Dan Snow's History Hit - The Jewish Commandos Who Helped Defeat the Nazis

Episode Date: August 15, 2021

During the Second World War, a special commando unit was formed in Britain from Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria and other parts of occupied Europe. Many of the men who joined this unit had lost their families, their homes and, as you'll hear, had relatives imprisoned in concentration camps. Trained in advanced combat and counterintelligence they fought with a special zeal often volunteering for the most dangerous assignments. The risks these men took was enormous. If they were captured by the Nazis and had their true identities been discovered then their fate would certainly have been death. Leah Garrett is a professor at Hunter College and has recently published X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos Who Helped Defeat the Nazis. She explains how this unusual unit came to be formed, the often oversized impact they had on the battlefield and some of the incredible individual stories of heroism of the men of X Troop.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's History. It's the real life in glorious bastards now on the podcast

with the story of a group of Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, other parts of occupied Europe, who were recruited in Britain to form a special commando unit. Many of these men had lost their families, they'd lost their homes, they'd lost everything that they had before the war. And so, predictably enough, they fought with a special edge, a special motivation. Leah Garrett's a professor at Hunter College. She's the historian I'm talking to about this because she's just written a book about this subject. She's interviewed some of these remarkable people. She has been through the archives to tell the story of ex-troop and how

they landed some very important blows against the Nazis. In fighting, of course, on the battlefields of Europe and North Africa, they took a terrible risk. If they were captured and found to be Jewish, they'd be sent straight to the death camps. It's a remarkable tale. If you like Second World War history, History Hit is the place for you. We've got lots of it on this podcast. You can listen to episodes of this podcast from, well, back over the last five years without the ads on our subscription service. You go to historyhit.tv, you take our subscription, listen to all this audio without the ads, but you then can watch all of our documentaries. Hundreds of hours of documentaries on there. It's the world's best history channel. In fact, it's just been nominated as one of the best specialist channels in the UK, up against the BBC and Sky in some industry awards. So we're

doing really well over there at historyhit.tv. So please go subscribe and join the revolution. In the meantime, everyone, here's Leah Garrett talking about X Troop. Leah, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Okay, now come on. This X Troop, this sounds like a Quentin Tarantino film. I'm not so sure about this. What's going on here? Okay, so I can just tell you briefly about them. And then we'll talk in detail if you want. So the X Troop were this extraordinary secret

Jewish commando unit of World War Two that Churchill and Lord Mountbatten formed in 1942, when the war was not going well for the Brits, and they decided that they would do everything creative that they possibly could. And they decided that they would create a German speaking commando unit, which would be extraordinary for a number of reasons, not only because they would train the men not only as commandos, but also in counterintelligence. So they would be sort of dually trained. And the idea was that if these guys spoke German, then not only would they kill and capture the Nazis on the battlefield, but even more essentially, they could do battlefield interrogations without having to bring them back to base. And so what ended up happening was when they were looking for German speakers, of course,

the vast majority of the German speakers who were young men at that point in the UK were Jewish. So it was a commando unit that was almost entirely composed of German and Austrian Jewish exiles who had come to the UK in their youths, often on kindertransport because their parents had no option but to send them to safety however they could. After they were interned, they were chosen for the secret commando unit. And they ended up being so essential to the British forces that, as I argue in my book, they ended up making real crucial difference in the Allied war effort. How did you first come across this unit? So I had written my last book on World War II as well, but it was about American Jewish GIs, because it was a story that I knew well, because my own family was American Jewish GIs. And I was obsessed with World War II after I

finished, and I knew I wanted to do more. And I started to sort of think, what can my next topic be? And I had heard these rumors that there was this top secret Jewish commando unit, like Tarantino's and Glorious Bastards. And I had this incredible day when I was trying to find the book about these commandos when I thought, oh my God, I get to write the book about these commandos. So it turned out there was a massive wealth of material on them, but no one had written the book about them. They'd been covered in chapters here and there, some autobiographies, some biographies, but no comprehensive coverage of the unit. So I had this moment as a historian we all crave when you get to realize, oh my God, I get to be the one to write that story. And as soon as I discovered it, it took a life of its

