Pearl Joyce Vardon (5 April 1915 in
Jersey
Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the l ...
,
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...
– November 2011) was a British broadcaster of
Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. In 1946 she was convicted of an offence under the
Defence Regulations
During the Second World War Defence Regulations were a fundamental aspect of everyday life in the United Kingdom.
They were emergency regulations passed on the outbreak of war and during it to give the government emergency powers to prosecute the ...
and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.
Biography
Pearl Vardon was a school teacher on Jersey when the island fell under the
German occupation of the Channel Islands in 1940. As she spoke German, she found herself ordered by the German administration to work locally as an interpreter for a construction company based in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
.
She began a relationship with a
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
officer,
Oberleutnant Siegfried Schwatlo, and when he was posted to Germany in 1944 she decided to go with him.
Propaganda for Nazi Germany
Vardon began employment as an announcer at
Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg).
The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...
for the DES, the Deutsche Europasender. She introduced music and programmes such as ''Ladies First'' which criticised the USA and praised Germany's social security system, and ''Matters of Moment'' which gave news from a German perspective. More significantly, in ''For the Forces and their Kin'', she read out letters written by British
POWs for their families back home. A German colleague later said of Vardon's attitude that she "simply hated all things English and loved all things German".
In mid 1944 she was evacuated to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
and in October 1944 she was working at
Apen
Apen (Low German: ''Aap'') is a municipality in the district of Ammerland, in Lower Saxony, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europ ...
in
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
until the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
drew close on the advancing
Eastern Front.
Arrest and trial
Vardon fled from Apen to
Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelmsh ...
, arriving on 30 April 1945. She was arrested there when she enquired how to obtain new identity papers and she was then held by the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
at Esterwegen Internment Camp, the former
Esterwegen concentration camp, where she was interrogated.
Vardon was tried at the
Old Bailey in February 1946. There she pleaded guilty to the offence of ‘doing an act likely to assist the enemy’ and was given a nine-month prison sentence.
After release
Pearl Vardon eventually married Siegfried Schwatlo in 1950 at
Abergavenny,
Monmouthshire. She died in November 2011, in Weißenburg, Bavaria, Germany, at the age of 96.
Declassified files
The declassified
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
files on her were released by the
Public Record Office
The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was ...
in 2000. They show that British prosecutors were inclined to take a more lenient attitude towards female collaborators such as Vardon and Margaret Joyce, the wife of the traitor
William Joyce
William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War. After moving from New York to Ireland and subsequently to England, ...
, than with their male counterparts.
The MI5 report on Vardon states, ‘Her motive seems to have been the clear one of avoiding as much as possible separation from the German officer with whom she fell in love’ but added, ‘It is just possible that her motives were not so simple as they appear to have been on the surface’. The
Security Service file on her is held by The
National Archives under referenc
KV 2/256and the
Home Office file on her is held there under referenc
HO 45/25811
See also
*
Leonard Banning
Leonard Banning (born 1910, date of death unknown) was a British broadcaster of Nazi propaganda during World War II. In 1946, he was convicted of offences under the Defence Regulations and sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude. He was born in St ...
*
Norah Briscoe
*
Gertrude Hiscox
*
Tyler Kent
Tyler Gatewood Kent (March 24, 1911 – November 20, 1988) was an American diplomat who stole thousands of secret documents while working as a cipher clerk at the US Embassy in London during World War II.
Early life and career
Kent was born in ...
*
John Lingshaw
*
Dorothy O'Grady
*
Anna Wolkoff
Anna Nikolayevna Wolkova (1902 – 2 August 1973), sometimes known as Anna de Wolkoff, was a White Russian émigrée, and secretary of The Right Club, which was opposed to Britain's involvement in World War II.
Early life
She was the elde ...
References
External links
"News in Brief."Times, London, England, 6 Feb. 1946: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.
"Charge Of Aiding Enemy."Times, London, England, 7 Feb. 1946: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.
"News in Brief."Times, London, England, 28 Feb. 1946: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vardon, Pearl
1915 births
1972 deaths
British collaborators with Nazi Germany
Jersey collaborators with Nazi Germany
British broadcasters for Nazi Germany
British propagandists