Archibald Maule Ramsay

Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay , also Jock , (* May 4, 1894 , † March 11, 1955 ) was an officer in the British Army and later for the Scottish Unionist Party Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons . He was interned under Defense Regulation 18B during the war from 1940 to 1945.

Family and early years

Ramsay came from an aristocratic family ( Peerage of Scotland ) as a descendant of the Earls of Dalhousie . He attended Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and joined the Coldstream Guards in 1913 . When the First World War broke out , he served in France for two years. He received a serious head injury and was transferred to the War Office in London . Here he met the Hon. Ismay Preston, the daughter of the former Governor of British Guyana and Tasmania , Jenico William Joseph Preston, 14th Viscount Gormanston , and the widow after Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart , who had died in the war. Both married.

Towards the end of the war, Ramsay served on the British War Mission in Paris . He left the army in 1920 with the rank of captain. In the 1920s he worked as a director of a company, lived at Kellie Castle near Arbroath , Angus and became an active member of the Conservative Party . In the 1931 elections, Ramsay was elected MP for Peeblesshire . Though charming and a compelling speaker, he earned the highest position on the government's Potato Marketing Board .

Spanish Civil War

When the Spanish Civil War broke out , Ramsay was a supporter of the nationalists under Franco because of the anti-clericalism of the Spanish Republicans and their attacks on the Roman Catholic Church .

In Parliament, he pointed to what he saw as the distorted portrayal of the Second Spanish Republic in the BBC's coverage and the Republicans' connection with the Soviet Union .

At the end of 1937 Ramsay formed the United Christian Front to counter attacks on Christianity “which emanates from Moscow”. Many well-known peers and church officials joined; however, the organization was also criticized in a letter to The Times by religious leaders such as William Temple ( Archbishop of York ) and Donald Soper . They argued that while they support Christian unity, an organization with the main focus on the Spanish Civil War "reveals a point of view that seems unfounded to us".

Ramsay became aware of the plan for a conference of freethinkers in London in 1938, organized by the International Federation of Freethinkers . Along with supporters in parliament, he called it a 'godless conference' convened by a Moscow organization. On June 28, 1938, he asked permission for a Private Member's Bill , the 'Aliens Restriction ( Blasphemy ) Bill', which he won by 165 votes to 134. This prevented foreign conference participants from entering the country.

anti-Semitism

Ramsay's opposition to communism made him look for how to deal with it in other countries. On January 13, 1938, he gave a speech at the Arbroath Business Club , in which he stated that Hitler's antipathy towards Jews arose from his knowledge that "the real power behind the Third International is a group of revolutionary Jews." In the same year he read The Rulers of Russia by Rev. Denis Fahey, in which it was alleged that of 59 members of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1935 56 Jews and the others were married to Jews.

At the same time he developed sympathy for Nazi Germany: In The Times in September 1938 he defended the Sudetenland's right to self-determination.

On November 15, Ramsay was invited to lunch at the German embassy in London, where he met some well-known British sympathizers of Nazi Germany, such as Barry Domvile . In December he introduced another private member's bill , the Companies Act (1929) Amendment Bill, which required that shares in news agencies and newspapers be kept open and not by agents. In his speech in support of the law, he stated that the press is being manipulated and controlled by "international financiers" from New York who are "pushing this country to war." Ramsay received permission to introduce the law with a vote of 154 to 104 votes. The journal of the Imperial Fascist League , The Fascist , declared in December 1938 that Ramsay had now become “Jew-wise”, by which it was meant that he was convinced of a Jewish conspiracy.

controversy

On January 10, 1939, the Hon. Mrs. Ismay Ramsay gave a speech at the Arbroath Business Club in which she stated that the national press was' largely under Jewish control ', that' there was an international group of Jews ... behind the world revolution in every single country stands "and that Hitler" had his reasons for what he did. " The speech appeared in a local newspaper and caught the attention of the Rabbi of Scotland, Dr. Salis Daiches, who in The Scotsman asked Mrs. Ramsay to produce evidence. This then quoted Rev. Fahey's book. The dispute lasted a month , including a letter from eleven representatives of the Church of Scotland in County of Peeble rejecting their MP's views.

Some members of the Conservative Association in Peebles were not happy about the negative headlines, and Ramsay, who assured him that he would continue to be a supporter of Neville Chamberlain and the national movement, was now speaking more at private events. On April 27, he spoke to the right-wing Nordic League in Kilburn , which attacked Chamberlain for introducing compulsory military service "at the instigation of the Jews", and the Conservative Party was "dependent on ... Jewish money".

The Right Club

Due to the controversy in January, Ramsay decided to go other ways. In May 1939 he founded 'The Right Club' and noted its members in a lockable book with a red leather cover. It contained 135 people on a male and 100 people on a female name list.

The list of members included a broad spectrum of those who were known to be anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic (such as William Joyce ), people who sympathized with this idea, as well as friends of Ramsay who might come in without knowing its goals. The first meetings were chaired by Arthur Wellesley, 5th Duke of Wellington . The club's logo, along with the initials PJ ('Perish Judah'), depicted an eagle grabbing a snake.

At the time of the club's formation, a reporter from the Daily Worker , who was watching Ramsay's speech for the Nordic League at Wigmore Hall , reported that to applause he believed an end to Jewish control was necessary “... and, if not constitutional, we will do it with steel. ” John Bull magazine and local newspaper Peeblesshire Advertiser picked up the report and asked Ramsay to withdraw or explain himself. Ramsay cited as evidence of Jewish control that three houses had turned down the meeting before it took place at Wigmore Hall.