own. I got in touch with commandos. I actually interviewed still living commandos. I found huge amounts of archival material at Kew at the National Archive and the War Diaries. And there was just so much material out there, but nobody had put it together in a book before. I can't believe you managed to meet people that were actually in this unit. That's so special. It was extraordinary. And when I was writing it, there were two men that were still alive. One was Paul Streeton, who was like a very famous world economist. He was at Oxford and then moved to the United States. And I was able to interview

him through his daughter. And then when I was writing it, I found out there was actually a second commando that was still alive. And because all the German Jewish refugees, when they were chosen for this unit, another extraordinary aspect was that they were all given maybe five minutes to come up with new British names because their commanding officer knew that these guys would be at incredible risk if they were captured, not only as commandos because of the commando edict that Hitler had made, but as Jews, as Germans. And so they were all given about five minutes to create new British personas with new names. So when I discovered that there was a commando still alive, not Paul Streen, but another commando still alive, I tracked him down.

I kept calling him and writing to him. He finally agreed to be interviewed. But he had never told anyone that he was a German Jewish refugee. His whole backstory was terrible about the Holocaust and losing his parents. And so when I interviewed him for the book and I flew out to interview him and he was incredible, I promised him that I would use a pseudonym for him. Not the fake British name he had come up with, because he still hadn't told anybody who he really was, but a new name for the book. So he told me that at some point after he passed away, I could sort of say his real name. So that will be in about five years. But I was lucky I got to interview him too. And he only passed away a few weeks ago. And they all had materials. It was just

extraordinary. And they had never talked about it. I've talked recently about a Japanese American unit that fought in Europe. I'm sure they faced so many challenges, I'm sure. But what did they face from the British units that they came into contact with? Because they were, many of them, the British units that they came into contact with? Because they were, many of them Germans, or even if they were now exiled, was there any ambivalence from their fellow British troops towards them? Well, because they were all given this five-minute edict to change their names and create new backstories, the edict also included the fact that they had to get rid of any material that had their original name. They all had to use fake addresses. So they underwent their training in Wales, and they had an extraordinarily brutal and wonderful training.

As they said, it gave them all incredible self-confidence. And during the training, the British military started to realize that these guys were completely going to be invaluable to them, that they were going to be sort of an early form of a force multiplier. And so what they decided to do with this commando unit, which hadn't ever been done and was a new idea, was that they would not actually allow them to fight as their own commando unit. They would put them in twos and threes and fours with other existing British commando units. So for instance, for D-Day, when they landed, they were put with different commando units,

and all of them were completely quiet that they were German and Austrian refugees. I mean, clearly the British would be wondering, well, what's with this weird accent you have? And they all also came up with backstories about their accents, about their nanny was German or their dad was in Germany for business. So throughout the course of the war, they kept their cards close to their chest. So if anybody knew who they really were, and a number of them were interviewed in the 80s, so I had a wealth of interviews with them as well.

As far as I could tell, they sort of had an idea who they were, but it never came out. So that was not an issue for them. And if fellow British were curious about it, they didn't ask them about it. They probably started to figure this out. They had to deal with problems about being Jewish after the war, about being naturalized.

And they had to deal with some issues during the war when they were being trained. But as far as I can see, they kept their cover stories. And when I declassified personnel material from a number of them, particularly two men who were captured at the Dieppe raid. And I read their MI5 personnel material. MI5 was really worried and they kept asking, and they were captured and put in prisoner of war camps, have they said who they are? And they never broke, as far as I could tell. I've read quite a lot about the Poles being like brave to a fault during the Second World War. For example, a little destroyer that briefly tried to take on the Bismarck battleship. This unit, was it characterized by crazy levels of risk? Yes, they were. I mean, there's a really good quote that I put in the book from one of the men,

Peter Masters, that was his gnome decor, and he kept it after the war. Most of them kept their new names. And he said, where other soldiers were drawing straws to see who got to stay behind, we were drawing straws to see who got to do the most dangerous missions. So their hands were always up there. And because they were trained both in counterintelligence, as I said, and as commandos, they were the tip of the spear. And all of these different commando units, as they move forward, they would go behind enemy lines.

