The Anglo-German Fellowship was a membership organisation that existed from 1935 to 1939, and aimed to build up friendship between the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It was widely perceived as being allied to

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

. Previous groups in Britain with the same aims had been wound up when

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

came to power.

Origins

In a 1935 speech, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) had called for a closer understanding of Germany in order to safeguard peace in Europe, and in response Sir Thomas Moore, a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

, suggested setting up a study group of pro-German MPs. From that idea emerged the AGF, established in September 1935 with Lord Mount Temple as chairman, and historian Philip Conwell-Evans and merchant banker Ernest Tennant as secretaries.Martin Pugh, ''"Hurrah For the Blackshirts!" Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the War'', Pimlico, 2006, p. 269 Tennant was a friend of Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Ambassador to Britain. The group's stated aims were to foster political, professional, commercial and sporting links with Germany, but Mount Temple stated publicly that membership of the society did not assume support for Nazism or anti-Semitism. An application was made to the Board of Trade on 26 July 1935 for "a licence directing an association about to be formed under the name of The Anglo-German Fellowship". The objectives of the proposed association were given as:

Membership

The organisation was aimed at the influential in society, and the membership was dominated by businessmen keen to promote commercial links. Members included Bank of England director Frank Cyril Tiarks, Admiral Sir Barry Domvile, Prince von Bismarck,

Governor of the Bank of England The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...

Montagu Norman,

Geoffrey Dawson George Geoffrey Dawson (25 October 1874 – 7 November 1944) was editor of ''The Times'' from 1912 to 1919 and again from 1923 until 1941. His original last name was Robinson, but he changed it in 1917. He married Hon. Margaret Cecilia Lawley, ...

editor of ''

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''. "Corporate membership" was also available for leading companies who wished to show their support for co-operation with Germany and this was taken out by such leading organisations as

Price Waterhouse PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

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Thomas Cook & Son Thomas Cook & Son, originally simply Thomas Cook, was a company founded by Thomas Cook, a cabinet-maker, in 1841 to carry temperance supporters by railway between the cities of Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham. In 1851, Cook arrange ...

, the

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and

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amongst others.Pugh, ''"Hurrah For the Blackshirts!"'', p. 270 Several Members of Parliament, mostly from the Conservative Party, joined the group: they included Sir Peter Agnew, Lawrence Dundas, 2nd Marquess of Zetland, Ernest Bennett, Sir Robert Bird, Robert Tatton Bower, Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Marquess of Clydesdale, Robert Vaughan Gower, Thomas "Loel" Guinness,

Norman Hulbert Wing Commander Sir Norman John Hulbert, DL (5 June 1903 – 1 June 1972) was a British company director, Royal Air Force officer and politician who served as a member of parliament for the Conservative Party for nearly thirty years. Early in his ...

Archibald James Wing Commander Sir Archibald William Henry James, MC (September 1893 – 5 May 1980) was a British Conservative Party politician and Royal Air Force pioneer. Born in Paddington, London, the son of H. A. James of Hurstmonceux Place, East Sussex, ...

Alfred Knox Major-General Sir Alfred William Fortescue Knox (30 October 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a career British military officer and later a Conservative Party politician. Military career Born in Ulster, Knox joined the British Army when he attended th ...

John Macnamara Colonel John Robert Jermain Macnamara (11 October 1905 – 22 December 1944) was a British Conservative Party politician and officer of the British Army who was killed while fighting in Italy during the Second World War. He was the last sittin ...

, Sir Thomas Moore,

Assheton Pownall Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Assheton Pownall (3 October 1877 – 29 October 1953) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament for Lewisham East from 1918 to 1945. Pownall was born in Warwick, Warwickshire, the so ...

Frank Sanderson Sir Frank Bernard Sanderson, 1st Baronet (4 October 1880 – 18 July 1965) was a British Conservative Party politician and public servant. During the First World War, Sanderson was Controller of Trench Warfare, National Shell Filling Factories an ...

Duncan Sandys Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys (; 24 January 1908 – 26 November 1987), was a British politician and minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill and played a key r ...

, Admiral

Murray Sueter Rear-Admiral Sir Murray Fraser Sueter (6 September 1872 – 3 February 1960) was a Royal Naval officer who was noted as a pioneer of naval aviation and later became a Member of Parliament (MP). Naval career Sueter was born in Alverstoke. Comi ...

, Charles Taylor and

Ronald Tree Arthur Ronald Lambert Field Tree (26 September 1897 – 14 July 1976) was a British Conservative Party politician, journalist and investor who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Harborough constituency in Leicestershire from 1933 t ...

. Members of the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

to hold membership included

Lord Brocket Baron Brocket, of Brocket Hall in the County of Hertford, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 19 January 1933 for the businessman Charles Nall-Cain, 1st Baron Brocket, Sir Charles Nall-Cain, 1st Baronet. He was chair ...

, Lord Galloway, the

Earl of Glasgow Earl of Glasgow is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1703 for David Boyle, Lord Boyle. The first earl was subsequently one of the commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of Union uniting the Kingdom of England and the King ...

, Lord Mount Temple,

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Lord Nuffield William Richard Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, (10 October 1877 – 22 August 1963) was an English motor manufacturer and philanthropist. He was the founder of Morris Motors Limited and is remembered as the founder of the Nuffield Foundation, ...

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, Lord Rennell and the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish soldier and Tories (British political party), Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of Uni ...

. By 1937, the group seems to have had 347 members.

Activities

The AGF's sister organization in Berlin was the ''

Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft The ''Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft'' (German-English Society) was the German sister organization of the Anglo-German Fellowship. It was formed in Berlin, Germany, around 1935, under support of the . The ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'' was created by J ...

''. Neither group had an avowed mission to Nazify Britain. Instead, the two groups would unite, to host grand dinners at which leading German figures noted for their Anglophilia or their familial links to the United Kingdom, such as Rudolf Hess, von Ribbentrop, General

Werner von Blomberg Werner Eduard Fritz von Blomberg (2 September 1878 – 13 March 1946) was a German General Staff officer and the first Minister of War in Adolf Hitler's government. After serving on the Western Front in World War I, Blomberg was appointed chi ...

, the Duke of Brunswick and the

Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, links=no ), was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present- ...

, would be guests of honour. However, the organisation did have a pro-Nazi leaning, as well as a number of fascist members. The spies

Guy Burgess Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...

and

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...

, seeking to disguise their Communist affiliations, joined the AGF in the knowledge that it was widely perceived as allied to the far right.

Reaction to Nazi antisemitism

Lord Mount Temple resigned in November 1938 as chairman of the AGF because of the treatment of the

German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

by the Nazis. Following his resignation he told the press: The Council of the Anglo-German Fellowship met in London and released a statement:

Closure

At the time of the

Munich Crisis The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...

in 1938 Ernest Tennant recorded that the feeling in the organisation was that they should close. However, they approached the

UK Foreign Office The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreig ...

for advice. Tennant reported that Lord Vansittart recommended their staying active, which they did until the outbreak of the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

. However, this claim was later refuted by Vansittart. He responded that he queried the claim with the intermediary between the Fellowship and the Foreign Office, Conwell Evans, who reported that he had met with

Lord Halifax Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a senior British Conservative politician of the 19 ...

on the matter. In the House of Commons on 7 September 1939 Vyvyan Adams MP asked the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...

what the Government is doing to "deal with" organisations such as the Fellowship. To this, Sir John Anderson reported to the house that "the Anglo-German Fellowship has entirely suspended its activities".

References