Austrians in the British Army

After the annexation of Austria by the German Reich in March 1938, Great Britain became a primary refugee destination for those fleeing the Nazi regime, the number of which probably totalled up to 150,000 people by the beginning of the Second World War alone. Despite rigid British entry regulations, a total of around 30,000 Austrians – exact figures are not available – arrived at the shores of the British Isles by September 1939, most of them of Jewish origin. With the British declaration of war on Germany, they – like the German refugees – were categorised as enemy aliens, since they were officially citizens of the German Reich, although that very state had expelled them from their homeland – Austria no longer existed as an independent country at this time.

Initially, the fact that Great Britain and Nazi Germany were at war had little or no impact on most of the refugees. From September 1939, those over the age of 16 had to undergo an examination by so-called tribunals, which tested their loyalty to their host country and filtered out potential problem makers. However, the majority of refugees from the territory of the Reich were categorised as Category C and thus as reliable, which meant that these people were only subject to the same restrictions that had already applied to foreigners in peacetime. Of all the approximately 73,000 enemy aliens examined, only less than one per cent were classified as Category A and thus as a security risk and were immediately interned. Category B, around ten per cent, did not entail internment but more restrictions – for example, travel over five miles had to be approved by the police, and possession of items of military or intelligence value such as weapons and maps, but also binoculars and cameras as well as cars was prohibited.

However, the success of the German Wehrmacht in Western Europe in the spring of 1940, which also made an attack on the British Isles increasingly likely, dramatically changed the situation for the refugees. Fearing a German invasion, the British government declared the southern and eastern parts of the country to be protected areas in May 1940. As a result, all male enemy aliens between the ages of 16 and 60 living there – around 8,000 people – were interned, regardless of their category, and female enemy aliens were expelled from the areas concerned. After the defeat of Belgium and, above all, the French capitulation, there were further waves of internment, culminating in a total of 27,000 German and Austrian enemy aliens in British camps at the beginning of July 1940, for example in Huyton near Liverpool or, as in the First World War, on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, far away from the areas on the south and east coast of England that were particularly threatened in the event of a German invasion. Between 24 June and 10 July 1940, more than 7,500 people were sent overseas to Canada and Australia. These shipments would eventually cause a public outcry in Britain – in the case of the Dunera to Australia because of the appalling sanitary conditions on board and the vicious treatment of passengers by the crew, and in the case of the Arandora Star to Canada because it was sunk by a German submarine on 2 July 1940, resulting in the deaths of 714 people, most of whom were interned refugees. In response, the government allowed the first interned Category B and C enemy aliens to leave the camps in August 1940, and by the following December, 8,000 people had been released. By 1942, the number of internees had finally fallen to 5,000.

Waiting for arbitrary release by the authorities was not the only way out of the camps. From September 1940, interned enemy aliens were offered the opportunity to join the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, an unarmed army labour unit established in October 1939 – (almost) all other units would not be open to them until April 1943. Prime Minister Churchill did not want to see the available human resources go idle and considered potential problem makers to be as good monitored while serving with the Pioneer as in the camps. In any case, there was a shortage of personnel in the Pioneer Corps, as few Britons volunteered for the unit due to its low reputation. For this reason, the government had already decided to accept enemy aliens before the internments had stated and had even set up its own “Alien Companies”. Starting from Kitchener Camp in Richborough in the county of Kent, four of these first five Alien Companies were sent to the British Expeditionary Force in France, where two of them were eventually armed and used for defence purposes due to the course pf military events. Their deployment had therefore proved valuable but the recruitment of enemy aliens for the Pioneer Corps was temporarily suspended at the height of the internment wave in the summer of 1940 and only resumed through Churchill’s initiative the following autumn. It is estimated that a total of around 1,400 Austrians had served in the Pioneer Corps by the end of the war. Some of these men went on to be recruited into a unit, the true identity of which was concealed for a long time even in army circles: No. 3 Troop, No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando.