Charles Henry Bewley,GCSG (12 July 1888 – 1969) was an Irish diplomat.
Raised in a prominent DublinQuaker business family, he embracedIrish Republicanism and Roman Catholicism. He was the Irishenvoy toBerlin who reportedly thwarted efforts to obtainvisas forJews wanting to leaveNazi Germany in the 1930s and to move to the safety of theIrish Free State.
Bewley was born inDublin, Ireland, into a wealthy privileged family, the eldest of four brothers. His mother was Elizabeth Eveleen Pim, whose family owned a largedepartment store in George's Street,Dublin. His father wasphysician Dr. Henry Theodore Bewley (1860-1945), related to the family that operated the successful "Bewley's cafés" chain ofcoffee houses in Dublin that is still famous today. His parents were bothQuakers, and Charles and his brothers were raised in that tradition.
He was educated at Park House, a boarding school in England. In 1901, he won a scholarship toWinchester College, where he became the LibraryPrefect. That honour was withdrawn when he declared in adebate that "England is not a musical nation" and ridiculed theanthem "God save the King". He proceeded toNew College, Oxford, where he read Law. In 1910, he won theNewdigate Prize for poetry.[1] He completed his training as a barrister atKing's Inns, Dublin, and in 1914 he wascalled to the bar.
Charles' brother Kenneth also attended Oxford University. Kenneth was a career civil servant inH.M. Treasury. His younger brothers, Geoffrey and Maurice, studiedmedicine atTrinity College Dublin.
Charles Bewley was seen as an "enfant terrible". He rejected hisAnglo-Irish heritage and embracedCeltic mythology[citation needed] of the kind popularised byW. B. Yeats. He spoke against the "evils of Anglicization", supported theBoers inSouth Africa, and converted toRoman Catholicism.[2] He rejectedUnionist politics and supported theHome Rule movement.[citation needed]
At the outbreak ofWorld War I in 1914, he was in Ireland, acting as a defending barrister for many nationalists and republicans. He wroteSeán Mac Eoin's death-sentence speech. In the1918 general election, he stood, unsuccessfully, as aSinn Féin candidate. During theIrish Civil War, he took the pro-Treaty side. As a barrister, he prosecuted many anti-Treaty prisoners. At the1923 general election, he was aCumann na nGaedheal candidate in theMayo South constituency, but he was not elected.[3]
Between the truce in theIrish War of Independence and theAnglo-Irish Treaty being signed, he was Irish consul inBerlin with responsibility for trade. He was appointed Irish ambassador to theVatican (resident minister to theHoly See) in 1929. At that time, Irish diplomatic appointments were meant to be made by the British monarch, but Bewley frequently flouted the diplomatic niceties by ignoring the implications of that. If anything, the complaints ofH.J. Chilton, the British representative, and ofSir Robert Clive, his successor, improved Bewley's reputation in Ireland.[citation needed]
In July 1933, the British Foreign Office became annoyed when thePope,Pius XI, knighted Bewley into theOrder of the Grand Cross of St Gregory the Great, because the King's agreement had not been sought. Bewley was told, with no effect, that, as a King's representative, he was not entitled to wear the decoration without royal permission.
However, the constant bickering between the Irish and British representatives to the Vatican pleased neither Dublin nor London. It paved the way for Bewley to obtain the appointment he really wanted, and he went toBerlin in July 1933. ThePresident of Germany,Hindenburg, praised his impeccable German.
