IX
‘Görtz who is a dangerous person (notwithstanding the ill-informed views to the contrary expressed by some people) will certainly, if given any kind of facilities, resume some of his former contacts.’
COL DAN BRYAN, August 1946
The Ardennes Offensive was Germany’s attempt at reversing the tide of the war, but ultimately it was the beginning of the end. In 1945, the Western Allies finally pushed forward their early April forces in Italy and swept across western Germany, capturing Hamburg and Nuremberg, while Soviet and Polish forces stormed Berlin in late April. American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe on 25 April and on 30 April 1945 the Reichstag was captured, signalling the military defeat of Nazi Germany.
This period of the war also signalled several changes in leadership among the Allied and Axis powers. On 12 April, President Roosevelt died, and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on 28 April, and two days later Adolf Hitler committed suicide, and was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as President of the German Reich. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower informed the German leadership that the Allied Forces expected ‘immediate, simultaneous and unconditional surrender on all fronts’. The war with Germany was soon to be brought to an end.
In his role as leader of Germany, Dönitz sent Col Gen. Alfred Jodl to the headquarters of the Allied Supreme Command in the French city of Reims to attempt to persuade the Allies of an alternative to unconditional surrender. However Eisenhower cut short any discussion by announcing at 9 p.m. on 6 May that, in the absence of a complete capitulation, he would close British and American lines to surrendering German forces at midnight on 8 May, and resume the bombing offensive against remaining German-held positions and towns. Jodl telegraphed this message to Dönitz, who responded, authorising him to sign the instrument of unconditional surrender, but subject to negotiating a 48-hour delay, essentially to enable the surrender order to be communicated to outlying German military units.
Jodl signed the instruments of surrender on 8 May, thus bringing to an end the deadliest conflict in human history. From 1939 to 1945 the war resulted in 50 million to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, starvation, disease and the first use of nuclear weapons in history. Nor had the war left Ireland unblemished. The Luftwaffe had carried out deadly bombing raids in Dublin’s North Strand and in Campile, Co. Wexford, while in Northern Ireland, Belfast was one of the most heavily bombed cities in the United Kingdom after London and Coventry.
Despite these atrocities being perpetrated on a neutral nation, Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, on the occasion of the death of Adolf Hitler, paid a controversial visit to the German Legation to express to Minister Hempel sympathy with the German people over the death of the Führer. Hempel was described as being distraught at the news, wringing his hands in anguish. Hempel’s family would later claim he held no loyalty towards Hitler and attributed the wringing of his hands to the fact that he suffered from eczema. Sir John Maffey, the British Representative, commented that de Valera’s actions were ‘unwise but mathematically consistent’.
Douglas Hyde, Ireland’s President, also visited Hempel to express condolences, an action which enraged US Minister David Gray as no similar action had taken place on the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This can perhaps be seen more as a reflection of the strained relationship between Gray and de Valera. Indeed de Valera shared a better relationship with Hempel, whose conduct he described at the end of the war as beyond reproach: ‘So long as we retained our diplomatic relations with Germany, to fail to have called upon the German representative would have been an act of unpardonable discourtesy to the German nation and to Dr Hempel himself.’
De Valera explained the reasons for his visit by saying he wasn’t going to humiliate Hempel in his hour of defeat; however his actions are still questionable given that he would have had some knowledge of the horrors of the Holocaust. Indeed by this stage footage from concentration camps was being played as part of newsreels in cinemas, so such a stance is still perplexing.
BBC broadcaster Richard Dimbleby had accompanied the British 11th Armoured Division (which counted among its number a young James Molyneux, future leader of the Ulster Unionist Party) to the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and described the scene in a report so graphic that the BBC refused to broadcast it for four days, relenting only when he threatened to resign:
Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which … The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them … Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live … A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms, then ran off, crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days.
The footage was viewed all over the UK, and Dimbleby would later describe his visit to Belsen as the worst day of his life.
De Valera’s motives for the visit remain shrouded in mystery, and perhaps can only be explained by his desire to maintain strict protocol; or perhaps, more sinisterly, he was appeasing Hempel given the fact that Günther Schütz may have had compromising information of contacts between himself, the legation and government officials. The alleged contacts could have proven to be a major source of embarrassment to the government if they were made public. Despite saving face at home, De Valera’s actions angered many in Irish-America as evidenced in a letter to the New York Times by one Angela D. Walsh:
Have you seen the motion pictures of the victims of German concentration camps, de Valera? Have you seen the crematoriums? Have you seen the bodies of little children murdered by Nazi hands? Have you seen the flourishing cabbages – cabbages for German food – flourishing because of the fertiliser, human remains of citizens from almost completely Catholic countries like Poland? These were citizens of a conquered country – and ÉIRE might easily have been a conquered country, neutrality or no neutrality. Have you seen the living dead, de Valera? Skin stretched over bone, and too weak to walk?
The visit to Hempel also did little to improve relations between de Valera and Churchill in the immediate aftermath of the war. Churchill had already been infuriated by de Valera’s reluctance to grant access to the treaty ports, and the Taoiseach’s refusal coupled with his attitude towards general involvement in World War II prompted the British prime minister to address the issue in a radio broadcast on the BBC on VE Day. In his broadcast Churchill praised British restraint in not invading Ireland during the Battle of the Atlantic:
The approaches which the southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by the hostile aircraft and U-boats. This indeed was a deadly moment in our life, and if it had not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland, we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera, or perish from the earth. However, with a restraint and poise to which, I venture to say, history will find few parallels, His Majesty’s Government never laid a violent hand upon them, though at times it would have been quite easy and quite natural, and we left the de Valera Government to frolic with the German and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart’s content.
De Valera’s response gained him huge popularity in Ireland, and in many ways solidified his status as a strong leader, prepared to stand up for Ireland:
Mr. Churchill, instead of adding another horrid chapter to the already bloodstained record of the relations between England and this country, has advanced the cause of international morality – an important step, one of the most important indeed that can be taken on the road to the establishment of any sure basis for peace … Mr. Churchill is proud of Britain’s stand alone, after France had fallen and before America entered the war. Could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famine, massacres, in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but each time on returning to consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul?
Given the level of cooperation that existed between both countries in terms of military intelligence, such a caustic back and forth can only now in hindsight be seen as an attempt by both leaders to assert their country’s authority in the post-war world. In fact Anglo-Irish cooperation during the war wasn’t only limited to intelligence.