They would do insanely brave things because this is sort of the most crucial aspect of this commando unit, which was for every single member of the commando unit, the war was personal. They knew the clock was ticking. They knew they had to liberate Germany because maybe their sister was hiding in some town somewhere in Europe. So for each of them, and they said it over again in their interviews and in their memoirs, every minute that they didn't beat the Germans and the Nazis was a minute their own family was at risk. So thus, they always put their hands up, always put their hands up. And as one of them said, when he put his hand up to go find a German machine gun nest at Normandy, he knew that he would probably get killed. He didn't. He was very

lucky, but it didn't matter. He didn't. He was very lucky, but it didn't matter. But what was more important was beating the Germans so he could try and get if any family was still alive over there. So everything was deeply personal for them because of that ticking clock that they felt every minute of every day. And that's why they were so crucial, as I argue in the book, in the war effort, because they were doing these extraordinary things and had this deep commando training and this deep counterintelligence training, and very crucially, were totally fluent in German, which helped them in every single instance during the war. You mentioned D-Day there.

Where did they serve? So they served with a range of units that landed with Lord Lovett at Sword Beach. All of them landed at Sword Beach, some on the first day and some D-Day plus one. And I'll tell you sort of very typical of why these guys were so important. So one of the guys, I read about this guy who's called Fred Gray in the book, but his original name is Monfred Gans. And he switches back to Monfred Gans after the war. He's one of the few ones who switches back. He was raised in this Orthodox Jewish family in Germany. He makes his way to the UK, like most of them do, by himself as a teenager. When the war breaks out, he finds out that his parents have been captured. They were in hiding and they were

sent to Bergen-Belsen. And he decides, no matter what I do, I've got to beat these Nazis so I can find my parents. So when he lands at Sword Beach, they land sort of to the side of Sword Beach and a little bit late. And when they land, there's like an absolute carnage happening at that point. And because he has this German language skills, first of all, he keeps remembering, get off the beach, get off the beach. So he starts to get off the beach. Very luckily, he kind of leads them off the beach. And he immediately encounters 25 Germans. And this is all in the war diaries, because everything I wrote about, I made sure the war diaries validated people's memories. And he sees these 25 Germans, and he lifts up his arms, and then he speaks to

them in colloquial German, which must have freaked them out, this like British guy coming at them in colloquial German, and says, boy, show me where the mines are laid so we can get off this beach right now. And the Germans, I think because they're so shocked by this, show him and the survivors from his commando unit off the beach and immediately he makes his way forward. And that's why the language was so crucial, but also this theory determination that all of them had, clock is ticking, We have to do this. So they landed Sword Beach. One of the men who I write a lot about, Peter Masters, lands with the bicycle troop at Sword Beach. And his mission with the bicycle troop, and there's photos throughout the

book of all of this stuff, is that they were the ones who were told to ride their bikes immediately. They went past the minesweepers, go forward, get to Pegasus Bridge. And they were actually the first ones across Pegasus Bridge. And then when I'm at Peter Master's house in Washington, DC, looking through all his family archives, I find these letters from Lord Lovett talking about the Pegasus Bridge crossing. And Lord Lovett, of course, because all these guys were in deep cover, never realized that there was this Austrian Jew on a bicycle just riding their way first. And like I said, always putting their hands up. Crazy, crazy stuff. And then the next day, when Lord Lovett is hit by artillery that lands short, I think it's D-Day plus two, it's Peter Masters and this other ex-trooper who actually rescue him

and carry him to the ambulance. And then these letters from Lord Lovett also talked about these guys who rescued him. So when I wrote the book, every chapter I was saying to myself, are you kidding me? Wait, they're there doing this right then? And every chapter of the book was like that, because they were always sent right to the front. And were so brave in putting their hands up. that because they were always sent right to the front and were so brave in putting their hands up. If you listen to Dan Snow's history, we're talking about a special unit of Jewish commandos in the Second World War. More after this. This is history's heroes, people with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the

shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Tell me about any other episodes that you were able to talk about, kind of shining a light on their role for the first time. I mean, there's so many great stories, but just another general D-Day story is the story I tell about the great George Lane.

