Wodehouse tribute revives row over Nazi radio shows
Berlin broadcasts make Westminster Abbey stone wrong decision, say critics
and AS POSTHUMOUS awards go, a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey alongside literary giants including Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens is the ultimate honour for Britain’s most esteemed authors.
But the decision to lay a stone this year commemorating PG Wodehouse, creator of the quintessentially English Jeeves and Wooster, has reignited a row dating back more than 70 years.
At the heart of the dispute is whether Wodehouse was a traitor who collaborated with the Nazis during his Second World War internment in Berlin.
The author made six lighthearted broadcasts on German radio sent to the United States that were meant to reassure his fans he was safe and well after being captured at his home in Le Touquet, northern France, by occupying forces.
According to Gyles Brandreth, the broadcaster and former Tory MP, these apolitical programmes were “undoubtedly damaging to the Allied cause”, coming as Britain was trying to encourage the US to fight Hitler.
“Through naivety, he undoubtedly gave comfort to the enemy during the darkest days of the war,” he said.
“He broadcast gently amusing non-political talks from Berlin, giving the impression that he was fine, and by implication that all was fine in Nazi Germany.”
Wodehouse became loathed in Britain, particularly when his programmes were later aired in the UK after Joseph Goebbels realised their propaganda potential.
After the war, Wodehouse never returned to Britain because he felt he was “very unpopular,” and instead settled in America.
An MI5 investigation concluded he had not intended to support the Nazi regime. In 1975, shortly before his death, he was knighted, a decision Brandreth believes “inappropriate”.
Wodehouse is also accused of making comments considered anti-Semitic in his letters, including referring to American comedian Groucho Marx as “just a middle-aged Jew with no geniality whatever, in fact repulsive”.
Stephen Silverman, of Campaign Against Antisemitism, believes Wodehouse is not deserving of an Abbey memorial.
“PG Wodehouse was a literary genius who has long been considered to be among Britain’s greatest authors, but he was also an odious anti-Semite,” he said.
“There is nothing wrong with admiring his works, but that is very different from admiring their author. It is not for the Church to forgive and forget his lifelong unrepentant hatred of Jews. This honour should be withdrawn.”
Alexander Armstrong, the television presenter, is president of the PG Wodehouse Society and among fans who believe the broadcasts have been taken out of context and prove his “sweet naivety”.
“In 1941, no one knew about the concentration camps, least of all PG Wodehouse,” he said. “He was exceptionally naive. Eventually, MI5 cleared him, but he lived in ignominy for the rest of his life.”
Armstrong is convinced the author’s literary legacy is enough to merit a memorial in the Abbey and Brandreth agrees, saying: “Perhaps it is time to forgive and move on.”
A spokesman for Westminster Abbey said the Very Rev Dr John Hall, the abbey dean, had agreed to honour the author for his contribution to 20th Century literature, adding “the fact that Wodehouse was knighted in 1975 is significant in assessing the value of his work”.