In 1941, de Valera granted the Allied Powers the use of what became known as the Donegal Corridor, a narrow strip of Irish airspace linking the RAF flying boat base at Castle Archdale in Lough Erne to the international waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Rather than having to fly north towards Londonderry, Catalina and Sunderland flying boats could now fly over Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal in neutral Ireland out into the Atlantic, where they were used primarily in the protection of Allied shipping convoys. The first official flight along the Corridor was on 21 February 1941 by no. 240 Squadron RAF’s flying boats.
Conditions of the concession included that flights should be made at a ‘good height’, and that aircraft should not fly over the military camp at Finner between Ballyshannon and Bundoran, although these conditions appear to have been ignored by both sides. Such was the strategic importance of the corridor that in 1941 a Catalina flying boat from No. 209 Squadron RAF, also based at Lough Erne, located the German battleship Bismarck in 1941, leading to the ship’s destruction. Had the corridor not existed it is arguable as to whether or not the Bismarck would have been spotted.
Despite these huge levels of cooperation between neutral Ireland and the British, the reaction to the end of the war in Europe was met by a largely divided response in Dublin. Much of the cooperation was lost on the general public, and instead there pervaded a distinct sense of nationalism that was further compounded by de Valera’s reply to Churchill. On VE Day, future Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey and other UCD students burnt the Union Jack on College Green, outside Trinity College, in response to a perceived disrespect afforded the Irish tricolour among the flags hung by the college in celebration of the Allied victory that ended World War II. It was into this cauldron of mixed public and political opinion that Hermann Görtz and the other German internees found themselves at the cessation of hostilities in May 1945.
Military personnel interned in the Curragh Camp in Co. Kildare were sent back to the continent as early as July and August; however the Irish and the Allies came to an understanding with each other that spies would not be released as quickly. It was largely felt that former German agents could prove themselves to be a nuisance if they were suddenly granted their freedom. The British were particularly concerned about the issue of the spies, so much so that the British representative in Ireland, Sir John Maffey, compiled a list of German agents, including Görtz, who they felt would be ‘undesirable to release’.
The British also made it clear that the only way they would agree to any release of internees was if prisoners were subject to deportation orders to Germany. In order to placate the British, the Irish authorities came to an agreement whereby the Germans were allowed to move freely around Athlone during the day under the condition they returned to sleep in the barracks each night. In reality the agreement went much further, and the German spies soon found themselves at liberty to attend social functions and receive guests. Görtz went a step further, writing to Minister for Justice Gerald Boland to request political asylum in Ireland.
On the advice of Dan Bryan and G2 the request was denied. Görtz had every reason to be apprehensive about going back to Germany. Almost immediately the Allied Forces had begun a rapid process of denazification in Germany. The process aimed to rid German and Austrian society of any remnants of the Nazi ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing from positions of power and influence those who had been Nazi Party members, and by disbanding any organisations associated with Nazism. The process had begun shortly after the cessation of hostilities but it was made official policy following the Potsdam Conference, on 30 July 1945.
An Allied Control Council was established in Berlin to execute the Allied resolutions known as the ‘Four DS’. Denazification was a major component of this, alongside Demilitarisation, Democratisation and Decentralisation. Plans were also underway to try former Nazis who had been in leadership positions under international law. Görtz felt that his role as a spy in Ireland would ensure that he would be treated badly if he returned home, and from the end of the war his priority was to remain in Ireland for as long as possible.
However by this stage Görtz and the other internees were proving themselves to be a major thorn in the side of the Irish authorities. Both G2 and the Irish Department of External Affairs wished for the prisoners issue to be dealt with as soon as possible, but repatriation was diplomatically a very tricky issue. As well as the interned German spies, the remaining legation staff, including Eduard Hempel, also posed a significant problem for the Irish authorities. In June 1945, American Minister in Ireland David Gray, with whom de Valera had an at times strained relationship, submitted a list of names to the United Nations of diplomats and spies he believed to be hostile to the new global peace arrangements.
The Irish government responded to Gray’s action by declaring that it was refusing to deport anyone named on the list who was still resident in Ireland unless the deportation was voluntary. This posed a difficulty for the Irish government, as the Allied Control Commission now held legal jurisdiction over all German citizens abroad who had been involved in the war, including both spies and diplomats. The commission soon exercised its power to recall all such personnel to Berlin to be debriefed and, if the individual case merited it, to face trial. Both the Irish government and the Germans ignored the order.
The Department of External Affairs discussed the issue with the British representative, assuring him that the Germans would not be required to leave unless it was of their own free will. The Minister informed him that ‘With regards to the persons who have been detained here because they acted as German agents, it is intended to keep them under detention until such time as, after consultation between the two governments; it is agreed that they are no longer a menace to the security of either country and can, therefore, be restored to liberty.’
Behind closed doors the Irish authorities began a process of reviewing the cases of each of the internees in order to determine which ones posed the greatest problems from both a political and a security point of view. Günther Schütz proved to be the agent who was of most concern. De Valera was sticking to the line that Hempel had behaved correctly during the war and was not involved in espionage in any way. Schütz of course had proof that this wasn’t true, and owing to his character it was felt that he was in a position to cause embarrassment to the Irish government if he were released.
In order to thwart this, de Valera had all documents that contained information in relation to discussions with foreign governments destroyed. Having deciphered Schütz’s microdot messages, G2 were able to prove that Hempel knew about Schütz’s arrival beforehand, and had helped him by supplying him with cash. He also had contact with some of the other German agents active in Ireland, although this wasn’t apparent to authorities at the time. When he eventually was released Schütz didn’t use this information in any way against Hempel.
Dan Bryan reviewed the files on each of the detainees and advised on their characters to the various government departments. Bryan felt that neither Tributh nor Gärtner posed any conceivable threat to national security, and that they were in his estimation foot soldiers rather than serious spies. The same could not be said, however, for Hermann Görtz. Bryan regarded him as someone who was highly likely to cause difficulties in the future if he were released. He cautioned that Görtz would be very likely to resume contacts he had in republican circles, especially through some of the various women he had been involved with. He felt that many of the groups were anti-British to the point of being pro-Nazi.
