Hitler's Irish voices

More about the book

This incredible story - based on detailed research in Germany, Ireland, and Britain - uncovers one of the most sensitive issues concerning Irish-German relations in the Second World War. From December 1939 to May 1945, German Radio broadcast Nazi propaganda to neutral Ireland. From small beginnings featuring a weekly talk in Irish, the broadcasts from Berlin grew into a nightly bilingual service in Irish and English. The man behind the plan to target Irish listeners - as well as Irish groups in America and Australia - was Dr. Adolf Mahr, the Austrian-born director of the National Museum in Dublin. A member of the Nazi Party, he was promoted to the top museum job in 1934. Mahr left Dublin in 1939, never to return. Officially on leave of absence from his job with the Irish Civil Service, he spent the war years in Berlin working on the Irish desk at the German Foreign Office, as well as establishing and directing German Radio's nightly Irish Service, known as the Irland-Redaktion. Hitler's Irish Voices tells the story of Mahr and the rest of his colleagues who worked for the Irland-Redaktion. It traces their backgrounds, the various paths that led them to wartime Berlin, and tells what became of them after the war. The book examines in detail the reasons for the establishment of the radio service, what it broadcast, and who listened to it.