Saturday, April 25, 2009

Britain's WW2 German Forces

The Telegraph has an interesting article up about Germans who fought for Britain during World War Two.
Some 10,000 men and women from Germany and Austria, Jews and other opponents of the Nazi regime, fought in British uniform. As "friendly enemy aliens" they could not be compelled to join up. All were volunteers, representing almost one in eight of the 78,000 German and Austrian nationals who fled to Britain before September 1939.
One of those profiled in the article is Sir Ken Adam, born Klaus Adam, a film production designer famous for his work on James Bond movies and other major releases. His family was Jewish and wisely got out of Germany in 1934, moving to Britain. During WW2 Adam was the only German to serve as a Royal Air Force pilot.

1 comment:

  1. That is absolutely fascinating. I had no idea Germans served in the British armed forces. Thanks for that.

    ReplyDelete