I have found recently this poster, anibody knows the purpose of this…?
The helmet is german. no doubt.
Wow cool find!
Never seen this before but I think its a propaganda poster targeted at British people wich are invited to join the German army. :shock:
British Free Corps:
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/british_free.htm
http://members.aol.com/sturmpnzr/BFC.html
From memory they got about 50 recruits in total, roughly half of whom seem to have been working for British Intelligence the whole time in some capacity or other. They don’t seem to have actually done very much (any) fighting either.
There was a similar organisation for US prisoners with a similar success rate.
From memory, the most successful use of such recruitment was by the Soviets late in the war. German prisoners (called Seydlitz Truppen IIRC) were used to persuade other Germans to surrender. IIRC they were quite good at it, with around 1,000 of them getting the surrender of 8,000 on one occasion.
Does anyone know if these guys were arrested at the end of the War? And if so what punishments were meted out?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Free_Corps#Aftermath
While British intelligence had been aware of this unit since Brown’s first reports, and had the names of all of its members, it took several weeks for MI5 and Special Branch to track down and detain those involved. Cowie had begun training as a military policeman in Britain when he was arrested. Amery was arrested in northern Italy. Pleasants ended up in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, and was arrested by the Soviets in 1946 on espionage charges, and spent seven years in a prison camp, then returned home to boast of his dubious status as the reigning middle-weight boxing champion of the Waffen-SS until his death in 1997.
Amery and Cooper were tried for high treason alongside William Joyce (also known as “Lord Haw Haw”) and Walter Purdy, and sentenced to death; however Cooper’s and Purdy’s sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. Cooper was released from prison in 1953, and lived in the Far East for a number of years. he returned to the UK in the 1970s and died in 1987. The rest were dealt with under military law: MacLardy was sentenced to life, reduced on appeal to 15; Cowie was sentenced to 15 years, but was released after seven; Wilson got ten years; and Berry, the first recruit, served nine months. Courland was court-martialled by the New Zealand military, sentenced to 15 years, also served only seven. Freeman successfully defended himself on all charges, and was acquitted; MI5 stated his only purpose for joining the BFC was to escape and also to sabotage this unit. Berneville-Claye was acquitted due to lack of evidence, served another year in the army before being discharged for theft, and left the UK to eventually end his days in Australia.
In the middle of 1946, it was learned that three former BFC members had somehow been demobilised and escaped punishment; rather than recalling them to service to face a court-martial, they were merely summoned to an MI5 office, and given a severe warning concerning their future conduct.
Freeman, after the war, said he had seen a list of over 1,100 British who applied to fight against the Soviets. Asked why the BFC remained rife with problems and short of recruits despite opportunities like this, he summed it up that the core base of the BFC were “poor types”, which contributed to a lack of any respect for the BFC from the start.
Cheers for that MOS, of course I could have Wikied it myself!
Seems like the punishments were very varied though…
All right many thanks to all your answers, seems that this guys dont see real combat.
Interestingly enough William Joyce aka Lord Haw Haw was an old boy of my OTC, as was cheating major Ingram obviously two inspiring examples for my unit to follow.
Does this mean we can look forward to hearing the voice of Allah Bin Scaley on some Mid-East propaganda station in a few years!!
You mean something like ‘Dirka Dirka, Kill the infidel etc’ umm…maybe not. I’ll probably get done for war crimes. ‘I didn’t mean to shoot the red cross truck guv, honest!’