In the meantime, while de Valera looked into ways in which he might be able to grant political asylum to Hempel, the Department of Justice restricted the entry of Jewish refugees into Ireland. The official line given was that any increase in the Jewish population in Ireland could lead to the rise of anti-Semitism in the country. The government continued to ponder the situation, with the Department of External Affairs noting that in general the internees were not unfavourably disposed to returning to Germany in order to be reunited with their families and friends.
The department noted at one stage during their review into the prisoners’ continued detentions that a German ship was docked in Dublin port, and that it could if needed facilitate the Germans’ repatriation without having to pass through England. De Valera favoured the idea of repatriating the Germans on the ship as soon as possible, and said that van Loon and Obéd could be repatriated to the Netherlands and India when it became possible. The Department of External Affairs approached the British with a view to securing guarantees of immunity for the prisoners. The British replied that
[t]he control commission would be prepared to accept these men and distribute them to their destinations. The men would be treated in conformity with the policy towards other Germans repatriated from other neutral countries, and so far as the United Kingdom Authorities are aware, there are no charges pending against them which would be likely to lead to capital sentence.
But the fast-moving global political climate, as well as other factors, eventually forced de Valera’s hand, and all German spies were released in August 1946 under the Emergency Powers Act. The prisoners were released on the basis that they were to be deported at a later date when such arrangements could be made. Until then they would be allowed to move freely around Ireland. The Department of Justice made the decision to release the prisoners, citing the restricted nature of where they were detained as well as the toll it was taking on their mental health. Minister for Justice Gerald Boland justified his decision by insisting that the prisoners be released, claiming considerable grounds on a humanitarian basis. He also insisted that, following a review of internal security, the Garda Commissioner had informed him that there was no longer any necessity for detaining the men or placing them under any restrictions.
But legal considerations may ultimately have forced his hand. Boland had been informed by the Attorney General and future President of Ireland Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh that Article 14 of the Aliens Order 1935 authorised only ‘detention bona fide preparatory to deportation’. Ó Dálaigh also advised the government that any further detention could possibly be challenged by motion of habeas corpus, and could leave the officers of the detention barracks open to action for damages for unlawful imprisonment.
Boland was not prepared to deport the Germans as a definite guarantee of immunity could not be obtained; however, mindful of the fact that the authority with which Ireland could detain the men was at most very doubtful, he ultimately decided to release them. The Department of Defence was tasked with travelling to Athlone to inform the prisoners that they would be released and allowed to remain in Ireland for ‘at least the time being’.
The men were requested to register under the Aliens Order and were warned that their stay in Ireland was subject to a number of strictly imposed conditions. The penalty for breaking any of these was immediate deportation. The prisoners were instructed to refrain from discussing or referring in any way to their past activities, the purpose of their entry into Ireland or the reasons for their detention. They were also forbidden from involving themselves in any form of political activity or discussing international politics or the politics of Ireland. In addition to this they were expressly forbidden from engaging in any interviews with members of the press.
Department of Defence personnel travelled to Athlone and Mountjoy to inform the prisoners of these conditions in person. An official also travelled to Tuam, where Wilhelm Preetz had been residing while on parole, to inform him. All of the internees with the exception of Obéd, who was a British citizen, were now subject to the same law as ordinary aliens and as a result had to register with the Gardaí and consistently re-register their addresses so that the authorities could keep up to date with their whereabouts.
Boland retained the right as Minister to deport the men if he felt that it was in the public good. He was also entitled to restrict the men’s movements, occupation, employment and frequency of reporting to the Gardaí, as well as possession of any machine or apparatus. In the end Boland didn’t have to invoke any of these restrictions, as it was generally regarded that it was in the men’s own interest to behave properly and avoid any publicity. Boland also noted that it was unlikely that the state would have to support the men financially upon their release. Schütz, Gärtner, Tributh and van Loon had taken up woodwork while in custody, and it was believed that they were in a position to maintain themselves through these endeavours upon release.
During their time in Athlone the men had made deck chairs, light furniture, wooden toys and table lamps. Such was the four men’s enthusiasm for their work that they asked the authorities if they could stay in Athlone until a table they were working on was complete. It was felt that Wilhelm Preetz’s in-laws were in a position to offer him a job in their family garage business. Werner Unland’s wife had enough money to sustain them until he could re-establish the import business he had worked at in London.
Obéd, who the authorities noted was in the possession of £140, had lived in Antwerp in Belgium in the 1920s, and he planned to return there, as he had a certificate of good character from the Antwerp police issued in June 1946. It was believed he had also applied to the British representative’s office for a British passport.
Simon and Weber-Drohl, aged 64 and 67 respectively, had no money. However the authorities believed that Simon, who was a fisherman by trade, could find employment in that industry, and that Weber-Drohl, who was essentially an invalid at this stage, had relatives in America who could be in a position to send him money.
Hermann Görtz informed the authorities that he was in a position to support himself without engaging in business or employment. Despite the fact that Gardaí had seized $20,000 from Görtz on his arrival, it was believed that he most likely had originally brought a much larger sum, and had hidden the balance somewhere to be accessed after leaving confinement.
Immediately upon their release several of the spies moved to Dublin. Tributh, Gärtner and van Loon went into a joinery business together for a brief period, after which Gärtner returned to South Africa, while Tributh moved back to Germany, where he died in 1996.
Henry Obéd was deported to India via London despite his wishes that he be sent to Antwerp to his wife. During his time in India he made several attempts to return to Belgium but his applications were blocked due to his history with explosives. Eventually he was granted an Indian passport after independence and he emigrated to his wife in Belgium in the late 1940s. Obéd was murdered by his wife in 1952 after she discovered that he had been having an affair.
Wilhelm Preetz settled in Tuam to be near his in-laws, but his marriage eventually foundered. He also frequently got into trouble with the law, and in 1947 he was convicted of dangerous driving. Preetz’s wife eventually emigrated to the United States, but his own fate remains a mystery.
Walter Simon eventually returned of his own volition to Germany on board a British ship, but his repatriation did little to change his fortunes. After spending many years in a nursing home he died almost destitute in Hamburg in 1961.
Weber-Drohl returned to Bavaria and for the most part seems to have kept in contact with many of the people he met while in Ireland.
Stephen Carroll Held went back into steel manufacturing but eventually sold his factory in 1960 before taking up employment as an accountant. He maintained for years afterwards that the bad publicity garnered by his arrest and detention had ruined his reputation and that his life financially never recovered. Eventually he and his wife and son left for the United States, never to return.