And George Lane, again, has these German language skills. He was one of the few that comes from Hungary. And he was on the Hungarian Olympic polo water team. So he's chosen to do a bunch of raids before D-Day on the Normandy coast because the Brits have heard this rumor that the Germans have a new mine there. So he is sent to actually get a mine and bring it back so they can figure out if the Germans have a new mine. So if they do have this new type of mine, they're going to have to hold off the D-Day landing. So he goes the first day because he's extraordinary swimming skills. He does all the swimming, he takes photographs, he says, look, this is just a standard German teller mine.

He goes back. They say, you need to go again. He goes the second day. They say, sorry, but you have to go a third time. Third time he's actually captured. He's with another commando, not a Jewish commando. And they're captured and they're blindfolded and they're driven in a car. And he kind of peeks out the side of his blindfold to see what's happening.

And he sees that he's being brought to this very strange looking castle and he's brought into the castle and one of the Germans says to him look you need to clean yourself up a bit. Again he has a deep cover story but he realizes that if he speaks at all they'll pick up his German accent so he puts on a heavy Welsh accent which he thinks will sound so strange to them that they won't realize. And you know, these guys all trained in Wales. So he does this heavy Welsh accent. They don't figure out who he is. They bring him into this grand room. And it's Field Marshal Rommel himself who has decided to interview this guy. So they have this whole conversation. Rommel writes a letter later about it, and he keeps his cover, and they talk about the war. It's just incredible stuff. The following day, Rommel, I think probably because he was so charmed by him, and I don't think he figured out quite who this man was, they send him to prisoner of war camp. When he gets to the prisoner of war camp, he says, I need to talk to whoever's in charge here among the Brits because I have something to tell you. He tells the guy the story. Look, this is really who I am. I'm in this commando troop. And when I was peeking out the side of my blind, I actually think I might have seen where Rommel's headquarters were. And he starts

to explain this very strange building with this moat. And one of the guys is listening. He says, oh my God, I think I know where that is because the POW camp has a library. And one of the guys is listening. He says, oh my God, I think I know where that is because the POW camp has a library. He runs to the library, he brings back a book, shows him the picture. He said, yes, that's where I was. And they radio back to London. And then the car is hit by bombs a month later, and then Rommel's out of action. George Lane spent the rest of the time at the POW camp, but he gets a medal. And the citation says, but for the actions of George Lane, we would not have been able to do D-Day as planned. And this just kept happening over and over again.

I could tell you a million more of these stories. Again, it was the same thing, this German language, this commitment, this clock ticking. It's a crazy story. I mean, I've known about the German and Austrian Jewish physicists being in another country and Hungarian physicists like Szilard. I mean, a huge, huge disaster for the Third Reich. Very lucky for the rest of us that they were expelled. But this just adds another layer to that story of exiled Germans and other people occupied by the Third Reich at this point.

When the book came out, CNN asked me to write an editorial for them about the book. And they said, what is the big lesson that you learned in writing the story? And it's exactly what you just said there, which was about the profound importance of refugees and exiles in terms of writing the world, because they come from a place in which they know what true evil looks like. They know how important it is to battle it. And they're the ones who are going to be on the front line. So that's what I got out of X Troop as well, writing about them. I wrote the book during the Trump era in the United States. There were some pretty hard days here. And I kept thinking about these guys. And I kept thinking about how important refugees were.

