How many of you have read The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy? Probably not many. It’s the story of the wealthy but foppish Sir Percy Blakeney who leads a double life. He is an accomplished swordsman, master of disguises, escape artist and as the “Scarlet Pimpernel,” Sir Percy rescues French aristocrats from the guillotine blade during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror.
Today, we are going to focus our attention on a Scottish pastor who led the Paris parish for the Church of Scotland. Rev. Dr. Donald Caskie’s wartime exploits for rescuing downed Allied airmen and leading them to safety through the Pat O’Leary escape line earned him the nickname, “The Tartan Pimpernel.”
I will be the guest speaker for Bonjour Paris on 6 December 2023 for a Zoom presentation to their members and others. The topic will be “Walking History: In the Footsteps of Marie Antoinette” and I will take you on a walk along the exact route in Paris that the queen’s tumbrel took to the guillotine. I invite you to join us for the discussion and slide show.
Bonjour Paris (click here to visit the web-site) is a digital website dedicated to bringing its members current news, travel tips, culture, and historical articles on Paris. I have been a member for more than ten years and have found its content to be quite interesting, practical, and entertaining.
I will have a direct link to sign up for my presentation at a later date. There is no cost to Bonjour Paris members and €10,00 for non-members. The time of the live presentation on 6 December will be 11:30 AM, east coast time.
Did You Know?
Did you know I could probably write enough blogs on World War II traitors to fill an entire year? Today, I decided to call-out a particular British traitor who was quite dastardly and frankly, a lousy human being. Harold Cole (1906−1946) ⏤ a.k.a. Harry Cole, Paul Cole ⏤ began his criminal career as a teenager. Released from prison shortly after the war began, Cole enlisted in the British army and was stationed in France. Considered handsome with an appealing personality and sharp wits, Cole was never without female company. It didn’t take long before he was caught stealing from the army and jailed. Escaping, Cole was apprehended and thrown into jail once again. As the Germans overran France, Cole was released by the military but rather than returning to England, he remained in France. Read More The Tartan Pimpernel
In May 1945, several senior Gestapo officials made their way to Dahme, Schleswig-Holstein (northern Germany on the Bay of Lübeck) to prevent their arrest by the Allies. Officials at the British Field Security Post in Lübeck learned about these men and their hiding place from a captured Gestapo man. Immediately, British military police drove 31 miles to the Strandhotel and arrested five former Gestapo men ⏤ two officers and three NCOs. Taken back to Lübeck, the prisoners were turned over for interrogation at the city’s Marstall prison.
Strandhotel in Dahme, Schleswig-Holstein. Photo by Google Maps (date unknown).
One of those men was SS-Sturmbannführer and Kriminaldirektor, Horst Kopkow. At the time of his arrest, Kopkow was a relatively unknown Gestapo official but as time went on and the British interrogated former Gestapo men, Kopkow’s name kept being brought up. It turned out he was the department chief responsible for counterintelligence (i.e., arresting foreign agents), the German radio program known as “Funkspiel,” and well-regarded by his superiors for his knowledge of Soviet espionage.
After extensive official and unofficial investigations, it became clear that Kopkow was personally responsible for sanctioning the torture and ordering the executions of foreign agents of MI6 and the British-led Special Operations Executive (SOE). I’ve written before about Hitler’s “enablers” (click here to read the blog, Hitler’s Enablers – Part One – Wannsee Conference and here for Hitler’s Enablers – Part Two – The Camps). Kopkow was an enabler but as Stephen Tyas points out in his book (see below), the Gestapo chief was a “desktop murderer.” He never personally pulled the trigger or hanged a prisoner, but he signed the Sonder behandlung, or “Special treatment” orders from his Berlin desk. In the end, he escaped justice because of the protection provided by British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6.
Did You Know?
Did you know that one individual was responsible for preparing France for the invasion of Normandy (i.e., D-Day)? During World War II, Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac (1917−2015) served as Gen. de Gaulle’s propaganda chief. As the preparations for the Normandy invasion intensified during early 1944, M. Crémieux-Brilhac was assigned the responsibility for telling French citizens how to react once the inevitable invasion took place and efforts to liberate France began. He was secretary of the Free French Propaganda Committee, and he drew up four pages of instructions to “all French men and women not organized in, or attached to, a Resistance group.” Those instructions were handed over to the French service of the BBC. Separate orders were drawn up for broadcast to members of the Maquis. (These were the famous “personal” messages read out on the BBC in advance of the invasion ⏤ click here to read the blog, Dah-Dah-Dah-Duh.)
Crémieux-Brilhac’s messages were directed to the population in general as well as specific instructions to mayors, police, factory workers, etc. The biggest disagreement about the “call-to-arms” was between the Communists and the Gaullists. Communist resistance fighters were very influential in the French Resistance, and they demanded an all-out insurrection (i.e., general worker strikes and armed insurrection) on the eventual day of the invasion. M. Crémieux-Brilhac and the majority resisted the Communists’ demands and the majority won.
The instructions to the French were that “all French must consider themselves as engaged in the total war against the invader in order to liberate their homeland.” He made it clear that the French were to consider themselves “all soldiers under orders” and “Every Frenchman who is not, or not yet, a fighter must consider himself an auxiliary to the fighters.” Citizens living within the Normandy combat zone were instructed to “disrupt using all means transport, transmissions, and communications of the Germans.”
Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).
After liberation, the original instruction documents were retained by M. Crémieux-Brilhac. Upon his death in 2015, the papers were donated to the French National Archives.
Let’s Meet Horst Kopkow
Horst Kopkow (1910−1996) was born in East Prussia, Germany (now Poland) as the sixth child of a businessman and hotel owner. His childhood city, Allenstein, was overrun by the Russian army during the first world war and two of his older brothers died in the trenches on the French battlefields. These memories heavily influenced his vision of Russia and later, the Soviet Union with Kopkow vowing to fight Communism the rest of his life. Read More Desktop Murderer & British Agent
“Informative and entertaining, Stew Ross’ newest work evokes a difficult and frightening time in the history of the City of Light. The detailed descriptions of sites such as the Vél’ d’hiv’ or Gestapo headquarters reminds us of the choices people made during those years.”
Cynthia Bisson, PhD, Professor of History, Belmont University, French Resistant Expert
“Stew blends the dark history of buildings in Paris that are associated with the infamous deeds of the Gestapo with contrasting insights into the bravery of the French people, who, at great risk to themselves and their families, secretly resisted the German Occupation.”
Stanley Booker, MBE, RAF (Ret.), Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur
