In May 1945 the Germans finally surrendered after six years of gruesome warfare and the full horror of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities became clear.
In Berlin and across the fallen Reich, a band of non-Germans found themselves in an invidious position – trying to explain why they had sided with Adolf Hitler, or at least failed to show any physical or political resistance.
Lord Haw Haw
Their number included William Joyce, who was born in New York but grew up in Ireland and England.
Joyce joined the British Union of Fascists – Oswald Mosley's famous Blackshirts – in the 1930s but later moved to Germany and spent the war broadcasting from Hamburg.
Dubbed Lord Haw Haw by the English press, his Germany Calling broadcasts were intended to demoralise British, American and Canadian troops.
After the war he was captured and sent back to London where he became the last person to be hanged for treason, in January 1946.
Dave Fript, for the Courtroom 600 project, explained why none of the Nazi collaborators were in the dock at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial.
He added: “Non-German nationals like (Vidkun) Quisling and William Joyce were tried for treason by their own people.”
William Joyce's boss, Hans Fritzche, was acquitted of conspiracy and war crimes at the Nuremberg trials. Journalist William L. Shirer said of him: “No-one in the courtroom, including Fritzsche, seemed to know why he was there – he was too small a fry – unless it were as a ghost for (Nazi…