Görtz, however, continued to be a problem for the Irish authorities. He was infuriated by the government’s attempts to have him deported, and vigorously tried to fight against them. In the meantime he had taken up a role outside of prison as secretary of the ‘Save the German Children Society’, a group which had launched a campaign known as ‘Operation Shamrock’. The purpose of the campaign was to bring over 400 Catholic German children to Ireland for fostering. The scheme was embraced warmly by the Irish public despite the fact that Jewish children attempting to gain asylum in Ireland were often met by a wall of bureaucracy. Görtz busied himself with his work for the group, earning a meagre salary of £2 per month. In his spare time he read voraciously and devoured any text he felt might aid him in avoiding deportation.
Meanwhile, following the end of the war Dr Richard Hayes had returned in a more full-time capacity to his role as Director of the National Library. And despite being responsible for the day-to-day running of the library, Hayes still involved himself in a more limited role in espionage and remained in contact with both Guy and Cecil Liddell. Görtz’s fascination with reading the minutiae of Irish law finally brought him to the library, where he and Dr Hayes would cross paths one final time.
One February morning in 1947, sometime before lunchtime a dishevelled yet familiar figure shuffled into the library’s reading room. Hayes recognised the shabbily dressed man as Hermann Görtz, and almost immediately he was overcome with a sense of pity. The last time the two men had met was in the internment camp in Athlone, Görtz then an agent of the Abwehr and Hayes Ireland’s master codebreaker. Görtz carried a bundle of books to a desk, and when he took his seat he and Hayes met each other’s gaze. Both men nodded tersely at one another and continued with their business. When Görtz returned the next day, Hayes decided to approach him.
In an effort to remedy matters Hayes walked over to Görtz and asked if he would like to join him for a cup of coffee, and they decamped to the quieter surroundings of Anne’s Tea Shop on Nassau Street, where they talked for over an hour. Hayes explained to Görtz how he had broken his code, and how it was actually he who had corresponded with him, as opposed to the German High Command. Görtz stared intently at Dr Hayes as the reality that he had been outwitted sank in.
At the end of their conversation Görtz, realising that he had been bested intellectually by Hayes, extended his hand to Hayes and respectfully said, ‘I must congratulate you.’ Görtz gathered his things and headed home to the house of the Farrell sisters in Glenageary, where he had been staying. Soon afterwards Dr Hayes wrote of the incident to Cecil Liddell of MI5, informing him of the encounter and commenting on another clandestine operation he was undertaking for MI5, unbeknownst to anyone in Ireland:
H. Görtz who is now free had begun to read all day in the National Library. As was bound to happen sooner or later I walked bang into him yesterday. This morning I took him out for a cup of coffee to soften up the hard points of opposition. Some interesting admissions were made. The operation is proceeding. Details will be released later. Note the following address of an associate of G. Now in Spain who may be a German agent. M.F. de SAN MARTIN, Calle de Belacazzar, 8, Coloniade la Residencia Madrid, Hush; Keep it dark; Please do not refer to this in replying to this address.
Yours ever,
V
Hayes had found Görtz to be somewhat likeable as a person, despite the fact that he disagreed profoundly with his politics. However the encounter probably worsened Görtz’s fragile mental state. In September 1946 he threatened to go on hunger strike for a second time in order to avoid being deported to Allied-controlled Germany, complaining that the authorities were treating him as though he were a common criminal. He eventually gave up his protest when he noticed an advertisement in a newspaper looking for crew for an Estonian ship bound for Spain. Görtz wrote to the Irish government asking for permission to join the crew, but to his ongoing frustration the request was denied.
Strangely, during this period of his release he failed to stay in contact with his family. Instead he entertained himself in the company of his fellow internees and Irish friends. The Farrell sisters organised a party in the garden of their home in Spencer Villas in Glenageary for the German prisoners and Görtz attended, joined by van Loon, Tributh and Gärtner. The party was a short-lived moment of happiness for Görtz. While he seemed to be enjoying himself in the company of the others, beneath the surface lay a very troubled and fragile man. Görtz was obsessed with the thought of being handed over to the Russians when he returned to Germany, and the idea that he would be sent to a gulag in Siberia.
For Görtz this would be a fate worse than death. During World War I he had fought on the Eastern Front, and ever since he held an irrational suspicion of Russians, believing them to be akin to barbarians. The wanton destruction of Russian property undertaken by the Wehrmacht during the failed Russian invasion also weighed heavily on his mind, and Görtz was utterly convinced that he would be treated with nothing short of depravity by the Russians should he return home. But Görtz’s concerns at returning home ran even deeper.
After World War I Germany had been convulsed politically. From 4 to 15 January 1919 a post-war revolution erupted in Berlin, where various factions clashed over what path the country should follow. This led to the Spartacist uprising, essentially a power struggle between the Social Democrats led by Friedrich Ebert and the Communist Party of Germany led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who had previously formed the Spartacist League. The communists were brutally suppressed by the German Army, and Herman Görtz had been involved in the fighting as a foot soldier. He believed that he would be remembered for his role in quelling the uprising, and would be subjected to severe treatment should he return to Berlin. He knew his only hope of avoiding this fate was to find some legal loophole in Irish law that would allow him to stay.
In the meantime Görtz busied himself by working feverishly to avoid being deported. But time would soon run out for him. By April 1947 the Allies had begun trying war criminals under international law in a series of military tribunals. The trials, held in the German city of Nuremberg, were most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany, who planned, carried out or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes.
In total 24 indictments were handed down to major figures in the Nazi regime, including Martin Bormann, Karl Dönitz, Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess and Alfred Jodl, as well as the German Foreign Minister who had first helped identify Ireland as a strategic location for espionage, Joachim von Ribbentrop. By the time the trials concluded many of the leaders of Nazi Germany had been executed or sentenced to life imprisonment, and Görtz clearly felt that he belonged in this category. International opinion had shifted, and it was now impossible for de Valera to grant any further asylum to former spies.
