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Hitler’s British Traitors

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Hitler’s British Traitors

By: Tim Tate
Narrated by: Tim Tate
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About this listen

Hitler’s British Traitors is the first authoritative account of a well-kept secret: the British Fifth Column and its activities during the Second World War.

Drawing on hundreds of declassified official files - many of them previously unpublished - Tim Tate uncovers the largely unknown history of more than 70 British traitors who were convicted, mostly in secret trials, of working to help Nazi Germany win the war, and several hundred British Fascists who were interned without trial on evidence that they were working on behalf of the enemy. Four were condemned to death; two were executed.

This engrossing audiobook reveals the extraordinary methods adopted by MI5 to uncover British traitors and their German spymasters as well as two serious wartime plots by well-connected British fascists to mount a coup d’etat which would replace the government with an authoritarian pro-Nazi regime.

The audiobook also shows how archaic attitudes to social status and gender in Whitehall and the courts ensured that justice was neither fair nor equitable. Aristocratic British pro-Nazi sympathisers and collaborators were frequently protected while the less-privileged foot soldiers of the Fifth Column were interned, jailed or even executed for identical crimes.

©2019 Tim Tate (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
Freedom & Security Military Politics & Government War Espionage Imperialism
All stars
Most relevant
Tim Tate in a very well researched book exposes the incompetant and arbitrary way that Britain dealt with perceived enemies of the state in the first half of the 20th C. Sadly, being a member of the aristocracy seems to have conferred a degree of immunity against prosecution irrespective of unsavoury behaviour. The redaction of the archives tells its own story. The final chapter adds further food for thought.

A salutory lesson from history

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After a bit of a slow start, I found myself immersed in this fascinating insight into how normal people have managed to get themselves caught up in espionage, sometimes motivated solely by ideology with no involvement from foreign intelligence agencies. Parallels can be drawn with modern day where people take to twitter and social media to promote their loyalties to various regimes such as Putin, Trump, IS etc.

The knowledge and experience of the research comes across in the narration. Tim Tate also sounds a bit like Harry Hill which gives the audiobook a very period feel.

Highly recommended.

Fascinating insight

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A worrying, well researched, work of history. Provides a another key to understanding British society.

Fascinating.

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Tate draws on fairy recently released archives of counter-espionage and security services documents of surveillance and and in (necessarily circumspect) newspaper reports in the thirties and forties to portray the character and extent of fascist and antisemitic groups in the UK, and their efforts to help Nazi Germany win the war.
The reluctance of those in power to act against those of wealth or social standing is made clear in Tate’s account - “one of us”, old school tie, plus ability to employ eminent lawyers and establishment connections protected them from the harsher punishments meted out to ordinary mortals!
The UK was no more prepared in the matter of legislation, strategy and Human Resources to combat subversion from within, as in military readiness on 3 September 1939.
It’s about time to add nuance to the monochrome portrayal of a nation all pulling in one direction, heroes to a man and woman. Oswald Mosley and William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) are remembered but they were not alone.

The other side of the WWII legend.

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This book truly shocked me, as to the extent of the class system of the United Kingdom, which sadly is still very much ongoing, in some parts of our, so called Democratic country.

Some of the files on these people were sealed for 100 years, many of these traitors were not given the correct due punishment, due to class mainly, while lesser citizens , we're very harshly treated.

It could be argued that : traiters, of whatever creed; should have very similar judicial sentances, alas I feel still today, this would not always be seen to be the the case, as justice for all, seems to remain a distant dream.

Wars are still going on all over the world, but we have not learnt from 2 world wars, and several more conflicts since, that iwar not a solution to anything.

I hope not to see a third world war in my lifetime, however future generations I don't think will be that lucky!


Illuminating

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