David Footman

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David John Footman (born September 17, 1895 in Faringdon , Watchfield, Berkshire, Great Britain, † October 8, 1983 ) was a British author, diplomat and intelligence officer.

Life and activity

Footman was the son of a pastor. After attending school, he studied at New College, Oxford University . His studies were interrupted by his participation in the First World War with the Royal Berkshire Regiment. During the war it was decorated with the Military Cross. He then entered the British diplomatic service.

As a diplomat, Footman was deployed to consular posts in the Levantine region: in Yugoslavia, Alexandria and Port Said. In 1929 he quit his job to become manager of the Gramophone Company in Vienna. In 1932 he went to Belgrade as a representative of the London bank Glyn Mills.

In 1935 Footman joined the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the British foreign intelligence service (also known as MI6). In this he became head of Section I of MI6, which was responsible for the acquisition and analysis of political information. During the Second World War he headed the MI6 department responsible for intelligence processing in the Soviet Union.

Due to his intelligence work, Footman came into the sights of the National Socialist police officers at the end of the 1930s, who classified him as an important target: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who were to be found in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles should be located and arrested by the Wehrmacht by the occupation troops following special commandos of the SS with special priority.

After Footman had written some fiction works in his younger years, he published numerous scientific works on Russia and the Soviet Union in later years. In 1974 he submitted his autobiography.

In 1927 Footman married the actress Joan Isabelle Footman (1907-1960), the marriage was divorced in 1936.

Fonts

  • A Pretty Pass: Or, Just a Little Careless , 1933.
  • Balkan Holiday , 1935.
  • Pig & Pepper. A Comedy of Youth , 1936.
  • Pemberton , 1943.
  • Red Prelude , 1944.
  • The Primrose Path: A life of Ferdinand Lassalle , 1946.
  • Ferdinand Lassalle: Romantic revolutionary. Biography , 1947.
  • Siberian Partisans in the Civil War , 1954.
  • Ataman Semenov , 1955.
  • The Last Days of Kolčhak , 1958.
  • Red Prelude: A Life of AI Zhelyabov , 1968. (Reprinted in 2008: Red Prelude: The Life of the Russian Terrorist, Zhelyabov )
  • The Russian Revolutions , 1969.
  • Civil War in Russia , 1971.
  • Dead Yesterday. To Edwardian Childhood , 1974.

literature

  • Nigel West: Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence , pp. 219f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry on David Footman on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London). .
personal data
SURNAME Footman, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Footman, David John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British author, diplomat and intelligence officer
DATE OF BIRTH September 17, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Faringdon , Watchfield, Berkshire, UK
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1983