Bewley's reports from Berlin enthusiastically praisedNational Socialism andChancellorHitler. He gave interviews to German papers which were anti-British, and annoyed the British embassy in Berlin, ignoring theSilver Jubilee of George V in 1935. With the ending of theAnglo-Irish Trade War and the return of thetreaty ports, good relations were established between Ireland and Britain. Bewley was frequently reprimanded by Dublin, which was no longer tolerant of his anti-British jibes.[4]
The first indication that Bewley wasanti-Semitic came in Berlin in 1921, where Bewley was the Irish consul for trade. The new Irish state was not yet formally recognised, and the Irish leader,Michael Collins, askedRobert Briscoe, an IRA quartermaster, to buy guns. In time, Briscoe would play an important political role and would be the first JewishLord Mayor of Dublin. Bewley and Briscoe went to a Jewish-owned music hall in theTauenzien Palast, but, after Briscoe left, it was reported that Bewley insulted Judaism and was thrown out, resulting in a drunken brawl.[5]John Chartres, the head of the Irish Bureau, was going to take action, but theIrish Civil War broke out. Briscoe took the losing anti-Treaty side, while Bewley returned to Dublin, took the pro-Treaty side, and prosecuted anti-Treaty prisoners in the courts.[6]
In March 1922,George Gavan Duffy wrote toErnest Blythe opposing Bewley's appointment as an Irish envoy to Germany: "...there is a great objection to appointing him to such a post in Germany, because his semitic [sic] convictions are so pronounced that it would be very difficult for him to deal properly with all the persons and questions within the scope of an Envoy to Berlin, where the Jewish element is very strong." Gavan Duffy suggested instead thatMunich orVienna might be more suitable, "... as the same considerations would not arise in those places".[7]
It is believed Bewley's hatred of Jews was partly influenced by the controversial teachings of Irish Catholic priestDenis Fahey. While he was serving as an envoy to Berlin, Bewley once referred to Fahey's pamphletThe Rulers of Russia when being interviewed by the permanent secretary of the Irish Ministry for External AffairsJoseph Walshe.[8]
Bewley was the "Irish Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary" in Berlin in the crucial years from 1933 to 1939. Reading his reports to Dublin during the 1930s gives the impression that German Jews were not threatened, and that they were involved in pornography, abortion and "the international white slave traffic". That from a man responsible for processing visa applications from Jews wishing to leave Germany for Ireland. His explanation of the Nuremberg Laws was: "As the Chancellor pointed out, it amounts to the making of the Jews into a national minority; and as they themselves claim to be a separate race, they should have nothing to complain of." He reported that he had no knowledge of any "deliberate cruelty on the part of the [German] Government ... towards the Jews", and criticised Irish refugee policy as "inordinately liberal, and facilitating the entry of the wrong class of people" (meaning Jews). The Irish legation in Berlin consisted of two people, Bewley and a German secretary called Frau Kamberg. She appeared more sympathetic to the Jews than Bewley.[9] Fewer than a hundred Jews obtained Irish visas between 1933 and 1939. Bewley was dismissed from his position in 1939.
Bewley was dismissed just asWorld War II was breaking out, and never received a pension. However,Joseph Goebbels gave him a job writing propaganda. For a time, Bewley worked for a Swedish news agency, which was part of Goebbels' propaganda machine.
At the end of the War he was held by British troops, having been picked up inMerano, Northern Italy, in May 1945 and held inTerni. He was carrying Irish diplomatic papers identifying him as the Irish minister to Berlin and to the Vatican.Joseph Walshe, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, andSir John Maffey, the British diplomatic representative in independent Ireland, decided on a solution that would undermine Bewley's ego.[10]
At that time, passports required the identification of the holder's trade or profession. Bewley was issued with a new Irish passport which had for that entry, "a person of no importance".[11] At the end of the war, passport checkpoints were frequent. Bewley never produced that passport. He was released in Rome, and apparently never left. He wrote some newspaper articles, and a biography ofHermann Göring in 1956.
In his final years, he andMonsignorHugh O'Flaherty, "the Vatican Pimpernel", who had rescued thousands of Jews and escaped POWs from the Nazis, became great friends.[citation needed] Charles Henry Bewley died unmarried in Rome in 1969.
Mr. Bewley belongs to an old Quaker family, but is a convert to Catholicism
It was decided – between Joseph Walsh, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs and Sir John Maffey – that the best punishment for Bewley would be to demonstrate how unimportant he was by releasing him with a kick in the pants
Finding himself without identity papers, he applied to Dublin for a passport. Eventually he received one. In the "description" section, someone at Iveagh House had written: "A person of no importance".
