Errol Flynn was a Nazi spy?

Kyt · Jun 27, 2009

Blimey, I find some strange stories sometimes

Errol Flynn was a Nazi spy, says author | The Australian

HOLLYWOOD biographer Charles Higham has a blunt message for Tasmanians swept up in the Errol Flynn centenary celebrations. Wake up, he says, you're cheering on a Jew-hating Nazi sympathiser.

The British-born Higham is the author of a 1980 biography of Flynn that accuses the swashbuckling Tasmanian-born screen legend of espionage for the Nazis before and during World War II and of having a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden in the German Alps in the spring of 1938.

While subsequent Flynn biographers have dismissed the claims as baseless, Higham, 78, remains unrepentant.

He dismisses his critics as "amateurs" and says no compelling new information has emerged in the nearly 30 years since his book was published that would change his views.

"There is no doubt whatsoever that Flynn had Nazi sympathies and worked as a Nazi additive if not an actual agent," Higham said from his Los Angeles home this week. "He was first noticed for his violently anti-British and pro-Nazi views as early as 1934 and there is little doubt his work for the Nazis resulted in people being killed.

"I think it's rather sad that Tasmanians would want to celebrate this."

Questions of anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathies haven't featured much in coverage of the Flynn festivities held in Hobart this month, which have featured his daughter Rory and her son Sean.

The focus has been on Flynn's improbable journey from snotty nosed kid in the Hobart suburb of Battery Point to international stardom in the golden age of Hollywood.

Higham, who lived in Australia from 1954-59 and was literary editor of The Bulletin, agreed Flynn's rise to fame was remarkable and he had a magical screen presence. But he said this shouldn't be allowed to disguise the fact Flynn was "completely unscrupulous, completely devoid of any moral fibre and lucky to escape charges of treason".

According to Higham, Flynn was weaned on bigotry, growing up in an anti-Semitic, Irish-Catholic family in Tasmania, a state where racism was rife in the early 20th century.

As a young man in the early 1930s, Flynn fell under the influence of Hermann Erben, an Austrian doctor and card-carrying Nazi he met by chance on a ship travelling from Rabaul, in what is now Papua New Guinea, to Marseilles. They became close friends.

From declassified US files, Higham's research uncovered a 1934 letter written by Flynn to Erben in which the Australian complained about a "slimy Jew" who was trying to cheat him. "I do wish we could bring Hitler over here to teach these Isaacs a thing or two," Flynn wrote. "The bastards have absolutely no business probity or honour whatsoever."

In 1937, Erben, who would later head German intelligence in Mexico during World War II, travelled with Flynn to Spain where the actor's Captain Blood celebrity (the hit film had been released in 1935) was used as cover to gather information about members of the Thaelmann Battalion. Named after German communist leader Ernst Thaelmann, the battalion had embarrassed Hitler by joining the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War.

Higham says information from Erben and Flynn was relayed to Nazi headquarters in Germany and used to round up relatives of battalion members, many of whom died in concentration camps.

While Higham's book also included claims that Flynn was a bisexual who had affairs with Truman Capote, Howard Hughes and Tyrone Power, among others, it was the Nazi allegations that caused the biggest uproar.
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Golden Wattle · Jun 27, 2009

An author says yes, many more say no.
Who knows?
All admit he tried to join all of the services at the time, but was not allowed due to an ENLARGED heart, TB & Malaria. So (Excluding some of his predilictions) in my "book" he was OK.

GW

spidge · Jun 27, 2009

Interesting hypothetical is possibly all it is. If all can be proven there should be no maybe this or maybe that!

Cobber · Jun 29, 2009

Crikey, if Erroll Flynn did everything attributed to him then he
mus ta been the busiest actor/person around.
It may have been difficult to work in Hollywood if you are openly NAZI antisemetic.

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