A little bit of Jeeves and Hitler

[angelophile]

There's a black cloud over dear old PG Wodehouse. Occasionally you'll run across an intellectual snob who'll rebuff England's greatest humourist by repeating the old urban myth that "He was a Nazi collaborator!"

Of course, he wasn't. Although as a writer he was quintessentially English, from 1924 on he lived largely in France and was profoundly uninterested in politics and world affairs. When World War II broke out in 1939 he remained at his seaside home in Le Touquet, France, instead of returning to England, apparently failing to recognize the seriousness of the conflict and was subsequently taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940, interned in a German prison camp and agreed (or was persuaded) to make some radio broadcasts aimed at the USA, which the Germans presumably hoped to use for propaganda. Of course, being Wodehouse they were simply too witty and whimsical to be of any use as anything other than entertainment.

That didn't stop the accusations of being a traitor (some libraries banned his books), and after being released from internment a few months short of his 60th birthday, he moved permanently to New York with his wife, Ethel. (Apart from Leonora, who died during Wodehouse's internment in Germany, they had no children.) He became an American citizen in 1955, and never returned to his homeland, spending the remainder of his life in Remsenburg, Long Island.

Interestingly, I just saw the transcripts of the NAZI broadcasts and they make for interesting and amusing reading. Traitor? No, Wodehouse WAS England.

Comments

[kirke-novak.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. You have one like that as well? In every country there's a bloody HERO that a bunch of [insert derogatory term of your liking] tries to smack down and prove he was a Nazi collaborator. In here Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, Courier from Warsaw. 99% people are 'omgz!hero!!!' but there is that annoying 1% that should be shot that seems to be blind as well as retarded.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

To be fair, NOW P.G. Wodehouse's reputation is pretty much unsulied and he's, rightly, regarded as England's greatest humourist. However, at the time public opinion was split - people like Winnie the Pooh's A.A. Milne were convinced he was a traitor, while George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh were both supporters. After the war the NAZI taint faded and is probably now mostly forgotten except by an elitist intelligentsia. It was a report of Julie Burchell, a well known critic, calling him a traitor that led to the link. Made for interesting reading, I thought.