John Amery

Born in Chelsea, London, John Amery (known as "Jack") was the elder of two children of British statesman Leo Amery (1873–1955), a member of parliament and later Conservative government minister, whose mother was a Hungarian Jew who had converted to Protestantism.

John Amery (14 March 1912 – 19 December 1945) was a British fascist and Nazi collaborator during World War II.

He was the originator of the British Free Corps, a volunteer Waffen-SS unit composed of former British and Dominion prisoners-of-war.

Amery conducted recruitment efforts, and made propaganda broadcasts for Germany.

He later gave direct support to Benito Mussolini.

He was prosecuted by the British authorities and pleaded guilty to eight counts of high treason, for which he was sentenced to death, seven months after the war in Europe ended.

His younger brother, Julian (1919–1996), also became an MP and served in a Conservative government.

Amery was a difficult child who ran through a succession of private tutors.

Like his father, he was sent to Harrow, but left after only a year, being described by his housemaster as "without doubt, the most difficult boy I have ever tried to manage."

Living in his father's shadow, he strove to make his own way by embarking on a career in film production.

Over a period, he set up a number of independent companies, all of which failed; these endeavours rapidly led to bankruptcy.

At the age of 21, Amery married Una Wing, a former prostitute, but was never able to earn enough to keep her for himself.

He was constantly appealing to his father for money.

A staunch anti-Communist, he came to embrace the doctrines of Nazi Germany on the grounds that they were the only alternative to Bolshevism.

He left Britain permanently to live in France after being declared bankrupt in 1936.

In Paris, he met the French fascist leader Jacques Doriot, with whom he travelled to Austria, Italy, and Germany to witness the effects of fascism in those countries.

Amery told his family he had joined Francisco Franco's Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and was awarded a medal of honour while serving as an intelligence officer with Italian volunteer forces (Corpo Truppe Volontarie).

He actually worked for Franco as a liaison with French Cagoulard groups and gun-runners.

After the Spanish war, Amery settled in France.

Amery remained in France following the German invasion in June 1940.

On 22 June, the Second Armistice at Compiègne was signed between France and Germany.

Amery resided in the territory belonging to the collaborationist Vichy government led by Marshal Philippe Pétain.

However, his personality soon antagonised the Vichy Regime so he made several attempts to leave but was not allowed.

The head of the German Armistice Commission offered Amery a chance to live in Germany to work in the political arena but he was unable to get Amery out of occupied France.

In September 1942, Hauptmann Werner Plack gained Amery the French travel permit he needed, and in October Plack and Amery travelled to Berlin to speak to the German English Committee.

It was at this time that Amery suggested that the Germans consider forming a British anti-Bolshevik legion.

Adolf Hitler was impressed by Amery and allowed him to remain in Germany as a guest.

During this period, Amery made a series of pro-German propaganda radio broadcasts, attempting to appeal to the British people to join the war on communism.

The idea of a British force to fight the communists languished until Amery re-encountered Jacques Doriot during a visit to France in January 1943.

Doriot was part of the LVF (Légion des Volontaires Français), a French volunteer force fighting alongside the Germans on the eastern front.

Amery rekindled his idea of a British unit and aimed to recruit 50 to 100 men for propaganda purposes and to establish a core of men with which to attract additional members from British prisoners of war.

He also suggested that such a unit could provide more recruits for the other military units made up of foreign nationals.

Amery's first recruiting drive for what was initially to be called the British Legion of St George took him to the Saint-Denis POW camp outside Paris.

Amery addressed between 40 and 50 inmates from British Commonwealth countries and handed out recruiting material.

This first effort at recruitment was a complete failure, but he persisted.

Amery's drive for recruits found two men, of whom only one, Kenneth Berry, joined what was later called the BFC.

Amery's link to the unit ended in October 1943, when the Waffen SS decided his services were no longer needed, and it was officially renamed the British Free Corps.

Amery continued to broadcast and write propaganda in Berlin until late 1944 when he travelled to Northern Italy to lend support to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's Salò Republic.

On 25 April 1945, Amery was captured along with his French mistress Michelle Thomas by Italian partisans from the Garibaldi Brigade near Como.

Amery and Thomas were initially to be executed, but both of them were eventually sent to Milan, where they were handed over to Allied authorities.