The Black Book
The Black Book was the post-war name given to the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. (literally translated as the Special Search List G.B), the list of prominent British to be arrested in the case of a successful invasion of Britain by Nazi Germany in World War II.
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[edit] Background
The list was similar to earlier lists prepared by SS like the Special Prosecution Book-Poland (German: Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen). It was an "enemies of the Reich list" prepared before the war by members of the German fifth column in cooperation with German Intelligence. Sixty-one thousand people on this list were targets of Einsatzgruppen during Operation Tannenberg and Intelligenzaktion - actions of elimination of Polish intelligentsia and the upper classes in occupied Poland between 1939-1941.
Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. was also a product of the SS Einsatzgruppen and contained the names of 2,820 people, British subjects and European exiles, who were living in Britain and who were to be immediately arrested if Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain, had succeeded. It was compiled by Walter Schellenberg. Many of the people on the list had already died, as in the case of Sigmund Freud, or had moved away, as had Paul Robeson. Of the 20,000 original copies of this book, only two are known to survive. One is currently at the Imperial War Museum, London.
An interesting omission from the list of writers is George Bernard Shaw, who was one of the few English language writers whose works were to be published and performed in Nazi Germany.[1]
Notable people on the list were (incomplete sample):
- Sir Norman Angell, Labour MP awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933.[1]
- Robert Baden-Powell, founder and leader of Scouting (the Nazis regarded Scouting as a spy organisation)[1]
- Edvard Beneš, President of the Czechoslovak government in exile[1]
- Violet Bonham Carter, anti-fascist liberal politician. Cryptically referred to as "an Encirclement lady politician" [1]
- Vera Brittain, feminist writer and pacifist[1]
- Neville Chamberlain, former prime minister[1]
- Winston Churchill, Prime minister[1]
- Duff Cooper, Cabinet Minister of Information.[1]
- Noël Coward, actor who opposed appeasement and was an armed forces entertainer, arrestable also for his homosexuality and connections with MI5[1]
- Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War.[1]
- Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, SIS/MI6 Agent ST36, Agent Z3 for Dansey's Z Organization[1]
- E. M. Forster, author [1]
- Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis and a Jew (died September 23, 1939)[1]
- Sir Philip Gibbs, journalist and novelist[1]
- J. B. S. Haldane, geneticist and evolutionary biologist and Communist[1]
- Ernst Hanfstaengl, German refugee. Once a financial backer of Hitler, he had fallen from favour and had fled Germany in 1937[1]
- Aldous Huxley, author (who had emigrated to the USA in 1936)[1]
- Harold Laski, political theorist, economist and author[1]
- David Low, cartoonist[1]
- F. L. Lucas, literary critic, writer and anti-fascist campaigner[1]
- Jan Masaryk, foreign minister of the Czechoslovak government in exile[1]
- Gilbert Murray, classical scholar and activist for the League of Nations[1]
- Vic Oliver, Jewish entertainer, originally from Austria. Married to Winston Churchill's daughter Sarah[1]
- Ignacy Jan Paderewski, pianist, former Prime Minister of Poland[1]
- J. B. Priestley, anti-Nazi popular broadcasts and fiction[1]
- Hermann Rauschning, German refugee and once personal friend of Hitler who had turned against him [1]
- Paul Robeson, African-American singer/actor with strong Communist affiliations[1]
- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, historian and pacifist. [1]
- C. P. Snow, physicist and novelist [1]
- Stephen Spender, poet, novelist and essayist[1]
- Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, politician, former German minister.[1][2]
- Beatrice Webb, socialist and economist [1]
- Chaim Weizmann, Zionist leader[1]
- H. G. Wells, author and socialist[1]
- Rebecca West, English suffragist and writer[1]
- Virginia Woolf, novelist and essayist [1]
Beside each name was the number of the RSHA (Reich Main Security Office) to which the person was to be handed over. Churchill was to be placed into the custody of Amt VI (Foreign Military Intelligence), but the vast majority of the people listed in the Black Book would be placed into the custody of Amt IV (Gestapo). On learning of the book, Rebecca West is said to have sent a telegram to Noël Coward saying My dear - the people we should have been seen dead with.
A similar book, Informationsheft G.B., contained information on establishments and institutions such as embassies, universities, newspaper offices and Freemasons' Lodges, in which the Nazis were interested.
[edit] See also
- Special Prosecution Book-Poland (German: Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen)
- Dr. Franz Six. Official who was appointed by Reinhard Heydrich to direct state police operations in German-occupied Great Britain.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Schellenberg, Invasion, 1940, at pages 150, 160, 162, 165, 168, 170, 173, 175, 180, 181, 186, 187, 191, 195, 201, 213, 217, 221, 225, 228, 230, 234, 235, 237, 239, 244, 249, 255, 259, 260, 262
- ^ Lawrence D. Stokes: Secret Intelligence and Anti-Nazi Resistance. The Mysterious Exile of Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, in: The International History Review, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Mar., 2006), p. 60.
[edit] References
- Schellenberg, Walter (2001) Invasion, 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain, Little Brown Book Group. ISBN 0953615138. Accessed at the Imperial War Museum Amazon search inside
- Black Book: Sonderfahndungsliste GB (1989) (Facsimile reprint series) Imperial War Museum, Department of Printed Books. 1989, English, ISBN 0901627518 Amazon page with extract from Introduction
- Shirer, William (1960). The Rise and fall of the Third Reich, Chapter 22 – "If the invasion succeeded". ISBN 0099421763 Discusses the black book and its contents.
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