Documents Tying Churchill to Himmler Report Forgeries

Nickdfresh · May 7, 2008, 2:44pm

Historians seek public report on World War II forgeries

By GREGORY KATZ – 18 hours ago

LONDON (AP) — British historians called Tuesday for a public report on the inquiry into 29 forged documents found at the National Archives that falsely accuse Winston Churchill’s government of having a secret, cordial relationship with Nazi SS chief Henrich Himmler at the height of World War II.

Eight leading historians signed an open letter urging police to take action against the suspect who faked the documents, which also allege that Churchill ordered the assassination of Himmler to keep the discussions secret.

“That’s a blood libel against Churchill and totally untrue,” said historian Andrew Roberts, who signed the letter published in the Financial Times.

Mainstream historians reject the assertion about Churchill because there is no evidence to support it, except the faked papers. Himmler was never assassinated; he committed suicide by poisoning himself with cyanide after he was captured by British forces in 1945.

Roberts was joined in the letter by John Keegan, Antony Beevor, Niall Ferguson and other prominent historians, who hoped swift action by authorities would deter anyone else from tainting the trusted archives with more forgeries.

“It’s creating false memory syndromes about a very important part of our national story,” Roberts said. “If the guy gets away with it, it will be a green light to manufacture evidence. It’s been done in a criminal way, and yet the police don’t seem very interested in dealing with it.”

Prosecutors, who did not release the name of the suspect, said they would not press charges because the person was in poor health.

Since 2000, the documents had been placed surreptitiously in 12 separate files at the National Archives, which Roberts called “the bedrock” institution for historians studying British history.

Archive directors learned of the suspicious documents in 2005 after receiving a tip from Ben Fenton, a British journalist, and the matter was turned over to Scotland Yard.

A police investigation followed, and prosecutors concluded that there was sufficient evidence to press charges of forgery and criminal damage. But they decided it was “not in the public interest to do so” because of the suspect’s health, the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement Tuesday.

“The reviewing lawyer carefully considered medical reports and all relevant public interest factors before reaching this decision,” the statement said.

Much of the detective work in the case was that of Fenton, a journalist with a long-standing interest in the documents at the archives on the outskirts of London.

He told The Associated Press he first became interested in the papers after a friend recommended he look into them because of the shocking allegation that Churchill ordered Himmler’s death.

His concerns about the authenticity of the documents were raised after he saw unexplained pencil marks beneath some of the signatures. He was also deeply suspicious about the use of some phrases, such as “devastating repercussions,” that were not widely used in the 1940s.

Fenton also found some titles were used incorrectly in the documents. He raised his concern with archive directors, who agreed to let forensics experts study the documents.

Two experts agreed that the documents were bogus, and the matter was then turned over to police, who also concluded the papers were phony.

Fenton said the archives probably contain other forged documents from the same source, but he does not believe there are large numbers of undiscovered fake papers.

Embarrassed officials have posted 30 pages of forged documents, and some of the forensics investigations, on the National Archives Web site. They have also posted testimony given by directors about their inquiry.

Fenton, now media correspondent with the Financial Times, also believes a prosecution is needed in the case.

“My concern is the poisoning of the well,” he said, referring to the credibility of the National Archives. “It’s not just the Himmler thing. That’s the headline grabbing thing, but there are other allegations made about Britain’s conduct in the Second World War which are similarly based on forgeries and don’t have any support elsewhere.”

He reported in the Financial Times magazine Saturday that the forged documents provide part of the basis for Martin Allen’s 2005 book “Himmler’s Secret War,” which challenged whether Himmler committed suicide.

The Associated Press left messages Tuesday with Allen’s representatives.

Sevarine Gould, a spokeswoman for the National Archives, said security procedures have been changed to prevent more fakes from being planted. She said she cannot speculate on who put the phony documents in place or their motive.

“I don’t think we can speculate on what the intention was,” she said. “We’ve made all efforts to find out how it happened.”

Nickdfresh · May 7, 2008, 2:48pm

The 29 fakes behind a rewriting of history

· National Archives ‘Amateurish’ false records planted over five years
· Patrols and spy cameras at public reading rooms

* Paul Lewis
* The Guardian,
* Monday May 5 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday May 05 2008 on p11 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:20 on May 05 2008.