Outbreak of war

When Secretary of War Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha , was dismissed in January 1940, Ramsay distributed copies of Truth magazine in the House of Commons , which stated that the dismissal did not apply (in fact, Hore-Belisha, the the Ministry of Commerce had been offered, the Ministry of Information sought). Ramsay declared the deplorable articles in many newspapers about the dismissal as evidence of Jewish control of the press.

Until these were dominated by Oswald Mosley and his supporters, Ramsay took part in various secret meetings of war opponents. The Right Club distributed leaflets and stickers during the Seat War . Ramsay later justified this with the aim of “transforming the atmosphere of the seated war into an honorable negotiated peace”. In addition to a poem he had written on the second day of the British declaration of war, September 4, 1939 (“Land of dope and Jewry ...”), the slogans were “War destroys workers” and “This is a war of the Jews ". On some of the leaflets it was stated that "the naked truth is that this war was planned and staged by the Jews to gain world power and out of revenge."

House of Commons

In parliament, Ramsay attacked the establishment of Defense Regulation 18B and opposed the arrest of anti-Semitic speaker Richard AV 'Jock' Houston under the Public Order Act 1936 . On March 20, 1940, he asked a question about a German propaganda station with exact information on the radio frequency, which was generally understood as advertising.

On May 9, he asked for protection from the Home Secretary "because he refused to allow himself to be trampled by the rabble of the Jewish-run press." His growing anti-Semitism was carried into the House of Commons debates by the Labor Party .

internment

One of the last members of the Right Club was Tyler Kent , an encryption expert with the American Embassy in London. Ramsay gave Kent, who enjoyed diplomatic immunity, the membership book for safekeeping. However, the British MI5 suspected him of having copied the secret correspondence between US President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill , so that his house was searched on May 20, 1940 after the lifting of his immunity with the consent of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy .

Ramsay's membership book found in the process caused considerable unrest in the Churchill government, as there was a possibility that Kent had passed on the documents found with him. Since Ramsay had parliamentary privileges, the government could not have prevented their publication. The Tyler-Kent affair documents proved that Roosevelt, by circumventing the neutrality laws by contacting a 'belligerent country', forced the US to participate in the war, which, if known in Congress, would have presumably led to his impeachment. Since Churchill was in dire need of the loan and lease law to continue the war due to lack of money , the ousting of Roosevelt, who had to fight domestic isolationists like the America First Committee , would have become a problem for Britain. Churchill's cabinet therefore decided to expand Regulation 18B to include 'disloyal people' in detention.

Ramsay was arrested on May 23rd under Defense Regulation 18B and sent to Brixton Prison. To protect his reputation, he hired a lawyer from Oswald Hicksons law firm , who represented a number of those imprisoned for the same reason, such as Labor politician Ben Greene . When Lord Marley named Ramsay in the House of Lords “the Gauleiter chosen by Hitler for Scotland in the event of an invasion”, the law firm sued.

As a prisoner of 18B, Ramsay's only possibility of release was a request to the Advisory Committee under Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett , who refused. Some of Ramsay's parliamentary colleagues argued that the detention was a violation of MP immunity, so the case was referred to the Committee of Privileges . The committee found no violation on October 9th.

Libel process

In July 1940, the New York Times published an article on "Britain's Fifth Column" which "informed American circles say that he (Ramsay) conveyed treason information received from Tyler Kent to the German legation in Dublin."

Ramsay sued the newspaper for insult and defamation, which failed to provide evidence in the July 1941 trial and lost the trial. The judge awarded him the usual farthing , as well as the costs of the trial and prosecution, while the New York Times paid £ 75 to the court.

Ramsays damaged himself in the process, however, by his statements. He affirmed his loyalty to Great Britain, but when asked whether he would like Nazism to be defeated, he replied by replacing 'Nazism' with 'Germany': 'Not just Germany, the Jewish danger too.' The judge concluded that Hitler would call Ramsay a 'friend' and that he was “disloyal to his king, the government and the people” in heart and soul.

As a result of the process, his local Conservative Association replaced him with David Robertson (politician) , MP Streathams , who found it too expensive to pay taxes in two constituencies and therefore gave up in October 1942.

additional

After various attempts, some together with other 18B prisoners, Ramsay was released on September 26, 1944. His eldest son Alec had previously died of pneumonia in South Africa in August 1943 as a member of the Scots Guards . The father returned to Westminster and resumed his parliamentary seat. He called for the re-establishment of the Statute of Jewry Edwards the First in 1275 and lost his seat in the British general election in 1945 .

In 1952 Archibald Maule Ramsay wrote an autobiography.

literature

• Archibald Maule Ramsay: "The Nameless War". Britons Publishing Company. London, 1952 - online
• Ray Bearse, Anthony Read: "Conspirator: The Untold Story of Churchill, Roosevelt and Tyler Kent, Spy" Macmillan. London. 1991
• Richard Griffiths, "Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British Anti-Semitism 1939-40" Constable. London. 1998
• ZDFinfo / Nicholson, Peter, 2016: Churchill and the Nazi Conspiracy, online at https://www.zdf.de/sender/zdfinfo/churchill-und-die-nazi-verschwoerung-gross Ukine-und- 100.html , most recently Retrieved Aug. 2, 2016

swell

1. ^ John Rupert Colville : Downing Street Diaries 1939-1945. Settlers, 1988.
2. ↑ Dirk Bavendamm: Roosevelt's War 1937-45. Herbig, Munich 1993.