by Edward Spalton

Dateline 15th July 2004

This is not a tale of derring-do or cloak and dagger. It seeks to set the relationship between Germany and the Irish Free State (or Eire as it became after De Valera's 1937 Constitution) within the context of known German doctrine and practice in its dealings with small European states then and now. Sir Roger Casement's double failure to recruit an Irish force from prisoners of war in Germany and then to forestall the doomed rising of 1916 (because he believed it would fail) is well enough known. (Casement was hung by the British for treason) Similarly well known are the successes of the very effective Irish intelligence service in picking up all twelve of the known German agents to arrive in the Free State during what was there called "The Emergency" of 1939 to 1945.

At the time of the so-called Curragh Mutiny of 1914, Punch ran a cartoon. It showed Kaiser Wilhelm, looking at the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with Ulster Volunteers in the North of Ireland, the Irish National Volunteers in the South and the regular forces of the Crown. "Mein Gott!" says the Kaiser " and The Fatherland has only one army!"

The ensuing general conflict, in which Casement had seen England's difficulty and Ireland's opportunity, called men from all these forces; the greater part put on the King's uniform and combined to frustrate Kaiser Bill's considerable ambitions. If His Imperial German Majesty had been vouchsafed a similar glimpse into the British Isles of September 1939, South of the border the soldiers would have looked very familiar in German style coal scuttle helmets, adopted in honour of Casement's efforts, and a uniform not dissimilar to that of the Fatherland. There were no jackboots but leather leggings gave a similar effect. By 1942, the scene would have altered; the Free State forces had adopted British-style battle dress and steel helmets. That change speaks more volumes about the policy of the De Valera government than any amount of delving in the archives.

It was only seventeen years since the Free State had emerged from a civil war of remarkable savagery, put down by the (new Irish) government with summary executions and considerable unofficial barbarity. Having lost this struggle, De Valera embraced constitutional politics, eventually coming to power in 1932. The onset of "The Emergency" saw him on public platforms alongside his former opponents, urging young men to join the forces. It was perhaps this, more than anything else, which stopped the Free State uniform being an object of hatred in the South West of Ireland.

Back in 1923, where would a newly independent government, with a damaged economy and the wounds both of the Great War and its own revolution and fratricide, look for friends ?. It is unsurprising that they should look to Germany - not least because German inflation would make supplies of industrial goods very competitive indeed. The grand project of the Ardnacrusha hydro electric power scheme was confided to a Siemens subsidiary. This was a tremendous visionary project, costing £5 million when the total annual revenue of the Free State was £25 million. It had been under discussion since the eighteen nineties but it took the determination of the new government of the new state to make it happen - a tradition of economic intervention followed by all Irish governments since.

Like nearly all large German companies Siemens was a patron of the "Verein fuer Deutschtum im Ausland" (VDA). Literally translated this means "The Club for Germandom Abroad". Active during the Kaiser's time, it was (and is) an instrument of German foreign policy. It exists not only to protect the interests of the many German communities outside the German state but to make Germans abroad into effective agents for the German "Volk". This concept is very much more than the inadequate translations "People" or "nation". With its ideal of a "blood community" on its ancestral soil, it is easy to see how it would dovetail in to the more misty and windswept reaches of the Irish republican movement.

The Irish Free State Army appointed a German called Brase as Director of Music with the rank of colonel. Dr Adolf Mahr, an Austrian, arrived in Dublin in 1927. De Valera appointed him to the staff of the National Museum. From 1934 to 1939, as chief of the Irish branch of the Nazi Party he was the de facto senior German representative in Ireland and attended the coronation of King George VI with Ribbentrop in 1937. Mahr appears to have been on personally friendly terms with De Valera and to have been able to get official German diplomats recalled, if they did not suit him. According to intelligence files "he made many efforts to convert Irish graduates and other persons to Nazi beliefs".

One Friedrich Weckler obtained a plum position as chief accountant of the state Electricity Supply Board and a Hans Mecking was high up in the Turf Development Board (later Bord na Mona). Todd Andrews, Managing Director of the Turf Board, recalled in his 1982 memoirs "As German triumph followed German triumph, Mecking became increasingly uninvolved in his assignment. He set himself up as an intelligence agent, photographing railway stations, river bridges, sign posts and reservoirs..."

Weckler remained in Ireland. After a brief period as local Nazi leader, Mecking returned to the Fatherland and starved to death as a prisoner of the Russians. Otto Reinhard beat 65 other candidates to get a senior appointment in the Department of Lands. Hans Hartmann studied folklore at University College Dublin ** and returned to the Reich where he made propaganda broadcasts in Irish. It was obvious to the Irish authorities that most of these people were engaged in spying of one sort or another. Germans appear to have come under strong pressure to join the Nazi party or to leave Ireland. The Nazi movement's annual Christmas party was held at the Gresham and other functions took place in the Red Bank Restaurant in D'Olier Street and at Kilmacurragh Park. One of the local branch's tasks was to identify the Jews. Reporting on activities by one Muhlhausen in 1937, a civil servant was told that it was not illegal to take holiday photos.

