constraint on a propaganda service given that only a very small percentage of the Irish population spoke the language and, as most of those lived in what were then relatively poor communities along the western seaboard, few of them would have owned a radio and the few that did would have had difficulty in picking up the signal.16 The radio talks were delivered by a number of German academics specialising in Irish studies. In charge of the service was Adolf Mahr, who was technically on leave from his position as Director of the National Museum in Dublin. When the radio service expanded in 1941 to include nightly English transmissions, new recruits were sought. Frank Stuart was one of the first to contribute in English.17 Spence was probably recruited around this time also and he operated under the alias ‘Brennan’, although there is no record of him broadcasting under that name.18 Nevertheless, he was a willing collaborator, and the charges against him go much further.
Peter Churchill in his book The Spirit in the Cage didn’t refer to Spence by his real name, using the alias ‘Judd’ in his descriptions of these incidents,19 but there is no doubt that ‘Judd’ was Spence.20 By far the worst accusation made by Churchill is that ‘Judd’, while working at the station and living in Berlin, betrayed some Jewish people who had befriended him by reporting their undercover existence to the Nazis, resulting in their arrest and deportation to an ‘extermination camp’.21 No sources are indicated, but it is probable Churchill heard of this from Cushing or Walsh, who likely came into contact with Spence during their time in Berlin. Another collaborator in the radio centre, Patrick Joseph Dillon, who broadcast under the alias ‘Cadogan’, painted a less dramatic, but no less reprehensible, picture of Spence’s betrayal.
In late April 1943 Dillon, Glasgow-born of Irish background, was a merchant seaman who was captured when his boat was sunk in the Atlantic.22 After disclosing pro-German sympathies, he was taken to the Radio Centre in Berlin in April 1943. In the Irland Redaktion office he was introduced to a Mr Brennan whose real name he later learned was Spence. Spence was assigned to look after Dillon and took him to his lodgings. Dillon claimed that the landlady didn’t want the two men to share a room for some reason and lodged Dillon downstairs in rooms occupied by a German woman, Charlotte Greger. Dillon began a relationship with Greger whose husband, a Jew, was incarcerated in a concentration camp. Dillon, who was anti-Semitic, claimed to have changed his views under her influence and says they had made plans to escape to Switzerland. He says he made the mistake of confiding in Spence, who betrayed him, leading to the Gregers’ arrest. Dillon claimed he then refused to continue with his radio talks unless his lover was freed and she was subsequently released, but soon after five women ‘who used to keep company with Spence’ were arrested following another disclosure to the Gestapo by Spence.23 According to Dillon, Spence then disappeared for a time, but ten days later the Gestapo again came to the house, having been informed by the Irishman that there was a Jew hiding in the accommodation. A Jewish girl, possibly a relative of the woman’s husband, had been secretly living in the house, but was now elsewhere, having been warned to stay away after the earlier arrest. However, this time Dillon and Greger were both arrested; the implication being that this was on suspicion of their joint collaboration in hiding the fugitive.
Although purportedly a witness to, and victim of, Spence’s treachery, Dillon’s testimony must be treated with caution. He gave this account when he was facing post-war charges of renegade activities, so any story that portrayed him as undergoing a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion and helping a Jew to avoid capture is most likely a self-serving invention. His broadcasts, under the pseudonym ‘Cadogan’, were invariably replete with anti-Jewish demagoguery and this continued until at least June 1943, after his supposed conversion by Greger.24 It is even possible that Dillon was attempting to put the blame for his own actions on Spence. Whatever the truth of the matter, the story about Spence betraying some Jewish person or persons had wide currency and, for this reason, and because he was believed to be acting as an informer in Sachsenhausen, he was disliked, distrusted and shunned. It is not clear why Spence ended up in Sonderlager ‘A’. Dillon says that he was told that he had been arrested near the Swiss frontier, which would suggest that he was attempting to escape Germany.25
Spence didn’t help his cause in Sachsenhausen, for it seems he was rude and disagreeable. He refused to comply with the rudimentary disciplinary codes applying to the lower ranks in the camp, refusing to salute Churchill or obey his orders. As indicated, he was believed to be a stool pigeon who informed the Camp Commandant, Anton Keindl, about fellow prisoners and even SS guards who were sometimes incautious in what they said to prisoners. He was suspected of reporting a young SS guard who told Andy Walsh that he listened to the BBC in the guard room at night and advised Walsh how he might do the same.26 Listening to enemy broadcasts, although not uncommon towards the end of the war, was a serious offence and encouraging a prisoner to do so could have led to the guard being shot. The Camp Commandant launched an investigation during which prisoners were asked if they had listened to the BBC. All denied it of course; Churchill was notified in advance by one of the guards of Keindl’s visit and he sent Cushing and Walsh on a mission to alert all the prisoners. The guard was exonerated.27
Peter Churchill, who was at this time the only British officer present, decided to take action against Spence. He told Cushing and Walsh to summon Spence, but he refused to leave his quarters. Accompanied by the two gleefully expectant Irishmen, Churchill marched officiously to confront Spence. Churchill demanded he explain why he refused to obey his order. Spence deigned to remain blasé and seated until Churchill hoisted him up by the lapels, slapped a cigarette from his month and struck him with such force that he sent him ‘spinning into the corner of the room’.28 A further assault followed before the subdued Spence had his lance corporal’s insignia torn from his tunic. According to Churchill, Spence promised to conform, but later complained to Keindl that he had been assaulted. Churchill was shown a copy of the complaint by a friendly SS guard. In retribution, the Englishman ordered that there was to be no social contact with any of the other prisoners. After three weeks, Spence, again according to Churchill, was remorseful and sought an interview. He was ordered, as a penalty, to surrender his next Red Cross parcel to the Russians, and, more ominously for him, sign a confession drawn up by Churchill. This document dealt with his German propaganda work, his snooping on fellow prisoners and, most damning of all, it contained an admittance that he was ‘instrumental in the apprehension of over a dozen Jews, who in all probability have been murdered in the Extermination Camps to which I knew they would be sent’.29 Churchill promised him that, in the event of Spence behaving properly during the remainder of the war, he would destroy the papers. Spence apparently signed the document and Cushing, Walsh and a recently arrived Free-French RAF captain, Ray Van Wymeersch, witnessed it.
It is difficult to believe that anyone would confess to treason and complicity in murder on the basis of no more pressure than that of social isolation. In his book, Churchill portrays Spence as having rowed with everyone in the camp before his (Churchill’s) arrival, with the result that ‘no one would have him as a room-mate’.30 Isolation, therefore, was nothing new to him. A greater level of ‘persuasion’ would surely have had to have been applied. And, if Churchill really believed Spence was implicated in such a heinous crime, why would he (Churchill) conditionally promise not to mention it after the war was over? Churchill clearly over-egged the story for his book, for although he would have known about the ‘extermination camps’ when wrote his story, he was unlikely to have knowledge of them as a prisoner in 1944.
Soon after these events, Peter Churchill was joined by other British officers, four of them survivors of The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III POW camp at Sagan. The first to arrive was Wing Commander Harry Day, generally known as ‘Wings’. He had been captured after being shot down while leading a squadron on a reconnaissance mission over western Germany only a few weeks into the war. He was badly burned and was the only member of his crew to survive. Middle-aged, tall and slim, he was respected and liked by fellow inmates in the various camps he was placed in, despite having a tendency to be abrupt at times.31 Immensely brave, he had been decorated when, as a young marine officer during the First World War, he repeatedly went below the deck of his torpedoed ship to rescue two trapped and injured crewmen. He made light of his gallantry by claiming he had only gone below to retrieve the ship’s store of liquor.32