A decision was made that diplomats would be allowed to stay, although any former German agents would be deported. The spies were rounded up and returned to custody in Mountjoy Prison. Görtz, Unland and Schütz all fought their deportations on the grounds that they had lived in Ireland for longer than five years, but only Unland was successful. Görtz took his case to the Supreme Court, arguing that under the Aliens Act 1935 he was entitled to three months’ notice before deportation. Acting on his behalf were a team of barristers led by future Taoiseach John A. Costello, while the Minister for Justice was represented by Andreas O’Keefe, instructed by the Chief State Solicitor.
During the course of the trial Senior Counsel for Görtz, Mr C. Lavery, informed the court that ‘Dr Görtz had not been convicted of any offence and had come before the court as a person who was entitled to the full protection of the court.’ The Chief Justice replied by reminding the Senior Counsel that Görtz had committed a crime by landing by parachute and that he came to Ireland as a German soldier to promote the war effort of his country. In reality Görtz had little hope of having his deportation overturned, and the only point upon which the court was called upon to decide was whether or not it could be held that Görtz was ‘ordinarily resident’ in the country and therefore entitled to his three months’ notice of deportation. After a short adjournment the court reconvened and dismissed the appeal, awarding costs to the Minister for Justice. In the end it was decided that the motive for Görtz’s sojourn to Ireland was immaterial as to whether not he had resided in Ireland ordinarily for a period of five years or more under the auspices of the Alien Act.
Such was his desperation to stay in Ireland at any cost that Görtz also wrote personally to de Valera during this period. One of the Farrell sisters, Brigid, also wrote to de Valera on Görtz’s behalf. In a six-page letter she begged the Taoiseach to personally intervene, citing Görtz’s age and rank in the SS as proof that he would be treated harshly if returned to Germany. She further added that
he served his country well as did many Englishmen and Americans in a similar situation and that you should do what is in your power to intervene in the harsh ruling that permits an old soldier and cultured gentleman two full years after the termination of hostilities to face trial ending in his death or at best, long years of imprisonment.
In the end both Görtz and Schütz were given extensions in order to clear up their personal and business affairs. Despite his three-month extension, the news that deportation was inevitable sent Görtz into a deep depression. Schütz, however, had other intentions, announcing publicly that he intended to marry his 25-year-old girlfriend, Una Mackey from Rathmines in Dublin, whom he had met at a dance during his time in Athlone. Miss Mackey lodged a notice of intent to marry to the city registry office in April 1947. Efforts were also made to have the marriage solemnised in a Catholic ceremony. Schütz made an appeal to be granted parole in order to get married, and the Department of Justice agreed to his request, giving the couple a short window in which to have the ceremony conducted and to enjoy a brief honeymoon in Wicklow. Permission was granted on the condition that Schütz surrender himself to the authorities upon his return from the honeymoon. He complied with all the instructions, and after a ‘champagne wedding’ and a ‘motoring holiday’ in Wicklow he surrendered himself to Gardaí, and was brought back to Mountjoy Prison to await his deportation. Both he and Görtz were to be transported by plane to Germany, where they would be handed over to the Allies to be debriefed.
Of course in the larger context of the war, in which unspeakable horrors had been carried out in the concentration camps of the Third Reich, Hermann Görtz and Günther Schütz were very minor characters. At most they would have been subject to a prison sentence. However Görtz was convinced that his own role was more important, and that he would face a severe sentence upon his return. His failed attempts at avoiding deportation had troubled him greatly, and severely hurt his pride. He was also greatly angered by news reports that referred to him and Werner Unland as spies. Görtz saw himself as nothing less than a proud German soldier, and he subsequently took a libel action against the Daily Mail and journalist John Murdoch for the articles. In reality the action was a last-ditch attempt to defend his honour by a severely paranoid and delusional man. When the action was finally settled, Görtz wasn’t able to benefit from the damages.
Görtz started to speak openly to others about suicide, bringing it up in conversation with Günther Schütz. In the course of one conversation he explained his fears of deportation, saying, ‘I will never go back. It would be the same as surrender and I’ll never do that. I shall die like my leaders.’ This was perhaps a reference to Hermann Göring, who had committed suicide in October 1946 by ingesting a phial of potassium cyanide in his cell the night before he was due to be hanged. Göring had been found guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, the waging of wars of aggression and war crimes.
Even the Gardaí he dealt with believed that Görtz would rather commit suicide than be deported to Germany. Fearing for Görtz’s wellbeing, the political authorities in Ireland attempted to intervene, and during his parole Görtz met with Dr Hempel at his house in Monkstown. The meeting was arranged by Frederick Boland of the Department of External Affairs, and in the course of their conversation Hempel tried to reassure Görtz that no harm would come to him when he was deported.
Görtz was unmoved by Hempel’s assurances, and outlined the many reasons why he believed he would come to harm if he returned to Germany. He believed that the Allies were determined to exterminate the race of Germans to which he belonged, and that he would be unable to find any work and would therefore be a financial burden on his family. Görtz also stressed to Hempel his apprehension of the communists who had liberated Berlin, and told him his fear of being treated harshly by them.
Hempel was unable to placate Görtz himself, and so suggested that he meet Frederick Boland in person. Görtz agreed, and the three men met at Hempel’s house on 15 May. Boland reassured Görtz that he would be not treated harshly in Germany, and that he would be held for at most a period of a few weeks. Boland went further, adding that he had received assurances from the Americans and the British that Görtz would only be subject to close interrogation, and that he would not be arrested upon arrival on German soil.
Boland explained to Görtz that he had received such an assurance from the American Military Governor in Germany, Gen. Lucius D. Clay. The American Representative, David Gray, wrote to Gen. Clay on 12 May 1947 informing him of the discussions he had been having with the Irish authorities in relation to Görtz. Gray was dubious of Görtz’s intentions, and believed that he was taking advantage of the goodwill being shown to him by the Irish authorities:
The Minister for Justice told us that Görtz had presented a petition asserting that his life would be endangered if he were returned to Germany. Mr. Boland said that he stated that as a member of the Wehrmacht during the Spartacist Revolution in 1918 he had taken part in the severe repression of the insurrectionists and had been a marked man ever since. On his return home he expected communists to murder him. He therefore asked asylum.
Gray regarded Boland as a man of high character, great courage and iron nerve, combined with a sentimental tenderness towards appeals on compassionate grounds. He believed that in all likelihood Görtz was manipulating Boland, and in reality had nothing to fear if he returned to Germany. Görtz had lived ‘unmolested in Germany between 1918 and 1936 and had taken no active part in the Nazi atrocities which had characterised the later stages of the war. While the concentration camps were in full operation Görtz was in prison therefore he was only a minor cog in the large Nazi war machine.’
