World War II Database

Contributor: Alan Chanter

ww2dbaseThough spending the first 15 years of his life in New York in the United States, William Brooke Joyce moved to Ireland where he became involved with Irish nationalists. Later he came to England, United Kingdom where he was soon involved as Propaganda Director in Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists. At the outbreak of World War II he fled with his wife to Germany where, in September 1939, he commenced broadcasting his "Germany calling" programme on Radio Hamburg. His propaganda broadcasts had a considerable effect on the British audience - By 1940 30 per cent of the British population would be regularly tuning in for his programme. It contained a mixture of weak fact and unbelievable fiction, presented in a "BBC voice" to add to a sense of reality that earned him the name of "Lord Haw-Haw". He used liberal amounts of humour, lashing off ridicule and dire tales of terror and danger; his messages, for all their wretchedness, were infuriatingly fascinating.

ww2dbaseDuring the war, he was granted German citizenship.

ww2dbaseIn 1945 Joyce was arrested by the British at the end of the war and charged with High Treason at the Central Criminal Court. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. His appeal on the basis of his being a US citizen was annulled by the fact that he had chosen to carry a British passport at the start of the war. He was hanged on 3 January 1946 at Wandsworth Prison in London - the last person to be executed for High treason in the United Kingdom.

William Joyce Interactive Map

Photographs

William Joyce Timeline