George Ogilvie-Forbes

GEORGE OGILVIE-FORBES

Sir George Arthur Drostan Ogilvie-Forbes KCMG (1891-1954) was a British diplomat who held two key postings in areas of significance in the years leading up to the Second World War, as chargé d’affaires in Madrid and Valencia 1936-37 and as Counsellor and chargé d’affaires in Berlin 1937-1939. He was known for his humanitarian role in both situations. In 2008 his name was included on a plaque in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, commemorating seven British diplomats “…who by their personal endeavours helped to rescue victims of Nazi racial policy.

Early Life 

Ogilvie-Forbes was born on 6 December 1891 in Edinburgh, son of an Aberdeenshire landowner. He was educated at The Oratory School, Beaumont College, Bonn University and New College Oxford. In 1914 he joined the Scottish Horse Yeomanry, was wounded at Gallipoli and twice mentioned in Dispatches. In 1916 he was promoted to Captain and became ADC to Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude the Commander-in-Chief, Mesopotamia and served on the General Staff.

Early Diplomatic career Ogilvie-Forbes joined HM Diplomatic Service in 1919, and early postings included Denmark, Finland, Serbia, Mexico (1927-30), chargé d’affaires to the Holy See (1930-32), Counsellor to Embassy in Baghdad (1932-35)

Spain 1936 -1937 At the outbreak of the civil war in July 1936 several embassies, including the British, evacuated to Hendaye. Ogilvie-Forbes was appointed charge d’affaires in Madrid, which was then a war zone governed by the Republicans. British policy during the Spanish Civil War was officially that of non-intervention, but many believed at the time that this was a false image and subsequent opening of official records has shown the government’s support for Franco from the start. In contrast to this, Ogilvie-Forbes set out firstly to be as impartial as possible, and secondly to cultivate good relations with the differing factions within the Republican side because of the opportunity it provided for humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees from both sides of the conflict.

His impartiality was at first questioned by some in Britain, because of his Roman Catholic faith, but this was soon dispelled by his actions. Dr. Tom Buchanan in his article “Edge of Darkness: ‘Front-line’ Diplomacy in the Spanish Civil War 1936-1937” wrote of Ogilvie-Forbes: ‘He had no interest in the competing ideologies in Spain … and never lost sight of the fact that the conflict represented above all, private suffering on an immense scale which it was within his power - in however small a way - to mitigate…. Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes was clearly the most impressive British public servant in Spain during the civil war.’

During his four and a half months running the embassy in Madrid the city was torn by the violence of the chaotic reign of terror within and the shelling by Franco’s army from the outside. Although his main duty was to provide sanctuary for British citizens, he was also taking in up to two hundred people a night seeking shelter, and these were from both sides of the conflict. There was strong disapproval from some members of the British community who thought that the Embassy should be opened up only to the members of the Spanish aristocracy and middle classes and sometimes little understanding from his superiors in London; when he pointed out that ‘not a word has been said of the decent leaders of the Left who may be in equal danger … those who have done their duty and to whom we are indebted, will receive no mercy’ , Sir Robert Vansittart minuted “I do not understand Mr Forbes : having criticised those embassies which took in refugees of the right, he now proposes to give asylum to even more dangerous refugees of the Left”.

Under these very stressful conditions, Ogilvie-Forbes was seen as something of a hero by junior colleagues: ‘ … he became central to a very ‘British’ legend of pluck and common humanity which in certain respects he may be said to have encouraged… He worked closely with journalists and he correctly saw publicity (or the threat of it) as one of the few weapons at his disposal in the struggle to protect innocent lives… in return journalists were granted their story of the jovial, compassionate, bagpipe-playing Scotsman who kept the embassy open against the odds.’ At times he had to hang curtains as dividing lines within the building to prevent violent squabbling between the different factions. To keep up morale and to show Madrid that there was still a British presence in the city Ogilvie-Forbes would play the bagpipes from the Embassy roof. Towards the end of 1936 the Foreign Office was keen for Ogilvie-Forbes to close the embassy in Madrid, whilst acknowledging “ that in the present welter of agony he feels a personal call to continue as long as possible his work of mercy, and that he cannot leave without doing violence to his conscience.” On the 1st January 1937 after the Republican government moved out of Madrid, Ogilvie-Forbes was instructed to move the Embassy to Valencia. Soon after that he was appointed as Counsellor to the British Embassy in Berlin.

