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Britain’s wartime Jew haters

The author of the gripping new WW2 history 'Agent Jack' writes about the Fifth Column of British Nazi sympathisers, and their antisemitism

September 13, 2018 10:45
Victor Rothschild and Tess Mayor (centre)

ByRobert Hutton, Robert Hutton

5 min read

Sir William Strang was one of Britain’s most senior wartime diplomats, trusted to represent the nation at the negotiations about the future shape of post-war Europe. He was a pillar of the British establishment.

And like many pillars of the establishment in the 1930s and 1940s, he was deeply antisemitic.

“Strang said that he personally hated the Jews,” a 1943 MI5 report read, “and regarded the Bolshevists and the Jews as the two great enemies of all that was decent.”

That this man was appearing in an MI5 report at all was surprising. Until that point, Strang had been more likely to write a top secret document than feature in one. What was even odder was that the author was Victor, Third Baron Rothschild, Britain’s leading Jew.