A letter to Adolf Hitler from the Duke of Windsor, supposedly written in 1939, turned out to be a fake. Photograph: PA

They were the secret intelligence files that turned second world war history on its head with “revelations” of British collaboration with the Nazis.

British agents used the royal family to deceive the Nazis into expecting a pro-German putsch. The Duke of Windsor leaked secrets to help Hitler. And, most sensationally of all, SS chief Heinrich Himmler was murdered by secret agents on Winston Churchill’s orders.

The elaborate claims, contained in three separate books by the historian Martin Allen and based on previously unseen documents, read like the stuff of spy fiction. As it turned out, they were.

Details of an investigation by the National Archives into how forged documents came to be planted in their files have uncovered the full extent of deception. Officials discovered 29 faked documents, planted in 12 separate files at some point between 2000 and 2005, which were used to underpin Allen’s allegations.

Police interviewed Allen, who is believed to be the only person to check out all the files that contained the forged documents. After a 13-month police investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that it was not in the public interest to prosecute, in part because of Allen’s deteriorating health. Allen has repeatedly refused to comment but has previously denied involvement in the forgeries.

Documents from the investigation, including internal correspondence, witness statements to police and forensic science evidence, were posted on the National Archives website over the weekend.

Officials believe this is the most serious case of fraud of its kind anywhere in the world. They have overhauled security at the archives, the official record of 900 years of British government from the Domesday Book on, based in Kew, south-west London.

Public reading rooms are now subject to regular patrols and three months ago security cameras were installed to keep an eye on readers. “This is a one-off case, both nationally and internationally,” said a spokesperson. “The papers we’ve released show how seriously we took the situation.”

The investigation found an almost amateurish level of forgery: telegrams and memos contained factual inaccuracies; letterheads had been added using a laser printer; forged signatures were pencilled beneath the ink; and the text of the 29 documents - occasionally in conspicuously modern language - was typed on just four typewriters. All the documents were used to support Allen’s claims.

In his 2002 book, Hidden Agenda, he suggested the Duke of Windsor helped the Germans to conquer France by slipping secrets to the Nazis via a German spy who acted as intermediary. The claim relied on five bogus documents, including a letter purported to be from the Duke to Adolf Hitler in 1939.

The next year more bogus documents were used to support Allen’s claims, in The Hitler/Hess Deception, about the motives behind the escape of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, to Scotland in 1941.

His final book, two years later, Himmler’s Secret War, claimed that Himmler did not, as was widely believed, commit suicide after his capture, but was murdered by intelligence agents on the orders of Churchill. Included in Allen’s evidence was one forged letter purporting to be written by John Wheeler-Bennett, a Foreign Office official, in which he says he has been “giving some serious thought to the little H [Himmler] situation”.

To avoid Himmler giving evidence, or supplying information to American intelligence, Wheeler-Bennett supposedly concluded: “Steps will therefore have to be taken to eliminate him as soon as he falls into our hands.”

In 2005, when the National Archives investigation found 17 documents were fakes, officials called in police .

A witness statement from one archivist, Louise Atheron, finds that even where Allen uses citations from National Archives documents that were genuine, he was guilty of “significant exaggerations” and “very fluid evidence” to stand up dubious claims.

“The National Archives views anything that compromises the integrity of historical information very seriously,” said David Thomas, the archives’ chief information officer.

Carl_Schwamberger · May 7, 2008, 3:43pm

Forgeries of this sort are unusual, at least in the US & Britian. What I have found to be much more common is the destruction of historical documents. This is often to conceal evidence from other historians, but its also common for simple monetary purposes. Map archives, librarys, and museums had had a on going problem the past two decades of theft of maps for resale. At the upper end are rare maps from several centuries ago stolen by collectors & for sale to collectors. At the bottom are theves who rip maps from older atlases or books in the library to sell on the internet.

Fake historical photographs are also becoming common on the internet. Made as a joke, or to advance someones agenda or argument.