By January 1937 British officials had helped in the evacuation of some 17,000 refugees. When Ogilvie-Forbes received his KCMG in May 1937 for his services in Spain, he pointed out in a letter to Anthony Eden that it was in recognition of all his colleagues who had helped him in Spain ‘often in terribly cruel circumstances’. Ogilvie-Forbes at times certainly ‘bent the rules’ and his colleagues in the field quite often used their diplomatic status to obtain the release and safe-conduct of people from both sides of the conflict. He had considerable respect for those who showed great personal bravery in taking humanitarian action, such as Captain E.C. Lance D.S.O. who built up a clandestine network helping mainly Nationalists to escape from Madrid, but also, on the Republican side, Miss Fernandez Jacobsen who ran the Scottish Ambulance Unit in Madrid.

Sir Geoffrey Thompson, who worked with Ogilvie-Forbes in Valencia wrote that “he was a chief for whose personal courage and kindness to others I had deep respect. I do not know if the full story of his service in Spain will ever be written, but it is certainly one which his descendants can be proud, for in those dreadful days of terror in Madrid between July and December 1936, he saved many Spanish lives.”

Berlin 1937-1939

Ogilvie-Forbes was appointed counsellor to the Embassy in Berlin in early April 1937. Sir Neville Henderson, the new ambassador, arrived shortly afterwards. It was unusual to replace an ambassador and his second-in-command at the same time especially in an embassy of such significance. Ogilvie-Forbes and Henderson had differing attitudes towards Hitler and the Nazi regime, and their personal relationship was strained from the start. In the various degrees of approach to Appeasement, Henderson certainly shared the views of Neville Chamberlain, and as far as possible he dealt with Chamberlain directly, regularly bypassing the Foreign Office. Henderson was appointed in the hope that he might befriend Hitler and thus help to moderate the latter's behaviour towards Britain. As late as February 1939 Henderson wrote “If we handle him (Hitler) right, my belief is that he will become gradually more pacific. But if we treat him as a pariah or mad dog we shall turn him irrevocably into one”. As Ogilvie-Forbes noted in a letter after the war “He believed that he was the only and heaven sent emissary to do the trick. I do not blame him of course for a failure, which no man could have prevented. He thought that he could get Hitler under his thumb."

As well as avoiding Foreign Office channels, Henderson also ignored most of his Embassy staff, openly expressing a low opinion of them. He was very much a “one man band”, consulting only Ivone Kirkpatrick, the First Secretary who had been in Berlin for four years. He wrote all the telegrams himself, which meant in effect that only his views were getting through to the cabinet, and these placed the achievement of good Anglo-German relations above accurate reporting of Hitler's intentions.

By mid 1938 it was clear that Henderson was a very sick man, and in October he had to return to London and take five months leave for treatment for the cancer from which he died in 1942. During this time Ogilvie-Forbes was in charge of the embassy. He had a much more pessimistic view of Hitler than Henderson, and this was reflected in his dispatches back to the Foreign Office. At first he was involved with sorting out the implementation of the Munich Agreement, something that Henderson had encouraged Chamberlain to agree to. Ogilvie-Forbes became increasingly tired “of the Germans’ arrogant and dictatorial actions, and their blatant disregard for the letter and spirit of Munich.” In the months that followed, his appraisal of the situation was bleak, emphasizing that Hitler could not be trusted and “ had unlimited aims of world domination and an ‘insensate’ hatred of Britain …That appeasement could never succeed...That the German economy was solely directed towards military ends ...and Hitler could only be removed after a military defeat - Britain would have to choose between war and surrender." He could see no possibility at all of Goering (whom he knew personally) leading a movement against the Fuhrer, and dismissed the idea of an internal German revolt to overthrow the Nazis.

In December 1938 Ogilvie-Forbes submitted a detailed report with Ivone Kirkpatrick in which Kirkpatrick wrote “One thing is certain; Nazi aims are on a grandiose scale and there is no limit to their ultimate ambitions … Hitler might first try to liquidate France and England before British rearmament is ready”. Ogilvie-Forbes also commended a report prepared by his military attache Col. Noel Mason-MacFarlane based on sources from clandestine German opposition groups, and noted that whatever Hitler’s ultimate aims were, it was certain that military action was both “contemplated and in preparation” and that despite indications of an Eastern attack, Hitler might “endeavor to strike a really heavy and surprise blow in the West against us”.

