In Blackshirt Masquerade Hugh Clifton infiltrates Department Z, the intelligence unit of the British Union of Fascists, on behalf of MI5. He can use the information he gathers against the very people who regard him as their most dedicated agent. When things reach crisis point in Blackshirt Conspiracy he reports back to his handler,
‘We know who to arrest, I’ve got hundreds of names, addresses—’
But his handler retorts,
‘A mass round-up, arbitrary arrests, and detention without trial – is that what you’re suggesting, Comrade Clifton? And where are all the secret policemen who are going to carry this out?’
Those lists compiled up in Room Z could become a powerful weapon, as the fascist agents aspire to become a secret police force. Britain has never fallen under the shadow of secret police, the ever-present threat of being denounced by an informer or simply a neighbour with a grudge. In the alternative history of the Room Z novels it grows into an all-too realistic narrative. By looking at what happened in Germany under the Nazis, we can imagine what could have happened here.
We are familiar with the old war movies in which a Gestapo officer opens the train compartment demanding ‘papers!’ In the films it seems the Gestapo have eyes everywhere, and that was an idea they cultivated in real life. In fact it was not true, agents were thinly spread and the bureaucratic nature of the Nazi regime made them rather less effective than the movies would have us believe. The Nazis also operated under a divide-and-rule philosophy which acted against efficiency, pitting one department against another.
Before WW2, the Geheime Staatspolizei, infamously known as the Gestapo, were charged with rooting out political opponents to the Nazi Party. They rubbed up against the intelligence-gathering SD, Sicherheitsdienst, hunting for foreign threats to Germany and intriguing against its enemies. A turf war rumbled through the mid-1930s as the two organisations argued over exactly who was responsible for what, and missions and leadership shifted. In addition to the Kripo criminal police the Nazis also inherited a multitude of regional forces and political police. In addition was military intelligence, the Abwehr, the one force that never wholly fell under Nazi domination and at times was suspected as actively working against their interests. All this is in addition to the Nazis’ private army the Schutzstaffel (SS), and the ‘Brownshirts’ of the Sturmabteilung (SA) who bullied their way around the streets. Germans had plenty of reasons to look over their shoulders.
We would probably have seen something similar evolving in the alternative history of a fascist-dominated Britain. In the early 1930s Britain had three Security Services jostling for position: the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Special Branch. There was also the Naval Intelligence Division operated by the Admiralty. By 1936 the British Union of Fascists already had their Department Z with a role loosely equivalent to the Gestapo plus the Blackshirt street-fighters as the Germans had their Brownshirts. The Fascist Police were selected Blackshirts acting initially as parade martials. There was also pressure from Commandant Mary Allen to re-form a Women’s Auxiliary Service after spending time training female police officers in Germany. British fascists were no more efficient than the Germans, so we can visualise a continual tug-of-war between these organisations.
Lots of organisations, lots of people making lists.
The fascists did not come to power in Britain, but the irony is that there was ultimately a mass round-up. During the early months of WW2, MI5 seized membership lists of right-wing organisations during hunts for German agents and Nazi sympathisers and compiled wish-lists of their own. In June 1940, under the new Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Defence Regulation 18B was amended to permit widespread arrests of British fascists. Some 1000 were arrested and Sir Oswald Mosley and his wife were among the first to be detained without trial. Hugh Clifton would have approved.
Blackshirt Masquerade and Blackshirt Conspiracy published by Level Best Books are available individually or as an ebook set from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Follow this link to my previous blog Department Z: Britain’s Gestapo