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- Re: the apparent post-war interrogation of Heinrich Muller and the purported German intercept of the Churchill-Roosevelt telephone conversation – in Lobster 35 pp. 20/21Chris Othen reports that the alleged intercept is taken from a book by Gregory Douglas, Gestapo Chief (R.J. Bender Publications, 1998). He writes:
‘This is one of those situations where the information comes from a source which can be considered distasteful but worthy of consideration. About a year ago I bought a copy of Apocalypse 1945 – the Destruction of Dresden by David Irving by mail order from Focal Point, his one man publishing company. An unforeseen side effect of this was that I now semi-regularly receive a newsletter called Action Report….the last copy I got was in December 1997. It contains an acidly written book review of Gestapo Chief by Gregory Douglas which claims the book is a fake.’
Irving’s opening paragraph is:
‘Gregory Douglas’ book Gestapo Chief: the 1948 Interrogation of Heinrich Muller, is a carefully crafted historical novel the success of which depends on the reader’s partial familiarity with historical events and total acceptance of unsubstantiated documents and assertions.’ (emphasis added).
He continues:
‘”Douglas” manages to substantiate his fabricated Muller statements by weaving a web of historical half-truths consisting of innuendo and unsubstantiated assertions….
“Gregory Douglas” is the pseudonym of “Peter Stahl” alias “Burch”, a convicted counterfeiter living in the United States under various names assigned to him by a witness-protection programme. We have seen his police record, and we are not impressed by his clumsy forgeries of wartime documents.’
In his assessment of the purported Roosevelt-Churchill intercept, in Lobster 35 Andrew Rosthorn speculated that this might be the the ‘missing telegram’, the one message between the two leaders which had apparently not been released into the public domain. In The Independent (24 August 1998) Paul Lashmar, in ‘Pearl Harbour conspiracy is bunk’, reported that the ‘secret file’ believed to contain the aforementioned ‘secret telegram’ had been released into the Public Record Office – and there was no secret telegram.
- In response to Dave Renton’s ‘The police and fascist/anti-fascist street conflict 1945-51’ in Lobster 35 I received the following comments.
- J. C. Banks, member of Common Wealth, sent a photocopy of an article he wrote in the Common Wealth Review of 1948 describing police support for Mosley; and, in a letter, commented:
‘Far from attempting to debate with [the Mosleyites] Common Wealth was their main opponent particularly in Hackney and Stoke Newington, and over a number of weekends throughout the winter of 1947/8 denied the fascists the use of their prime site in Dalston Road, Hackney by ‘booking’ it through overnight vigils….the communists (CP variety) were nowhere to be seen, let alone members of the Hackney or Stoke Newington Labour parties…that Common Wealth was no more than a debating society was a slur by the Marxists who never forgave us for our rejection of ‘scientific’ socialism and the notion of ‘democratic centralism’.
- From Laurens Otter:’I can remember, from when I was a Stalinist, (at the beginning of the period) that the C.P. were expelling people as “adventurists” who were involved in anti-fascist demos; (just as they expelled Joe Jacobs for his 1936 part in organising resistance to Mosley at the Gardiners’ Corner and Capel Street.) In the 1960s I remember one of the founders of the ’43 Group describing the events of fifteen years before, saying, “The only people who were there to stand with us and fight the fascists and the police were Common Wealth, the ILP, the Anarchists and the Trots.”‘From all I’ve heard, the Labour Party people who were involved at Ridley St., were the ex-Common Wealth faction round Commander Millington MP who went into the ILP in ’46. When Millington was expelled from the L.P. soon after, one reason given was his unruly behaviour in fighting the fascists.’
- Al Baron sent too much information to include, but his main points were:
- some of the anti-Jewish events of 1947 (synagogue burning and looting) were triggered by the events in Palestine (He cites the Jewish Chronicle, August 8, 1947, pages 1 & 5, reports of anti-Jewish riots throughout Britain.)(1)
- PRO records show that the Home Office regarded the NCCL in the pre-war era as a communist front.
- The Morris Beckman book about the 43 Group, cited by Renton, is full or errors. He cited a couple of dozen of which the most spectacular is the inclusion of the NF’s Martin Webster and the BNP’s John Tyndall as pre-war fascist speakers who re-emerged after the war! As Baron points out, Tyndall was born in 1934; and Webster is younger than him.
- J. C. Banks, member of Common Wealth, sent a photocopy of an article he wrote in the Common Wealth Review of 1948 describing police support for Mosley; and, in a letter, commented:
- The essay by Dave Renton is part of a longer work and the Palestine factor is discussed in the chapter following the one published in Lobster 35 – ed.