Although Ogilvie-Forbes and the Embassy Staff were passing on reports from various opposition groups in Germany and other sources, which were also monitored by SIS (MI6), these same reports would not have been a priority under Henderson, who when he returned in mid-February 1939 assembled the Embassy staff and berated them for the negative tone of their despatches, “appreciating the situation wrongly and misinforming His Majesty’s Government.” It has been argued by the historian Bruce Strang, that during the time of Henderson's absence, Ogilvie-Forbes, being in charge of the embassy, was able to have a significant effect on British Foreign policy, as he wrote: " It was not a coincidence that the decisive turn in the Cabinet's perception of Hitler occurred while Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes temporarily headed the Berlin Embassy, as he helped to undermine Chamberlain's often inaccurate views, and to create the climate of moral revulsion and the heightened sense of danger in which the Cabinet operated." This “moral revulsion” was perhaps most keenly conveyed by the barrage of strongly worded reports concerning the plight of the Jews in Germany sent by Ogilvie-Forbes. In a letter to Lord Halifax after Kristalnacht (10 November 1938) Ogilvie-Forbes described how he and members of his staff witnessed the looting and destruction of Jewish property. The attacks, he wrote, started at a given hour, targeted with uncanny precision Jewish shops and buildings and ended on the word of Goebbels who condoned what had been done. Ogilvie-Forbes noted that most Germans he met, did not approve of what was happening but no amount of outspoken condemnation ‘… will have any influence over the insensate gang in present control of Nazi Germany” whom he accused of organizing “ this orgy of destruction and terror.” Using reports from his Consuls-General in Frankfurt-am-Main and Vienna, he showed the degree of suffering and desperation for Jewish families were even worse in other parts of Germany than in Berlin. Towards the end of his letter Ogilvie-Forbes wrote “I think the murder of Herr vom Rath by a German born Polish Jew has only accelerated the elimination of the Jews which has for long been planned. …It has let loose the forces of mediaeval barbarism…I can find no words strong enough in condemnation of the disgusting treatment of innocent people and the civilized world is faced with the appalling sight of 500,000 people about to rot away in starvation.” He points out that this is not just a national problem but also a world problem.

In the Berlin Embassy’s annual report for 1938 Ogilvie-Forbes notes that at the beginning of the year it was ascertained that there were 15,700 prisoners at Dachau of whom over 12,000 were Jewish who were being subjected to harsh treatment. In the concentration camp at Buchenwald there were 30,000 Jews who were in many cases treated with brutality. He warned that unless Hitler were stopped by war then the Jews “extermination in Germany can only be a matter of time.” He argued on several occasions that the British Government might persuade Hitler to use the one billion Reichmarks fine, which had been levied against the Jews, to fund Jewish emigration, an action that he believed could really save Jewish lives. The government did not take this up.

As regards helping individual Jews to escape from the Nazis, in his position as a senior diplomat Ogilvie-Forbes could not be seen to be “bending the rules”. However, he was able to help an acquaintance, Klaus Neuberg and secure the release of his son and three nephews from Sachenhausen, and the subsequent move of eight of the family to New Zealand. This was organised through Captain Frank Foley, the passport control officer in the embassy, whom Ogilvie-Forbes supported, unofficially, in his work to enable thousands of Jews to escape.

Later Diplomatic career After leaving Berlin soon after the outbreak of war, Ogilvie-Forbes was sent as Counsellor to the British Embassy in Norway, but had to leave almost immediately in company with the ambassador and the royal family when the Germans invaded. From 1940-1944 he was Minister to Cuba and then from 1944-1949 Ambassador to Venezuela.

Retirement and death On retirement Ogilvie-Forbes farmed his estate of Boyndlie, Aberdeenshire, was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Aberdeenshire, and became actively involved in various local charities, and cultural organisations. He was a member of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry and the Catholic Council of Great Britain. For a short time he supported the Scottish Nationalist Party and was then designated by the 4th Scottish National Assembly to negotiate with the UK Government on the principle of self-government for Scotland under the Scottish Covenant Association Scheme of 1950. He died of a heart attack in 1954 at the age of 63.

Family Ogilvie-Forbes married Clare Louise Hunter in 1921 and had two children, Lt Colonel Thomas Drostan Ogilvie-Forbes, Royal Engineers, who died in 1946 at the age of 24, and Christine Mary Margaret Ogilvie-Forbes (Mrs. Brose) who worked in Hut 8, Bletchley Park (1939-1945). One of his half-brothers Air Vice Marshall Neill Ogilvie-Forbes OBE was Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Intelligence) 1950-52 and a half-sister Marion Wilberforce was one of the first eight women pilots to join the ATA in January 1940.