Gray explained to Clay that he gave no guarantees that Görtz would be immune from prosecution if it were found that he had committed crimes under German law. However he conceded that something should be done to ensure Görtz’s wellbeing was taken into consideration: ‘I agreed to make strong recommendations to you to provide for Görtz such security as appeared to you to be necessary to prevent him from assassination there in the American Zone and possibly to arrange for the future emigration of himself and his wife, to whom we are informed that he is devoted.’
Gray reasoned with Boland that – as Görtz had arrived illegally in Ireland, was the head of the German secret service in Ireland and had been in hiding for 18 months with the illegal IRA, who had declared war on both the United Kingdom and the United States – they were obligated to deport him. This was compounded for him by the fact that Görtz had constantly reported military information to Germany throughout his time in Ireland. Gray felt that he could in no way accept the deportation of what he considered to be minor German agents and exempt Görtz.
Gray suggested that if Boland wished to avoid any further publicity in relation to the matter he could arrange to have Görtz placed on an American plane, and that he would see that he would not be in a position to cause any harm to himself. He also claimed that such a journey could be arranged without Görtz’s knowledge:
In the American zone he would doubtless be safe and provision would be made at your convenience for him to be united with his wife. On the basis of this recommendation the Irish Government has ordered the deportation of Görtz in the aeroplane which you have provided for that purpose and it is the hope of the United Kingdom representative and myself that you will find it possible to afford him the requested protection.
In many ways this arrangement should have been enough to assuage Görtz’s fears and reassure him that nothing untoward would happen to him if he returned to Germany. What the Allied and Irish authorities hadn’t taken into account was just how fragile Görtz’s mental state had become. Boland explained the arrangement that had been reached with the Americans to Görtz, but his reassurances fell on deaf ears.
Görtz, now highly paranoid, refused to believe Boland, and explained in a somewhat agitated state that the Americans could not be trusted and that ultimately he was a marked man. He explained to both Boland and Hempel that the Allies would not keep their word, and that from a standpoint of humanity no grounds existed to deport him. He told the men that he couldn’t face another period of incarceration, and the meeting subsequently broke up without any resolution. Boland, concerned about Görtz’s welfare, granted him parole, and before Görtz left he agreed to meet Hempel for dinner the following week. It was a rendezvous he would never make.
On 23 May 1947, two letters arrived at the house of the Farrell sisters. One was the aforementioned invitation to dinner from Hempel; the other sent a paroxysm of fear through Görtz. It instructed him to report to the Aliens Registration Office in Dublin Castle that afternoon. He gathered his belongings and put on his overcoat and hat. Before he left the house he went upstairs to his room and fetched one last item – the phial of cyanide that had been given to him by the Abwehr at the start of the war.
It is difficult to assess Görtz’s state of mind as he made his way into the city centre. In reality he hadn’t much to fear, as many of his Abwehr colleagues who were of similar rank were not subjected to severe treatment at Allied interrogation centres in Bad Nenndorf and Oberursel. It is possible he feared that under interrogation he might implicate members of the IRA or some of the people who had sheltered him, or perhaps he may have wanted to die an officer’s death rather than be subjected to criminal trials. The truth about what went through Görtz’s mind will never be known. Hempel and Boland had come up with a plan that Görtz could work for the Americans, and as such would not face prison – however, due to a communications mix-up, he never received the news.
Görtz arrived at the Aliens Registration Office a little after 10 o’clock, and as he made his way to the entrance he met Special Branch Detective Sgt Patrick O’Connor. The men exchanged pleasantries and talked about the weather, after which Görtz took a seat in the waiting room. Günther Schütz and his new wife were waiting in an adjoining room, and after a few minutes they heard a terrific commotion from the other room.
O’Connor had returned to the waiting room and informed Görtz that a US bomber plane was waiting at Baldonnel Aerodrome to take him to Germany, and that he was to be detained at the registration office until take-off. Görtz didn’t seek to get clarification from Hempel or Boland, but just calmly produced his pipe and began to smoke it. Then, suddenly, he took the cyanide capsule out of his pocket and bit on it. One of the detectives noticed what was happening and shouted, ‘That man is taking something!’ He ran over to Görtz and grabbed him by the throat. Wrestling with him he shouted, ‘What have you taken?’, to which Görtz snarled, ‘That’s none of your business.’
As the two men wrestled, Görtz collapsed. Two detectives loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. One fetched a trolley, and to the horror of the general public the detectives rushed with Görtz’s limp and lifeless body downstairs through the passport office before placing it in an ambulance and taking it to Mercer’s Hospital in the city centre. The detectives remaining in Dublin Castle burst into the adjoining room and searched Günther Schütz, confiscating his fountain pen. Totally unaware of what had just transpired, Schütz asked the detectives what was happening. The detectives told him they were looking for a poison pen. Schütz, in a state of bewilderment, asked, ‘What do you want with a poison pen?’ The detectives immediately placed him under arrest and took him back to Mountjoy Prison.
Meanwhile, at Mercer’s Hospital the registrar, Dr Marcus Shrage, who happened to be Jewish, began a frantic effort to save Görtz’s life. The poison Görtz had swallowed had become stale due to the length of time it had been in his possession; but the dose was still enough to kill him. After 30 minutes the registrar gave up his efforts, and Hermann Görtz, the most senior agent of the German Abwehr to come to Ireland during World War II, was pronounced dead. Görtz’s body was taken to a nearby mortuary, where a postmortem was carried out. Two doctors present, Dr Shrage and Dr O’Meara, ruled that his death was due to a heart attack brought on by ingestion of potassium cyanide.
Günther Schütz was allowed into the mortuary under armed guard, where he observed Görtz’s body laid out and dressed in his Luftwaffe coat. Detectives noted the cause of death as self-inflicted poisoning and, unaware of the cyanide’s origin, immediately began making enquiries in nearby chemist shops. An inquest was held into Görtz’s death and, much like his life, it was marred with controversy. De Valera issued a memorandum to all cabinet ministers that any communications between the government and Görtz were not to be disclosed. In it he claimed, ‘I am also aware of communications which have been passed between departmental officials and relating directly or indirectly to the late Dr Hermann Görtz. I consider it would be injurious to the public interest that any communication passing between any officials should be publicly disclosed.’ This created a situation whereby the Irish government was for all intents and purposes refusing to cooperate with the inquest. Therefore Görtz’s death was officially ruled a suicide, and no further enquiry ensued.
