William "Lord Haw-Haw" Joyce

Convicted of High Treason. William Joyce is remembered with notoriety for his strong political stance of being a fascist before and during World War II. His father was an Irish Catholic, who became an American citizen in 1894, before returning to Ireland in 1909 with his family and becoming a hostile Irish nationalist. His mother came from an Anglo-Irish family, who were protestants. Although born in Brooklyn, New York, he had his childhood in Ireland, before fleeing at age sixteen to England with his family in 1922. On November 14, 1920, a Roman Catholic priest was murdered in Ireland and at age of fourteen, Joyce was linked to the crime. In 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, he was recruited by the British Army as a courier or spy and was almost assassinated by the IRA on his way home from school. Educated at Birkbeck College in London, he became more interested in politics. In 1932 Joyce became a member of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists before founding his own party, the National Socialist League. He had a talent for public speaking. In August of 1939, he deflected to Germany using a falsified British Passport instead of an American Passport, and then became a German citizen. He was recruited by Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Propaganda and given his own radio show, "Germany Calling." In recognition of his success with the propaganda radio show, he was given a pay raise and was promoted to Chief Commentator of the English Language Service. Known to the public as "Lord Haw Haw" because of his nasal drawl, he, as a fascist politician, broadcasted Nazi propaganda into the United Kingdom during World War II. At the end of the war on May 28, 1945, he was captured by British forces near the German-Danish border. He received a gunshot wound during his arrest. Since he had used a British Passport, he was convicted as a British subject on three counts of high treason, and executed by hanging at Wandsworth Prison, becoming the last man hanged for treason in the United Kingdom.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Feb 21 2024, 5:53:33 UTC