Malcolm Grahame Christie (27 January 1881 – 3 November 1971), known as either Colonel or Group-Captain Graham Christie, was a British

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from 1927 to 1930 who then worked as an intelligence officer in Germany from 1930 to 1939. Christie investigated the political situation in Germany in the 1930s, initially as a freelance amateur and then after 1933 on behalf of

Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office This is a list of Permanent Under-Secretaries in the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (and its predecessors) since 1790. Not to be confused with Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Permanent Unde ...

Sir Robert Vansittart, who regarded Christie as the best source to provide information on the inner workings of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

to the

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. Vanisttart was a part of the SIS but ran what amounted to his own "private detective agency" gathering intelligence on Nazi Germany; "more than any other Whitehall mandarin," Vansittart advocated for British rearmament and against appeasement, and Christie was "by far the most important British member of Vanisttart's network." Christie had a house on the German-Dutch border, knew Herman Göring and his deputy

Erhard Milch Erhard Milch (30 March 1892 – 25 January 1972) was a German general field marshal (''Generalfeldmarschall'') of Jewish heritage who oversaw the development of the German air force (''Luftwaffe'') as part of the re-armament of Nazi Germany foll ...

personally, and traveled easily in Berlin society. His network of known informants included

Carl Goerdeler Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (; 31 July 1884 – 2 February 1945) was a monarchist Conservatism, conservative German politician, executive, economist, civil servant and German resistance to Nazism, opponent of the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime. He oppose ...

Robert Bosch Robert Bosch (23 September 1861 – 12 March 1942) was a German industrialist, engineer and inventor, founder of Robert Bosch GmbH. Biography Bosch was born in Albeck, a village to the northeast of Ulm in southern Germany as the eleventh of t ...

, and

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. There was also X, a senior minister in the German Air Ministry who provided information on the Luftwaffe, Dr. Y, "Fish," and "Johnnie," who may have been Hans van Herwarth. "X" provided projected Luftwaffe force numbers for 1936 and 1937, info on aircraft production rates, and technical information such as "engine modifications to the

Dornier 17 The Dornier Do 17 is a twin-engined light bomber produced by Dornier Flugzeugwerke for the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Designed in the early 1930s as a ''Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") intended to be fast enough to outrun opposing a ...

bomber." Christie also had slightly advanced notice of the

remilitarization of the Rhineland The remilitarization of the Rhineland () began on 7 March 1936, when German military forces entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared for a milit ...

and was told by Göring himself that the Reich had designs on Austria and Czechoslovakia. In 1935, Christie arranged for

Konrad Henlein Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein (6 May 1898 – 10 May 1945) was a leading Sudeten Germans, Sudeten German politician in Czechoslovakia. Upon the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German occupation in October 1938 he joined the Nazi Party as well ...

, the leader of the pro-Nazi

Sudeten German Party The Sudeten German Party (german: Sudetendeutsche Partei, SdP, cs, Sudetoněmecká strana) was created by Konrad Henlein under the name ''Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront'' ("Front of the Sudeten German Homeland") on 1 October 1933, some months afte ...

, to visit

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and meet with Vansittart. Henlein successfully used the visit to play the part of the reasonable statesman and to convince the British to put pressure on Czechoslovak officials to accede to the demands of the Sudeten Germans.

Early life

Christie was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, on 27 January 1881, the son of John and Annabelle Christie, his father was a bank manager. In the 1911 Census of Leeds, Christie is in the Grand Central Hotel and is described as a chemical engineer.

First World War

Christie joined the

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in 1914 and latter transferred to the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

as a Second Lieutenant when it was formed in 1918.

Honours and awards

*24 January 1917 - Captain (temporary Major) Malcolm Grahame Christie MC of the Royal Flying Corp, is appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order for valuable service rendered in connection with the war.

Family

A great-nephew of Christie, The Honourable Dr Nicholas Blain, in his book ''Pilots and Management: Industrial Relations in the UK Airlines'' (1972), paid tribute to Christie as "one of the earliest pioneers of British aviation".

References

External links

The Papers of Group Captain Malcolm Christie
held at

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...

, Cambridge 1881 births 1971 deaths British air attachés British intelligence operatives Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Recipients of the Military Cross Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Royal Flying Corps officers Royal Air Force personnel of World War I Military personnel from Birmingham, West Midlands British expatriates in Germany {{RAF-bio-stub