Shortly afterwards Günther Schütz was taken under armed guard to Baldonnel Aerodrome, and was placed on a US plane which took him to Frankfurt. He was sent to the US Army internment facility known as ‘Camp King’ near Oberursel north-west of Frankfurt. During the war it had served as a transit camp of the Luftwaffe and had housed many American and British POWS. Almost all of the Allied airmen shot down during the war spent time in the camp before being transferred to one of the Stalag camps.
After the war ended the Americans used the camp as an intelligence post and an internment camp to put former German agents and military personnel through a process of denazification. Alfred Jodl, Karl Dönitz and Hermann Göring all spent time in the camp. While there Schütz was dressed in black POW’S clothes and wooden shoes. He was kept under such close observation that he was even forbidden from shaving. After a period of two weeks this harsh treatment ceased, and Schütz was given his own clothes and driven to Oberursel, where he was detained in a townhouse with other German officers. Their only guard was an American sergeant, who let the prisoners freely associate and take part in leisure activities. Among the prisoners in the house were Dr Schnact, President of the German Bank, Count Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, the Nazi Minister for Finance, and generals Herr and Feuchtinger, who had been stationed in Milan during the war.
Soon afterwards Schütz was taken away for interrogation by the Americans, who among other things asked him about the extent of Irish neutrality during the war. Schütz was asked whether the Irish authorities had ever violated their neutrality. He informed the Americans that in his view de Valera had stuck rigidly to neutrality, and explained to them that he and his comrades had been interned until the end of the war, and had received no favourable treatment from the Irish authorities. Schütz was also questioned about his time in England and his various contacts within the Abwehr.
By the end of the interrogation the Americans came to the conclusion that Schütz was a minor agent, and he was released. Schütz and his wife eventually moved to Hamburg, where he set up a business selling desk lamps. Shortly afterwards he set up his own import/export business, before quietly moving back to Dublin in the early 1960s. Schütz attempted to profit from his time as a German spy, selling his story to various newspapers in the 1970s, and in his later years he visited the pub in Taghmon where he had been brought for interrogation after his arrest. Schütz lived for many years at Knockanode House near Avoca, where he was involved in the development of a seaside resort at Clogga beach. In 1971 the resort was targeted by a series of mysterious explosions. He bought a hotel in Co. Wicklow which he ran with his wife for many years, and eventually retired to his home in Avoca. Schütz died in his sleep in Shankill, Co. Dublin, in 1991.
Hermann Görtz was laid to rest on 26 May 1947 in grave space 12g of the St Nessan’s section of Deansgrange Cemetery. His friends had made enquiries as to whether a military funeral could take place but the request was refused by the Irish government. Instead Görtz received a Church of Ireland funeral that was slightly modified to include some Lutheran elements. Reverend K.D.B. Dobbs officiated at the funeral, which was attended by over 800 people.
Among those in attendance were the Farrell sisters and others who had provided refuge for Görtz while he was at large, as well as his radio operator, Anthony Deery, and his fellow spies Jan van Loon and Werner Unland. Jim O’Donovan, Charles McGuinness and Fianna Fáil TD Dan Breen were also present, with Breen acting as one of the pallbearers. Görtz himself was dressed in a Luftwaffe greatcoat, and draped over his coffin was a hand-stitched swastika flag prepared by the Farrell sisters, who proudly displayed his World War I medals on their blouses. As the coffin was brought out of the church several people raised their hands in the Nazi salute and shouted,‘Heil Hitler.’
Hempel had made enquiries to the Irish government as to whether it would be appropriate for him to attend the funeral and was advised against doing so by the Irish authorities, advice Hempel duly heeded. Görtz’s grave was initially given a simple marker, but after a petition by his wife in Germany a gravestone with a dagger sheathed in barbed wire was placed over the grave. It had been carved by Görtz himself in prison.
The Farrell sisters also arranged for a plaque to be put on the grave, which read, ‘Lt Hermann Görtz’, a rank that the unfortunate Görtz never actually held, as he had been falsely promoted to it by G2 during their time communicating with him. With his coffin lowered into the earth Görtz earned the dubious honour of being the last German to be buried with the honours of Nazi Germany, almost two years after the state ceased to exist.
Görtz’s mortal remains lay undisturbed until, under the cover of darkness on 26 April 1974, they were removed by a group of German ex-army officers acting on behalf of the German War Graves Commission, and reburied at the German War Cemetery in Glencree, Co. Wicklow. The cemetery contains the remains of 134 Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel; six of the graves contain the remains of German soldiers held as prisoners by the British during World War I. And, in the far-right corner of the cemetery, under a headstone bearing a dagger sheathed in barbed wire, lie the mortal remains of Major Hermann Görtz; to this day fresh flowers are regularly laid on his grave.
In the aftermath of Görtz’s death, Éamon de Valera ordered the burning of any documents relating to Görtz’s correspondence with government departments. Such was the diligence given to the task that, when the files were made available to the public 50 years later, virtually nothing remained. When Dan Bryan heard of Görtz’s death he was dismayed, and felt that if he had been present that day in Dublin Castle he might have been able to reason with Görtz.
Similarly, Richard Hayes, who was in the United States on a lecture tour as part of his role as Director of the National Library, was saddened at Görtz’s death. Despite the fact that he disagreed profoundly with his actions while he was in Ireland, he found him to be one of the more pleasant German agents that he had to deal with during his tenure with G2.
In late 1947 Görtz’s wife Eva petitioned the Irish government for the remainder of the money that had been seized in the raid on Stephen Held’s house in Templeogue – a sum totalling almost $25,000. ‘I am the widow of Dr Hermann Görtz,’ the petition began, ‘who was interned in Ireland for a period of years during the Second World War, and who died on or about the 27th day of May, 1947, in the city of Dublin, as a result of taking poison when he was about to be deported from Ireland to Germany.’ Minister for Justice Gerald Boland informed Frau Görtz that the money had been forfeited to the state, and there the matter came to an end.
