The Death of Lord Haw Haw

by Brett Rutledge

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

322 pages, Hardcover

First published May 4, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Pseudonym of Elliot Paul.

Reviews

[Coleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was NOT a paperback, but a First Edition hardback copy of the non-fiction book by Brett Rutledge published in 1940.

The author wrote this first person true account of how he was hired to find the man who was behind the radio personality, Lord Haw Haw. This was prior to 1940 because the book was published 80 years ago during the time prior to the United States entering WW2 but when it became obvious that countries were lining up to take sides in what was to become a brutal world battle.

Lord Haw Haw, as he called himself, spewed propaganda from the radio for relatively short periods of time, in English, but broadcast at least to Britain, France, Germany... While he poked mostly at English politicians, he would divert occasionally to others, including the Communists, so that it was difficult to determine who he supported and who not?

In any event, Rutledge's task was to find out who he was, find him, and shut him down.

The author did this using every method, every bit of manpower, and every resource he had available to him. Keeping in mind this was 1940, his methodology was quite interesting to me.
Now, I know searchers would just use voice recognition, tracking locations, etc.

But the entire time I was reading the book, I kept it in the front of my mind that this was 80 years ago and that the author could not possibly know what was going to happen AFTER the time the book was published.

So of course, with natural curiosity, I had to find out for myself what happened [and I am not referring only to WW2] but to all of the propagandists who flourished during that war after seeing how effective they were, including Tokyo Rose [not just one but a variety of women who were so referenced.] Lord Haw Haw was indeed an interesting personality and Brett Rutledge did a fantastic job.

[Davis Falk]

I read this book because it was mentioned in one of William Faulkner's letters.

[Cera · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting adventure/intrigue novel written as though it were a semi-documentary report about the discovery and exposure of "Lord Haw Haw," one of the voices of Nazi radio propaganda aimed at British audiences. I think what I found most fascinating about it was the wish-fulfillment aspect; written & published in 1940, a reader could peruse it while listening to Lord Haw Haw's broadcasts. Was Rutledge trying to stir up American interest in the war?