “Remain what you are: an agent of the New Germany with all its ideals, tough will and keen Viking spirit. With German Greeting and Heil Hitler!”
Speck was no doubt grateful for the cash replenishment, but there is little evidence to suggest he was an agent or endorsed Nazism. Still, when he arrived at Australia’s Thursday Island with the swastika flying from his bow, three Aussie cops were waiting for him.
According to the Australian Post, they strode forward, shook his hand and said: “Well done, feller! You’ve made it — Germany to Australia in that. But now we’ve got a piece of bad news for you. You are an enemy alien. We are going to intern you.”