Noel Mason-MacFarlane
Frank Noel Mason-MacFarlane (born October 23, 1889 - † August 12, 1953 ) was a British officer and administrative officer. He served as governor of Gibraltar and was a member of the British House of Commons .
Life and activity
After attending school, Mason-MacFarlane embarked on a military career: in 1909 he joined the Royal Artillery , with which he took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 . During the war he was used on the Western Front and in Mesopotamia .
In the 1930s MacFarlane served as a British military attaché in Austria ( Vienna ), Switzerland ( Bern ), Denmark and finally Berlin . During this time he proposed to his superiors to organize an assassination attempt on the German dictator Adolf Hitler , but this was rejected by them.
From 1939 to 1940 Mason-MacFarlane headed the intelligence service of the British Expeditionary Force on the European continent. During the British evacuation operation in Dunkirk , he was in charge of a unit known as the "Mac Force" responsible for securing the right flank of the fleeing troops during their evacuation.
The National Socialist police officers classified Mason-MacFarlane as an important target: In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be in the case of one successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the occupying troops subsequent SS special commandos with special priority.
From July 1940 to March 1941, Mason-MacFarlane was the deputy governor of the British territory at Gibraltar on Spain's south coast. In addition to the local military and naval base, this also included a city. In this position, he headed the so-called Joint Intelligence Center, an institution that organized military cooperation with the Spanish state , with the focus of work being on taking precautions in the event of a German invasion of Spain.
From 1941 to 1942, Mason-MacFarlane headed the British military mission in Moscow for almost a year . As an expert in German military tactics - which he had become as a result of his observation of the German military during his time as a military attaché in Germany - his main task in this position was to enable the Soviet Union to defend itself against the invasion of its national territory by the German Wehrmacht, which began in June 1941 to advise.
In the period from May 31, 1942 to February 14, 1944, Mason-MacFarlane then held the post of Governor of Gibraltar. During this time, the plane crash of July 4, 1943, in which the plane of the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile , Władysław Sikorski , fell into the sea immediately after the star from the British airport in Gibraltar, killing everyone on board except the pilot .
From 1944 to 1945 Mason-MacFarlane acted as chief commissioner of the Allied Control Commission for occupied Italy: In this position, to which he had been appointed by the Allied Commander-in-Chief for the European continent, Dwight Eisenhower , he was de facto the head of the interim government for occupied Italy in the last phase of the war and the immediate post-war period.
In the British general election in the summer of 1945, Mason-MacFarlane was elected as a candidate for the Labor Party in the constituency of Paddington North as a member of the House of Commons, the British Parliament. He was able to defeat the mandate holder Brendan Bracken , the information minister of the Churchill government . Mason-MacFarlane resigned his House of Commons mandate on October 22, 1946, when he left the House of Commons for health reasons. Instead, he took over for formal reasons - Members of the House of Commons cannot officially resign, but they automatically resign from Parliament if they take on certain profit-oriented offices within the state structure - the sinecure of the Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, a position in the he was subordinate to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury Secretary) of the British Government.
Mason-MacFarlane died of arthritis and complications from a broken leg. His estate is now kept in the archives of the Imperial War Museum in London.
literature
- Ewan Butler: Mason-Mac: The Life of Lieutenant-General Sir Noel Mason-Macfarlane: A Biography , 1972.
Individual evidence
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort |
Governor of Gibraltar 1942–1944 |
Ralph Eastwood |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mason-MacFarlane, Noel |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mason-MacFarlane, Frank Noel (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British officer and administrator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 23, 1889 |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 12, 1953 |