And now the Simon Wiesenthal Institute has stepped in to deplore the elevation of Francis Stuart to the highest cultural position in the land. Who in our artistic community feels the sense of shame that I feel that we are now in the dock for honouring such a man?
The issue is not really about any alleged anti-Semitism, nor about the fact that anti-Semitism was widespread amongst the Irish middle classes (Fintan O'Toole's recent observation on the subject). Nor is Stuart's skill as a writer relevant; nor is the ignorance of that writing by his critics such as myself (the grounds for which Colm Toibin attacked me in the Sunday In- dependent); or that his critics are being "self-righteous" (accusations by Eileen Battersby last year, Nuala O'Faolain recently), though when I read Nuala O'Faolain declaring that it is not a question of black and white, all I can say is: it is.
It's as black and white as it could possibly be. Francis Stuart offered his services to the Third Reich after the outbreak of the second World War. There would be no controversy had he repented for doing so. Has he repented, clearly and unambiguously? Specifically, and precisely: he has not. Quite the reverse, even though we all know now, and he does too, what was being done to European Jewry by the regime he so freely served.
No regrets
No regrets. None. And this is the issue; not my "self-righteousness", nor his alleged contrition through the alter-ego of his work of fiction, Black List Section H, nor that he was not pro-Nazi (a contention convincingly dealt with by Christabel Bielenberg and Charlotte von der Schulenburg, and they should know: they were in Berlin at the time and the latter's father ended his days on Hitler's meathooks).
This is what Stuart told Simon Sebag Montefiore on a recent Channel 4 programme: "The Jew was always the worm that got into the rose and sickened it. Yes, but of course I take that as praise. I mean all those so-called healthy roses, they need exposing - many of them are sick."
Montefiore: "Are you ashamed that you helped Nazi Germany now?"
Stuart. "Sorry?"
Montefiore. "Are you ashamed, yes, are you sorry?"
Stuart. "Did I help them by broadcasting, you mean?"
Montefiore. "Yeah."
Stuart. "No, I'm not sorry."
Montefiore. "But knowing what you do know, as the person you are now, which is the only way you can answer."
Stuart. "That's right.
Montefiore. "How, what would your answer be, and would you broadcast again?"
Stuart. "No, probably not."
Montefiore. "Do you have any regrets in your life generally?"
Stuart. "Non, non. Je regrette rien, rien de tout."
Simple declaration
No I'm not sorry, and, I regret nothing, nothing at all. That is a very simple and straightforward declaration from a man who told the Irish people in a broadcast on January 1942: "There is one German view that I recognise the truth of more and more clearly. It is that which declares that Mr Roosevelt is warmonger number one."
No regrets. Nothing at all. Which of us can say that in our lives?
Who can look back over a score or two years - never mind nearly five score years - and say, no regrets? And none of us went to such trouble to offer our services to the Third Reich. It was not easy. He needed bogus documents, purporting to show that he had TB and needed treatment in Switzerland, to get to Germany after the outbreak of war. None of us spent that war in Berlin, aiding and abetting a regime that was bombing Ireland and causing thousands of casualties.
Yes indeed, bombing Ireland. This is how the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter at the time reported the air-raids on Belfast: "We stared into a sea of flames such as no-one had ever seen . . . our squadron leader, who had already made over one hundred raids said, "No one would ever believe it."
No city in the United Kingdom, apart from London, suffered from the blitz as Belfast did. Does it not make your blood run cold that Francis Stuart could freely read about the destruction of the capital of Ulster, a province he claims as his own, in German newspapers, and yet make propaganda broadcasts in support of those laying waste to it?
Berlin Jews Of course, though Stuart might have known of the arrests of 4,187 Jews from Berlin in one day in October 1941, he could not have known that they were all shot in the murder-pits of Rumbuli; nor that the next batch of Berlin Jews were despatched at Kovno. In that splendidly punctilious way they had, the Nazis recorded that 1,159 Jews, 1,600 Jewesses, and 175 children were thus executed. But could he really have been quite unaware of the 27 Jews who were shot around Berlin on May 18th, 1942 for organising a display of anti-Nazi posters?
And now, of course, he knows that of the 170,000 Jews in Berlin when he arrived there, by war's end there were just 2,000 still there, "submarines", who were hidden by brave German Aryans, who did know what was going on.
We are not being unreasonable in demanding regret from those who, even if completely unknowingly, aided and abetted the Third Reich. Francis Stuart has apologised for nothing and has regretted nothing. His honesty is almost commendable. By honouring this man who unrepentantly served the Third Reich, Aosdana has disgraced itself, which is its right, and the country which pays for it, which is not.