Shortly before his death in 1947 Hermann Görtz penned a series of articles for the Irish Times where he outlined his entire mission to Ireland. In many ways it was his attempt to set the record straight on his tumultuous time in Ireland. These articles, as well as the coded report he compiled for Dr Hayes, believing he was doing so for the Nazi High Command, paint a vivid picture of the mission to Ireland of a tragicomic character who, despite the brevity of his time here, became one of Irish history’s most notorious figures.
While Görtz had been fighting deportation, Eduard Hempel and other high-ranking German diplomats in Ireland were granted asylum in Ireland. This was mainly down to Hempel’s good working relationship with the Taoiseach. In official Ireland Hempel was seen as having behaved in a much fairer way to Ireland than the American and British representatives, and was believed by many civil servants to have better respected Irish neutrality than his Allied counterparts. Hempel returned to Germany in 1949 to be ‘denazified’, and was subsequently employed in the West German Foreign Service from 1950 until his retirement in 1951.
Hempel died in the West German capital of Bonn in November 1971, and the esteem he was held in by official Ireland prevailed long after his departure from Ireland. This was summed up in a 2011 letter to the Irish Times by Michael Drury, an official of the Irish embassy in Bonn, who attended his funeral on behalf of the Irish government:
Official circles in Ireland recognised that Dr Hempel behaved correctly throughout his mission, given the narrow limits of his position. For example, he respected Ireland’s neutrality better than the American minister did. If he were regarded as having been ‘Hitler’s man’, I would not have been instructed, as an official of the Irish Embassy in Bonn, to attend his funeral in 1972.
But even if Hempel had been more respectful of neutrality than other diplomats to Ireland during the war, he also was fully aware of the racist, persecutory and murderous actions carried out by the Nazi regime. The Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht and the Final Solution all occurred during his tenure with the German Foreign Ministry, and despite the depravity of many of these actions Dr Hempel voluntarily made the career decision to represent the regime from 1937 to 1945 in Ireland, and received a salary for it. Therefore his legacy is contested.
To some he is regarded as a diplomat who showed Ireland respect as an independent nation, while to others he was simply Hitler’s man in Dublin. In any case, he remains a divisive individual in the story of Ireland and its relationship with Germany during World War II. In some ways the favourable treatment towards Hempel characterised official Ireland’s attitude towards Nazi Germany. While Jewish refugees were actively deterred from seeking asylum on these shores a plethora of Nazi war criminals and suspected collaborators found sanctuary in Ireland in the years after the war. Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s scar-faced commando who rescued Mussolini from Italian partisans in the Salo Republic, lived in Martinstown House in Co. Kildare for a period, and attended a party in Portmarnock Golf Club in the company of future Taoiseach Charles Haughey and other affluent Dublin socialites where he signed autographs for many of those in attendance.
Indeed Haughey and former Donegal TD Neil Blaney were accused of having procured weapons during the Arms Crisis from Flemish businessman and former member of the Belgian Black Brigade Albert Luykx. An acquaintance of Neil Blaney who frequented his restaurant in Sutton, Luykx was approached by Blaney and asked to help in sourcing arms in Germany with the intention of arming the IRA. Luykx was subsequently tried, together with Blaney and Charles Haughey. He maintained that the operation was sanctioned by the Minister for Defence, Jim Gibbons. All four men were eventually acquitted; however, rumours of Luykx’s past were common knowledge. In 1971 it was claimed under Dáil privilege that Luykx was ‘a convicted Nazi criminal’ who was wanted by the Belgian authorities. A Flemish nationalist, Luykx had escaped from Belgium having been sentenced to death for having denounced people to the SD during the war.
Ireland’s leading provider of children’s textbooks, Albert Folens, built a considerable publishing empire after being granted asylum in Ireland, although his past was also mired in controversy. Folens is named on the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects (CROWCASS) list of suspected Nazi collaborators, and was accused in some quarters of having worked as an interrogator for the Gestapo. He had been sentenced by a Belgian court to 10 years’ imprisonment and in an interview with a Flemish newspaper he described himself as a ‘war criminal in an honourable cause’. Folens maintained his innocence, claiming that he had worked as a translator for the Flemish SD and had no involvement in interrogations, he eventually escaped jail and made his way to Ireland having been smuggled into the country by Trappist monks.
In 2007, a two-part documentary called Ireland’s Nazis presented by Cathal O’Shannon and produced by Keith Farrell was broadcast on RTÉ. Folens’s widow Juliette obtained a temporary High Court Injunction to prevent the use in the programme of a 1985 interview between Folens and journalist Senan Molony in which Folens spoke scathingly about President Roosevelt and other Allied leaders. The Folens family issued a press release denying that Albert Folens was involved with Nazi war crimes or was ever a member of the Gestapo; however they did concede that he was conscripted into the Flemish Legion. Indeed the interview gave no insight into Folens’s exact rank during the war, and the nature of his role remains a mystery to this day.
It is unknown exactly how many suspected Nazi war criminals passed through Ireland at various stages. However one thing is clear, in that their level of notoriety didn’t act as a warning sign for the Irish authorities and their attempts at concealing their identities may have been enough to thwart the security services. In June 1985, Minister for Justice Michael Noonan was asked a question in the Dáil seeking him to comment on reports that suggested that the notorious Nazi war criminal and chief architect of many of the horrors perpetrated in Auschwitz, the infamous ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele, may have used Ireland to escape from Europe when he fled for South America soon after World War II ended. Noonan explained that nothing came to light in his department to suggest Mengele had spent time in Ireland. However, he conceded ‘That perhaps it is not surprising since what is alleged is that an alien came here under an assumed name – which is not specified – almost 40 years ago and it must be assumed that if there were any records these would refer only to the assumed name.’
Indeed in the years during the war and directly afterwards there existed what was described by some historians as ‘a large minority’ of pro-German, anti-Semitic sentiment in Ireland, especially in republican circles. This eventually dissipated as the political climate changed around the world. However the legacy of Ireland’s heroes who fought Nazism in Dublin and around the rest of Ireland quickly faded into obscurity. Eager to avoid the image of being seen as ‘John Bull’s best friend’, Ireland sought to downplay its role in aiding MI5 and the Allies during the war, and the heroics of Dr Richard Hayes and many other brave Irishmen were soon forgotten. They exist now only in the pages of official memoranda, documents and the anecdotes of those who were fortunate enough to have known such remarkable men.