I recommend Robert Verkaik's book, 'The Traitor of Arnhem' if you want to read all the evidence to support the argument that Blunt was Agent Josephine - amzn.to/4fwh62F Another excellent read on the life of Anthony Blunt is 'His Lives' by Miranda Carter - amzn.to/40wVRK2 (affiliate links)
Verkaik’s case that Josephine was material to the defeat at Market Garden is poorly substantiated and his case that Blunt was Josephine is entirely circumstantial. His own promotional article for his book in April 2024 suggests a more plausible possibility Verkaik doesn’t even seem to realize: Blunt was not Josephine. “Josephine” was an identity mocked up by Soviet intelligence as a source for Karl Heinz Kraemer. The NKVD used the “Josephine” nameplate to pass to Germany “British intelligence” they wanted the Third Reich to believe. Much of that intelligence would have come from the Cambridge Five network, but the path would not have been from Blunt/Philby/etc. directly *to* Kraemer. The Five passed info to their Soviet handler; on occasions the Soviets wanted to get fake or real intel to Germany they would have “Josephine” do it. (This BTW is why spying for the USSR during the war was still Very Bad. Once the USSR had your info you had no control over what they did with it.) This is why “Josephine’s” pre-Normandy intelligence supported Garbo’s disinformation about Calais; it “confirmed” what it was in the Soviets’ interest that Germany believe. After hearing from the OSS and then Falk, Blunt would have confronted his NKVD handler. Said handler would have told him, “Hey, we were just trying to help!” Give us a patsy for “Josephine” so we can shut that channel down. Blunt hands them Cervell; Josephine goes quiet. Maybe the NKVD even proactively asks Blunt to find a patsy. If it looks like the Brits have taken down Josephine that further enhances the credibility of the Garbo/Josephine deception. The real Josephine could have been Yuri Modin, one of his assistants or someone back in Moscow, pretending to be a British traitor. Here’s the part the flies right by Verkaik. He writes that “Josephine” resurfaces, right before Market Garden, when it is *arguably* in the USSR’s interest to pass along true intelligence damaging to Britain, not disinformation: “The day after the Arnhem betrayal an emotional Blunt contacted his Russian handler to say that he was quitting. The Russians responded by love-bombing their agent and at the end of September 1944 Blunt met his handler, Boris Kreshin, in London.” It doesn’t make sense that Blunt spends a year as a witting, part-time Nazi agent and only after compromising the Market Garden plans makes an “emotional” resignation from the NKVD. What makes a lot more sense is if Blunt is surprised and horrified to discover the Soviets used his work product to get British troops killed when he’s been telling his conscience all along that “Ain’t nobody here but us Allies. Why, it’s hardly betrayal at all!” He’s pissed. He wants out. The Soviets can’t just disappear him; too many questions. Plus, it would risk souring things with the other Cambridge spies; plus agent-runners get attached. Meanwhile Blunt knows he dare not actually come clean to his British bosses. It’s a stalemate and the line of least resistance becomes the Soviet love-bombing and Blunt being mollified by it. The above stipulates for the sake of argument the Josephine intel about Market Garden either really did matter or that Blunt thought it did. It doesn’t make Blunt “innocent” or wronged - the US “felony murder” concept applies if nothing else: Blunt willingly entered a conspiracy; he’s morally accountable for the consequences (in the US he’d be legally accountable as well). But it fits the facts better than the claim Blunt himself somehow made contact with German intelligence - when? how? whom? - to first pass along disinformation and then actual damaging stuff.
The guy is a scumbag, but isn't it possible that he passed the information regarding Operation Market Garden to the Soviets, who due to - you know ,- being Soviets and being very good about this line of work somehow leaked it back to the Nazis? I mean: with all his academical and social standing - despite his personal life's giving a number of opportunities for blackmail - this is the part of the story where this does not add up.