The Director of Music, Brase, informed Major General Brennan of his Nazi affiliation in the early Thirties. Brennan told him to choose between the Nazi Party and his job but was overruled. Whilst Irish officers were forbidden to join political parties, someone in officialdom pointed out that the statute only applied to Irish parties! The German community was quite small but well dug into positions of knowledge and influence and well-disciplined to serve the purposes of its home government. The new team, which would see out the war, arrived at the German legation in 1937 . In February 1939, Joseph Walshe Secretary of the Department of External Affairs told the Sicherheitsdienst operative in Ireland Henning Thomsen, "I suggested, as I had frequently done to his Minister (Hempel).….. that the Nazi organisation in Dublin having as its chief member and organiser an employee of the state was not calculated to improve relations between the two governments".

The Germans were not ordered back to Germany but panicked when they heard that the British government was interning aliens. They expected the invasion of the Irish Free State. In one of his cuter moves, De Valera persuaded the British government to allow those who wished to have free passage through Britain.

They left on September 11th with Nazi salutes and shouts of "auf Wiedersehen!" De Valera had shown his mettle by executing former IRA comrades. He wanted a united Ireland but withstood the blandishments of both sides to bring him into the war. He recalled unfulfilled promises made to John Redmond, the leader of the Parliamentary Irish National Party in 1914-18 to bring about a United Ireland. Staff discussions were held with British officers and Sir John Maffey kept the lines open for Whitehall. It seems that the German Army, like the British, preferred to keep Ireland neutral whilst Ribbentrop and the SS looked to bring in both De Valera and the IRA.

The German Minister, Dr. Hempel had a low opinion of the IRA and lost many brownie points when he discouraged the supply to Ireland of captured British equipment from Dunkirk. He pointed out that this would breach neutrality and could upset the apple cart. Perhaps the German influence in Ireland is typified by Helmut Clissman, reckoned to be the best-informed German about Ireland and the IRA of this period. He studied at Trinity College in the early Thirties , working on a doctoral thesis "The Wild Geese in Germany" (the Irish who emigrated to serve in foreign armies) and was sent back later under cover of an Academic Exchange. He made contact with the IRA and married a Miss Mulcahy from a strong republican family. They both returned to Germany in 1939. He made several abortive attempts to get to Ireland during the war.

The most ambitious, Operation Sea Eagle, intended to land him by seaplane on Lough Key, Co. Roscommon with £40,000 of funds for the IRA. It was cancelled by Admiral Canaris of the Abwehr.

Through the efforts of his wife, who had returned to Ireland after the war, he obtained a visa in 1948. He became a lecturer in German at Trinity College Dublin and was appointed by the Goethe Institute as a teacher of German and facilitator of exchange visits. He set up as an agent for pharmaceuticals and helped to found the Irish branch of Amnesty International. He was one of the founders of St Killian's German school and died in 1997.

The VDA ("Verein fuer Deutschtum im Ausland") still exists. It holds itself out as a cultural organisation and is still sponsored by the main political parties, industrial concerns and churches in Germany. Funded by various branches of government, it continues its work discreetly. In 1919 it was re-energised as a vehicle for foreign policy. Banned by the Occupation Authorities, it was nonetheless resuscitated in 1946 when its supporters asserted that it had been taken over and that they were not responsible for its activities during the Hitler dictatorship. With the reunification of Germany, its ideas permeate the many foundations, institutes and front organisations by which Germany conducts its foreign policy today.

**UCD is University College Dublin and TCD is Trinity College Dublin (which
was founded by Elizabeth I and was a Protestant foundation). UCD
was founded to open university education to Catholics and, in no small part,
because the hierarchy did not want good catholics getting tainted with
protestant ideas. A lampoon of the time (1880 -90) said

They can commit fornication and have carnal knowledge
But don't send our dear boys to Trinity College.

Acknowledgments:

David O'Donoghue, "Heil Hibernia!" Sunday Business Post 29 April 2001
"Hitler's Man in Dublin - Herr Hempel at the German Legation, John P Duggan,Irish Academic Press ISBN 0-7165-2764-4
"Deutschtum Erwache!" W von Goldendach and H.R. Minow, Dietz Berlin ISBN
3- 320-01863-9
Joe Carroll, "Death of best-informed German during War" Irish Times Nov 8 1997
For some interesting insights into Sweden's wartime neutrality, see paper by Jan Myrdal in "European Voices" on www.freenations.freeuk.com