Charles Turner (1907 – 1977) was an English

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and part-time spy, who took the last recorded British pre- World War II photographs of Adolf Hitler. Born in the early 1900s, Turner's life changed when his father died and his godfather Henry Pelham, 7th Duke of Newcastle took care of the young boy. Turner attended Worksop College, the public school endowed by the Duke of Newcastle. He gained a place at Cambridge university to study music. In the late 1920s into the 1930s he became a broadcast composer and fluent German speaker. In 1934 Turner made the first of a series of annual visits to the Wagner festival in

Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...

in Bavaria. In 1938 the British secret service MI5, convinced war was imminent, needed to urgently examine and assess the German threat. Approached by mutual friend Alan Angles, later of the War Office and Directorate of Ministry of Aircraft Production, Turner was recruited to infiltrate Hitler's entourage at the 1939

Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...

. Registered as a guest of the Führert, Turner was hosted by Dr Fritz streit Chairman of the Bavarian Chamber of Commerce, through whom he received an invitation to follow the Führer's itinerary on Wednesday 26 July 1939. This unexpected opportunity allowed Turner to photograph Hitler and his intimates throughout the day. He took photographs of Hitler and other leading Nazis including propaganda Minister

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...

, Hitler's Deputy,

Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...

and " Strength Through Joy" leader Dr Robert Ley. Turner subsequently delivered a report back to London which is still regarded as top secret, if indeed it still exists. Having married in 1941 and started a family, Turner's work post war often took him to Moscow. Reportedly on one occasion he took his son on tour of a housing estate in a search for the British spy Kim Philby. This may mean that Turner was still working in the interests of British Intelligence. His son is at pains to say that his father may have gathered Intelligence but was never a spy. Charles Turner died in 1977, and his photographs of Hitler were released to the public in 2007. Townhall.com::Home::About US

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Charles 1907 births 1977 deaths Musicians from Nottinghamshire English spies 20th-century classical musicians 20th-century English composers