Dachau to Dolomites. Tom Wall
acting skills he had gleaned during his previous work in cinemas and theatre management in Ireland. He seems to have proved a capable actor, for he ‘played the collaborator so convincingly that, for a time, even the British thought he had gone over to the other side’.4
However, it seems not all the Germans were convinced. He had been wined and dined in Berlin in the company of a number of German officers before being taken to the camp. Jupp Hoven, a member of the Abwehr, was the host and he was joined at the restaurant table by his friend and colleague Helmut Clissmann. Both had lived in Ireland before the war when they were involved in an Irish–German Academic Exchange service, most likely a cover for intelligence work. While there, they cultivated relationships with a number of senior IRA activists. Clissmann married a Sligo woman, Elizabeth Mulcahy, whose family were immersed in the Republican movement. Over dinner in Berlin, he confided to McGrath that his wife wished to return to Ireland and, knowing he had good business connections, sought his advice about finding her suitable employment. Whether this was a genuine request on his part, or a stratagem to gain McGrath’s confidence is unclear, but in the course of the discussion, he began to doubt the Irish officer’s collaborative potential. Clissmann is likely to have conveyed his doubts to Hoven, but the latter doesn’t seem to have shared his friend’s suspicions, at least not at that time. Even if Hoven had some concerns about McGrath’s commitment, there wasn’t a ready alternative. The previous SBO had been removed when a camp informer disclosed that the officer was leading an escape party. Other candidates for the position were likely to be Anglo-Irish, or have had a family tradition of service to the British Empire, making them probable British Intelligence plants.
On entry into the camp, McGrath’s forebodings appeared justified. ‘From the hour I entered the place I knew it meant trouble,’ he later recalled.5 The inmates were unhappy, suspicious and resentful. German promises of better food and recreation had not been kept and the majority of the prisoners were without proper footwear or clothing.6 They were not allowed to write home, no Red-Cross parcels were being delivered and they were left without soap or cigarettes. Other grievances related to inadequate food and the absence of canteen facilities.7 Adding to the discontent, many of the inmates felt they had been tricked or forced into the camp and were fearful that their very presence there could be viewed as disloyal. McGrath sensed that he was suspect in the eyes of these men. Seeing him arrive in the company of Abwehr officers, the inmates could be excused for assuming him to be a renegade officer, an aspiring Casement.8
McGrath was a veteran of the First World War, having seen action in the Dardanelles and France, where he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Wounded twice, he spent the final year of that war in a military hospital in Blackpool (see John McGrath: Truth and Invention, Addendum I). He remained a reserve officer in the inter-war years, even after he returned to Ireland. He could have readily avoided returning to duty in 1939. He was then forty-five years old and living in a neutral country. He had a good job – he was manager of The Royal, Dublin’s premier theatre – but he immediately answered the recall. His return to service may not have been entirely a matter of contractual obligation. Through his employer and good friend, Louis Elliman, he had friendly contacts with the Jewish Community in Dublin and the anti-Semitism of the Nazis is likely to have appalled him. Perhaps, to quote the Irish poet Francis Ledwidge, a casualty of the First World War, he decided to join England’s fight ‘because she stood between Ireland and an enemy common to our civilisation’.9 McGrath was assigned to the Royal Engineers and embarked with the British Expeditionary Force to France. Like thousands of others, he was left behind after the Dunkirk evacuations. He fought on and was wounded before being forced to surrender. We can safely assume that McGrath proved to be a brave and resourceful officer during the retreat for he was awarded a field promotion to major.
The evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940 is lauded, not without cause, as a heroic event; a deliverance snatched from the jaws of defeat. Less well known is the plight of the forty thousand service personnel who didn’t board the boats. Those left behind fought on before surrendering, in many instances only when their ammunition and supplies were exhausted.10 They were force marched from France to Germany during which time they were given little food and had to forage from fields. Notwithstanding occasional rain showers, it was a hot summer and in some French towns the inhabitants left out buckets of water for the prisoners which the German guards regularly kicked away. They were forced to drink ditch water and most suffered from dysentery as a result. They slept in open fields, often in their wet clothes. Whips, truncheons and rifle butts were employed on stragglers. McGrath later claimed that he escaped with a number of others and he was at liberty for three days, but a face wound led to his being identified and he was recaptured.11 Through France, Belgium and Luxembourg the POWs trundled, until after two weeks, hungry, dirty and exhausted, they reached the German frontier town of Trier. There they were paraded through the streets as war trophies to be mocked and spat at, before being dispatched to various prisoner-of-war camps. About two hundred didn’t make it; those who couldn’t keep up or tried to escape were shot, including one of those who attempted to escape along with McGrath. This was an ominous start to what was to be five long years of captivity for thousands of British POWs. It was an experience unlikely to endear even nationalist Irishmen to their captors.
McGrath was first placed in an officers’ camp in Laufen, a town on the Bavarian side of the Austrian border near Salzburg. Conditions were difficult at first, but later improved. Officers were treated much more favourably than regular POWs. Under the Geneva Convention they could not be forced to work and were relatively free to mingle and organise their own activities. McGrath seems to have had a relatively benign existence for most of the eight months he spent there. He had access to a library, attended lectures and, with Red Cross parcels supplementing camp fare, he was reasonably well nourished.12 He couldn’t have viewed the prospect of a move to a special Irish camp with much enthusiasm. During interrogation he refused, on a number of occasions, to be persuaded to go there. Whatever the content of the information provided by the Germans, it would have been clear to him what they had in mind. When his superior officer in Laufen, Brigadier Nicholson, suggested that he volunteer to go there in order to find out what was going on, he was obliged to give the matter serious consideration. It is possible that a coded message was sent to Nicholson suggesting Irish-born officers consider volunteering for this mission, for there is evidence that other British officers with Irish backgrounds were asked by MI9 to pretend to the Germans that they were anti-British and to double-cross them.13 In any event, he sought the guidance of the most senior officer in captivity, the somewhat optimistically named General Victor Fortune, who had surrendered the remnants of his 51st Highland Division to Rommel after Dunkirk. Fortune is believed to have encouraged McGrath to take up the offer. The Irishman was also required to train some trusted men in the use of codes developed by the War Office that had been designed for intelligence purposes in letters posted home.14
McGrath agreed to take on the task and decided to self-promote himself from major to lieutenant colonel in the process.15 He told himself that this would increase his credibility within the ranks in Friesack, although it’s doubtful that this would greatly impress anyone, especially as he was still going to arrive in a major’s uniform. It should, however, have led to his pay being increased as, under the Geneva Convention, the imprisoning power was obliged to pay officers according to rank. In any event, he may have felt he deserved a promotion for his gallantry in France, and for the dangerous task he was about to undertake.
The Germans, following their victory in France, had begun a process of identifying and segregating some POWs along ethnic and national minority lines. Breton, Flemish and Irish were among those chosen for special attention. The Irish section of the Friesack Camp was initially intended to facilitate the recruitment of Irish POWs into an Irish Brigade as per Roger Casement’s efforts in the First World War. Sean Russell, the IRA Chief of Staff, proposed the idea to the Germans, but he died aboard a German U-boat before the scheme could be put into effect. The intention had been to land him in Ireland to coordinate German–IRA actions directed against Britain. The Germans had contingency plans to land an expeditionary force in Ireland, either in the event of a British re-entry into the Irish Free State, or as a prelude to a German invasion of Britain. In either case, they hoped an Irish Brigade, formed from Irish POWs, would fight alongside the Germans against the auld enemy. Following the failure of the Battle of Britain, the invasion plans were shelved and the task of the