Hollywood legend Errol Flynn worked as Nazi spy, met Hitler, claims biography
By ANISaturday, July 11, 2009
LONDON - Australian born Hollywood star Errol Flynn worked as an undercover agent for the Germans and met Adolf Hitler shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Flynn, who was known for his anti-Semitic views, worked undercover for the Germans during the Spanish Civil War, according to a controversial biography.
Charles Higham alleges that Flynn was employed to gather information on German socialists who fought against General Franco, helping contribute to the death of hundreds of volunteers and their families, The Telegraph reports.
He also claims that in 1938 Flynn met Hitler, who was an admirer of his films, at his Bavarian retreat
Higham, whose claims are partly based on analysis of declassified CIA files but have been challenged by other historians, said that the commemorations were inappropriate given the actor’s political activities.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that Flynn had Nazi sympathies and worked as a Nazi operative if not an actual agent. 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,” the Daily Mail quoted Higham, as saying.
According to the biography, Flynn fell under the influence of a Hermann Erben, an Austrian doctor and Nazi party member, in the 1930s. They both travelled to Spain in 1937 where they fed information to the Gestapo, it is alleged.
The following year Flynn may even have attended a secret meeting with the Fuhrer at his Bavarian mountain retreat, according to Higham. (ANI)
|
April 1, 2010: 11:52 pm
Regarding Higham’s claims about Errol Flynn, you should read subsequent investigations into these rediculous claims which show that Errol was not a nazi, not anti-semitic, not gay, or any of the other outrageous claims made in the Higham book. Read Tony Thomas’s book Errol Flynn, the Spy Who Never Was, for example. In looking at the way Higham distored and deleted information from the FBI files he used for “proof” we see that his book on Flynn is proof only that some authors will write anything to make a buck, and since you cannot libel the dead - nobody has sued him! Flynn’s Spanish Civil War diary is something Higham did not get his hands on, yet it was found and contains information clearing him of Higham’s contentions, and illusions by giving facts, dates and times that contradict the imaginary meetings and claims in Higham’s book. It becomes clear that Erben(acting as Errol’s Photographer) was behaving mysteriously, and it bothered Flynn not to know where he was or what he was doing, at times. It would be nice if journalists stopped reprinting Higham’s claims without doing a little research, first. Flynn meeting Hitler? Are you kidding me? Today, Flynn is enjoying a well deserved comeback as the classic Hollywood star he was in DVD collections, documentaries, and special events in which he is honored both here in the USA and in his birthplace of Hobart, Tasmania. |
David