British Free Corps - Recruiting

Recruiting

Recruiting for the Free Corps was done in German POW camps. In 1944, leaflets were distributed to the POWs, and the unit was mentioned in Camp, the official POW newspaper published in Berlin. The unit was promoted "as a thoroughly volunteer unit, conceived and created by British subjects from all parts of the empire who have taken up arms and pledged their lives in the common European struggle against Soviet Russia". The attempted recruitment of POWs was done amid German fear of the Soviets; the Germans were "victims of their own propaganda" and thought that their enemies were as worried about the Soviets as they were. In one camp in Holland, the POWs were lavished with cigarettes, fruit and other such items and made to listen to Nazi propaganda officers who described the good the Germans were doing in Europe and asked the men to join them in fighting the real enemy, the Soviets.

One such individual who attempted to recruit soldiers was John Amery, son of the serving British Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery. He was sentenced to death and hanged after he pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to high-treason.