Norman Baillie-Stewart - German Collaboration

German Collaboration

After his release from prison in 1937, Baillie-Stewart moved to Vienna, where he applied for Austrian citizenship. However, this was refused since he did not meet the residency qualification. In August 1937, the Austrian government suspected him of being a Nazi agent and gave him 3 weeks to leave Austria. Baillie-Stewart's disenchantment with Britain was increased when the British Embassy in Vienna refused to help him. Rather than return to Britain he went to Bratislava, which was then in Czechoslovakia.

Following the Anschluss of 1938, Baillie-Stewart was able to return to Austria, where he made a small living from operating a trading company. He applied for naturalisation but the application was delayed by bureaucracy at the Ministry and he did not become a German citizen until 1940.

In July 1939, Baillie-Stewart attended a friend's party where he happened to hear some German English-language propaganda broadcasts. He criticised the broadcasts, and was overheard by a guest at the party who happened to work at the Austrian radio station. He informed his superiors of Baillie-Stewart's comments, and after a successful voice test in Berlin, Baillie-Stewart was ordered by the German Propaganda Ministry to report to the Reichsrundfunk in Berlin, where he became a propaganda broadcaster. Baillie-Stewart made his first broadcast on the "Germany Calling" English language service a week before the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, reading Nazi-biased "news".

It has been speculated that it was Baillie-Stewart who made the broadcast which led the pseudonymous Daily Express radio critic Jonah Barrington to coin the term "Haw-Haw". The nickname possibly referenced Baillie-Stewart's exaggeratedly aristocratic way of speaking, though Wolf Mittler, another English-speaking announcer, is sometimes considered a more likely candidate. When William Joyce later became the most prominent Nazi propaganda broadcaster, Barrington appended the title and named Joyce "Lord Haw-Haw", since the true identity of the broadcaster was unknown at the time. Another nickname which was possibly applied to Baillie-Stewart was "Sinister Sam".

By the end of September 1939 it was clear to the radio authorities that Joyce, originally Baillie-Stewart's backup man, was more effective. Baillie-Stewart, who had gradually became disenchanted with the material that he had to broadcast, was dismissed in December 1939 shortly after his last radio broadcast. He continued to work in Berlin as a translator for the German Foreign Ministry, and lectured in English at Berlin University. In early 1940, he acquired German citizenship.

In early 1942, Baillie-Stewart made a brief return to radio under the alias of "Lancer", making several broadcasts for both the Reichsrundfunk and Radio Luxembourg. He spent much time avoiding the more blatant propaganda material he was asked to present.

In 1944, Baillie-Stewart had himself sent to Vienna for medical treatment, where he was arrested in 1945 in Altaussee, while wearing "chamois leather shorts, embroidered braces and a forester's jacket" and was sent to Britain to face charges of high treason.