And like I said, a lot of them really had to struggle. There was a lot of naturalization issues with them that were difficult for them. They had been interned by the British. That was very difficult too. But to a man in their interviews and in their biographies and their autobiographies, they all said that they felt just the most profound gratitude, honestly, to the British, as one of them said, for giving me a gun and saying, okay, young man, go do your thing. So it was a very mixed feeling somewhat for them. But overall, this sense of just this deep gratitude that they got to do this. The United States also had a troop of German Jews, but they

were just counterintelligence. They were the Ritchie boys. This was really unique because they were commandos and counterintelligence at the same time. And none of them ever got captured and it being revealed that they were in fact Jews? Not as far as I could tell. And I did real deep, deep research in all the war diaries and MI5 and all these things, as far as I could tell. Some of them disappeared without a trace, but this was really held secretive. Only one secretary at MI5 had the list of their real names, which I was lucky to see when I wrote the book. And I think that's why so many of them didn't change their names back afterwards. They really became those people. But you do take us in your book to Tertzin concentration camp. Why do we go there?

you do take us in your book to Tertz in concentration camp. Why do we go there? So we go there because Manfred Gans, the young man I talked about who, oh my God, he was like such a Superman landing at D-Day. He leads the troops, goes through Normandy, is at the front of the Walkheron battles, which is so crucial because Antwerp needs to be used as his ply port. So he's at the front of the line everywhere. And like I said, in large part, because he's just like a complete superhero, but in other parts, because he knows, like I said, his parents have been captured, right? Towards the middle of the war, he hears that they're being held at Bergen-Belsen, which is sort of the worst thing you could possibly hear. And then in the final days of the war, they have to use these strange channels to get mail, but he finds out that his parents have been moved from Bergen-Belsen to Terzenstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

And he says, that's it. I have to go find my parents. And he goes to his commanding officer. The war is not even over yet. It's sort of the day before the war is over. And he says to his commanding officer, look, I need a jeep and I need a driver and I need to go find my parents. And at this point, Montfregans, I mean, he's had a battlefield commission, which was very

rare at this point. He's been so heroic in so many battles. His commanding officer says, I'm not sure that's such a good idea. The war is not over. And he said, no, I have to go find my parents. His commanding officer agrees reluctantly, he gives him a jeep, gives him a bunch of supplies, gives him a driver. And then in one of the most incredible things I ever got to write about in my entire life as a historian,

I got to write about Manfred Gans driving through this apocalyptic Germany in the last days of the war to Czechoslovakia. And he kept a diary of it, which is in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I used to write the chapter in order to find his parents. And one of the great things about writing this book was not only did I get to write about World War II, but it's such an optimistic story. I mean, nobody ever gets to write optimistic stories about the Holocaust. And I got to with this book, because I had these men who did these unbelievable things, including Montford Gons. And you can read the book to see what happens. But it's an optimistic story. And he makes his way to Terrasenstock concentration camp. And he finds his parents. Wow. parents. Wow. It's extraordinary. And he writes the whole thing down in a diary. And it's funny,

I'd always heard this rumor that there was a British commando. I'd heard this rumor too, that there was a British commando who rescued his parents. And I thought, there's no way. That's just one of those hopeful stories. And Montford Gons did it. And I have his photos of his parents in there as well. That is a series of extraordinary tales. I urge everyone to go and check out this book. It's absolutely brilliant. How can people find it? Apparently, it's all over bookstores in the UK, but I'm fine with amazon.co.uk

and you can get it in like a day there. And if you're connected to the Commandos or whatever, also, you can feel free to contact me. You can Google me. It's very easy to get. It was published through Shadow Penguin in the UK. And there's great photos of all these guys as well. What's the book called? X Troop, The Secret Commandos Who Helped Defeat the Nazis. But if you just Google X Troop,

you'll find it. Google X Troop, folks. Thank you so much for coming on here. Thank you so much for having me. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished.

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a face as any of us when I'm done with you.