Irish Secrets

"This book is really fascinating. It came out not that long ago. There has always been knowledge that Hitler did send over people to Ireland because its geography (and geography, as someone once said, is history) was strategically so important to Germany. Also, even going back to 1916, money and help for Ireland from Germany was crucial. In the late 30s the IRA of the time was pro-Hitler, not because they were that interested in Nazi ideology but because ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’. This book tells the story of what happened to those who were sent over from Germany. It explains how and why they failed. De Valera was incredibly manipulative and a seriously clever man. He elected to follow the path of neutrality, but, as some wit wrote, we were ‘not neutral on the side of Hitler’. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Though disturbing, many of the stories in this book are actually hilarious. For example, efforts to set up an Irish radio station for Germans. Another story concerns a Christmas celebration in 1937. Under decorations of Swastika flags and Irish Tricolours and the watchful eyes of the Fuhrer’s portrait there was an Irish/German gathering at a hotel in Dublin. At one point they all rose to salute the Fuhrer and sing ‘Deutschland über Alles’. This was followed by a rendering of ‘The Soldier’s Song’ – our national anthem. The mind boggles. Of course, neutrality protected us from bombing and also encouraged a certain ambivalence. I think post-war we found it very difficult to accept the truth until the Eichmann trials in 1960s when there was irrefutable evidence of the reality of the Holocaust ."