Hitler's Hangmen The Plot to Kill Churchill, December 1944

Before and after the outbreak of the Second World War, there were a number of sizable Fascist groups active in Britain, all of whom were working towards a violent uprising to overthrow the British government. These groups included The Right Club, led by Captain Jock Ramsey MP, Arnold Leese's Imperial Fascist League and Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. When Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940, Ramsay, Leese, Mosley and hundreds of their supporters were arrested and interned. They were released in 1943 and 1944, all the more embittered and just as intent on bringing about the installation of a Fascist Government in Britain, which Ramsay hoped to lead. Churchill was the man they hated most, under Chamberlain, they had remained free men, Churchill had interned them, and sworn to fight the Nazis to the bitter end, Britain under Churchill would never surrender. In the autumn of 1944, Adolf Hitler made his last attempt to achieve victory in the west, or at least a favorable peace. He would then be free to concentrate on defeating the Soviet Union. In the Ardennes, he launched a massive counter attack, using dirty tricks and murdering prisoners, that has become known as the Battle of the Bulge, in Italy he counter attacked down the Serchio valley, and in the UK he gave orders for an uprising or escape in all of the German Camps under Nazi control, and in at least one of the Italian Fascist prisoner of war camps. A part of Hitler's plan was the assassination, simultaneously, of both Churchill and Eisenhower. This was the opportunity Ramsay had been waiting for. Under the cover of a "Social" for all those who had been released from detention, a meeting was arranged for the day of the breakout. They would join and aid the uprising, provid...