@@VenmayloveI believe you. I believe that factually, that may have happened. I believe it because Otto von Bismarck is a vampire who's still alive with a pseudonym. He visited my group of high school friends disguised as a local police officer. He told them that a) he was a redneck (I'm black), and b) I could be a fashion model if my boobs were bigger. This pair of comments echoed a previous incident where he worked as an assistant camp counselor at my day care. He told me I must be more mature than the other little girls in day care. I was 7. A decade later he didn't stop at the lewd remarks. He acted up so badly that I thought he was impersonating a police officer. I called the cops on HIM.
for the British establishment to say he was a traitor it must be true, they stand behind their class no matter what, so the damage must have been severe
Thank you once again Philip for this repulsive yet fascinating view of history. My nephew graduated from Cambridge recently, can’t wait to pick his brain during the upcoming Holidays. Bravo again Philip for delicious view of our Past!
Well explained. No music , great. In the Crown it showed him living in a flat in the palace. How many lives must have been lost in WW2 because of him. He looks like many of the Royals with that long area in his face from the upper lip to the edge of his nose. What a horrible man.
The argument that Blunt spied for the Nazis is very weak. No one disputes that Blunt acted primarily out of ideological anti-fascist conviction, and the interests of the Nazis and the Soviet Union were diametrically opposed. Most historians are also in agreement that the Allied disaster at Arnhem was due to poor planning and bad luck, not betrayal.
The interests of the Nazis and the Communist Soviet Union were exactly the same. It says so right in their names. NAZI is an acronym for the National Socialist Workers' Party. Socialism differs very little from Communism. Which brings us to the most dumbfoundingly audacious spy you would never imagine: Rasputin, the Russian mystic who infiltrated the Imperial Romanov family. Rasputin had a Russian daughter named Maria who evacuated to America before...well...you know. Adolf Hitler's most important female employee was also an Eastern European named Maria. And like Rasputin's daughter she was also a professional dancer-turned-psychic. Which partially explains how Joe Blow from Kokomo was somehow appointed Chancellor of an important nation. His credentials were a lot more impressive than the general public is aware of. I call him "dumbfoundingly audacious" because he famously seduced every female in that family except for Anastasia. And he sexually assaulted a household servant who voiced concerns about him.
... It's also a little known fact that the REM song The One I Love is largely about Rasputin's daughter Maria. The lyrics go, "This one goes out to the one I love. This one goes out to the one I left behind...". It's about Maria, specifically. Rasputin abandoned her for the call of duty even before he faked his death. However Maria still described him as a "kind man" years later.
Hitler was actually a vampire with many, many other notable pseudonyms throughout history. For example he and the composer Mozart were both brazen ethnocentric Germanophiles. Mozart's wife called him Wolfie and Eva Braun nicknamed Hitler Wolf. I'm his great-great-great granddaughter. I'm an African-American female. He's a racist misogynist. He IS a kind man. However this kindness is diluted by the many generations which separate us biologically. I suspect him of this, that and the other which I've reported to various government agencies. Nevertheless I was the right person to reveal his identity to become I'm clingy, needy and fragile. I'm far too codependent on him to let some foreign government apprehend him for espionage without a fight. I just want to run damage control because he does terrible things.
The reason why I would never harm Hitler is because he provided me with some absolutely critical information. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is lauded as the heroic emancipator of the black race, especially in America. However the Civil Rights Movement was originally publicized by the US mass media. America's motion picture industry was founded by the KKK, so why this impartial reporting of racial events all of a sudden? I'll tell you why. For one, the wealth inequality between the races hasn't narrowed since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was instituted. It has instead widened exponentially. I know why because I have a B.A. in Economics, but I'll spare you the tedious details. It's called peonage. Additionally, King decreed that blacks' love for our oppressors should be primarily impersonal and "spiritual" in nature, as opposed to emotional or erotic. King thereby espoused the ownership of blacks' persons on a very intimate level, which contradicts his grandstanding declaration to achieve freedom. Personally, I'm instinctively mainly attracted to guys like my dad who is white. However I'm too phenotypically black to merit exemption from this policy. And since I was raised by a single black mother, I'm also too poor. Hitler taught me in no uncertain terms that I could not hope to resolve racial discord in a civilized manner. I instead need to treat the American public like animals.
@@evelynzlon9492 Your grasp of WWII history & basic economics is laughably terrible. There’s plenty of channels here on TH-cam that debunk all those lies about the 3rd Reich being socialists. They were as capitalistic as could be. They literally gave their nationalised industries to rich capitalists who ran everything 😂
And there we have it 9:31 "provided one had gone to the 'right' school, had good family connections, and generally considered a 'good egg', you were in". Class obsessed Britain and there is very little difference now.
