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A British newspaper photo of a Hitler Youth bike tour. Photo: National Archives

UK suspected Hitler Youth acted as 'spyclists'

Published: 8 Mar 10 12:49 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100308-25735.html

The British intelligence agency MI5 suspected members of the Hitler Youth conducted bicycle reconnaissance tours through the countryside in the run-up to World War II, documents released by the UK National Archives revealed on Monday.

“File KV 5/87 deals with the activities of the Hitler Youth in the UK in the years leading up to the Second World War, in particular bicycling tours. The danger of reconnaissance activity was recognised, though initially on the basis of an exaggerated newspaper report about 'spyclists',” archive officials said in a statement about the newly declassified documents.

Concerns about the Hitler Youth tours apparently began after the Daily Herald newspaper ran a May 1937 article entitled, “Nazis must be spyclists,” which allegedly translated Nazi cycling association documents encouraging young fascists on holidays abroad to take special note of important landmarks and geological features for use by German authorities.

While MI5 was apparently sceptical about the report’s authenticity, it still gathered reports about Hitler Youth cycling tours through England ahead of the war.

The more than 100 pages of records and intercepted correspondence also detail how the Nazi organisation attempted to create a relationship with the Boy Scouts. The German ambassador reportedly invited prominent Boy Scout leaders, including founder Baden Powell, to dine with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Powell was also allegedly invited to meet Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, though there is no evidence that such a meeting took place.

External link: Download the newly released documents on the National Archives site. »

The Local (news@thelocal.de)

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Your comments about this article:

13:03 March 8, 2010 by William Thirteen
and what thighs those spycyclists had!
15:58 March 8, 2010 by Jibzy
Basically what UK is trying to say is..." Did we forget to mention that we are better than you? Oh look what you did 6 decades ago. This is a lot worse than the time when we conquered half of the world just for its riches and land "
04:15 March 9, 2010 by Thames
The British of course being such good sports never used spys.

They just stayed on their little Island minding their own business only leaving occasionally to attack some Hottentots or Arabs or Indians etc...

Afterall it was only a matter of time before the Zulu fleet reached London.
13:49 March 9, 2010 by DepotCat
Evil Nazis using kids to do their dirty work.

Of course "Jibzy" everyone knows that no other country is better than Deutschland.
00:07 March 10, 2010 by snorge
Another breath taking story about WWII!!!!
05:31 March 11, 2010 by Thames
@snorge

Some 60+ years later Hitler and the Nazis still sell.

There allways seems to be a reference to it somwhere on this site everyday.
08:47 March 15, 2010 by Ich
Yes! It's true! EVen the Hitler Youth were Nazis! Some of them left their bicycle tours and hid in British haylofts, waiting for the German invasion actually planned in 1937, subsisting on only speeches from their Fuhrer until their radio batteries expired.

Truth is, the Hitler Youth WAS just the German Boy Scouts of the era-the object was to get kids out into the country, marching, hiking, singing, camping-it probably was more political than the Boy Scouts, but, if you read Werner Heisenburg's accounts of it, it was mostly comradship and pretty positive. Oops! Did I say something good about the Nazis? A lot of our present Hitler bashing is due, I'd say, to obscure teh complicity of the WW1 victors in destroying the Weimar Republic, which led to the power vaccuum and chaos that made Hitler a reasonable alternative.

It's sad, but you know, there's not a single song you can sing in America that anyone will join in.
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