He was speared a criminal process due to his delicate relationship to the royal house because he knew lots of things which were rather comromizing. This is pretty certain.
If Blunt was tasked by the King in August 1945, as asserted above at 22:15, the mission could not have been signed off by Winston Churchill. He had ceased to be prime minister in July having lost the general election to Clement Attlee and the Labour Party.
They should have sent the son of privilege to live in the soviet union.that would have been a good punishment in itself. Interesting that he chose not to go there.
Very realistic. After being outed as a traitor he just gets to live his life. Same as in the States; if you’re rich or powerful you have every right to take sensitive info and then scatter it like it’s trash.
An alternative explanation is that the Soviets were double-crossing the other Allies the whole time, leaking to the Nazis as they saw fit, including intelligence supplied by Blunt himself. Blunt fits the typical profile of a double agent, a malcontent narcissist with a delusional belief in his own genius. Any evidence of his profound errors of judgement would have been too much for his ego to bear (which explains his initial denial, and then his flustered state when confronted with the reality). On top of that, Blunt would know that any investigation by the British would eventually lead back to his door, no matter what.
How Anthony Blunt's treachery was handled is a prime example of how important Class Status is in Great Britain. No matter hw scandalous or treacherous the behavior, if you went to the right school and had the right connections, the British Upper Class will rally around one of their own. Think of all the treachery that was successfully covered up.
Thanks for this program. Question: Did George Blake gripe that the “West” was doing better than Commie Russia & how could this happen? If these guys were so smart, how could they not see the weakness of Communism also? I’d like to see a documentary on this divide as the upper class saw it vs what really happned.
+Thank you. I'm become innured to watching sensationalist rubbish on You Tube and found this genuinly refreshing. I always underestimated him because he was the last to be publicly exposed but this has given me a totally fresh perspective. Amazing how the 5 could do what they did because they had the "right" background and contacts.
No matter what happened in Market Garden, the Soviets would have grabbed what they saw as their share of Europe. And there was no race to Berlin. Eisenhower didn't want to take it, which is why he sent Patton tpwards Prague.
didn’t know about this guy until i watched ‘a spy among friends’ last week…a mostly non-fiction dramatization of the kim philby defection…very la carré
Quite interesting. I remember the film Scandal which I think touched a little on these characters or something similar. It’s been 2 decades since I’ve seen it.
Very interesting video, on the life of the man. One thing is that I personally don't think the Germans knew of Market Garden, the head of the German Army in Arnhem Friedrich Kussin was captured by the British forces and he was Scalped to death..... yeah, that's one way to do it... but the fact that he was captured shows the Germans did not prepare I don't think. The Germans failed to blow up multiple bridge in advance, if they knew of the plan they would have had no reason not to blow them up?
@@jojoanggono3229Perhaps his homosexuality played a role? Homosexuality was punished/discriminated against in the USSR as well but that reality might not have dawned on the young Blunt. Perhaps learning this could have contributed to his disillusionment?
@charlesiragui2473 I believe very much so. There is a common theme in this, which is rebellious attitude. So it was sexual rebellion against religious value which his father symbolizes, and rebellion against ideology norm in Britain at that time.
Somebody mentioned Blunt in comments but it reminded me of this from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"the book). Exerpt by John himself. RIP John Le'Carre. "How do I remember the book now, sixteen years on? Partly, I suppose, for the luck that followed it-the exposure of Blunt, the TV series, Alec Guinness triumphant as George Smiley, not to mention the marvellous...."
I have to assume that (1) the Soviets would have kept tight control on Blunt to make sure he did not also work directly with Germany, and (2) if the Soviets wanted Market Garden to fail (and that's a big 'if') they would have had someone else pass the info to Berlin, as Blunt was too valuable to risk unnecessarily on that errand.
A sad day for a huge mistake. Secret services should focus more on capability than aristocracy . Then Blunt was capable, but arrogant and assumptions..so was Mi5+6..
The failure of market/garden falls solely on Monte. The soviets were given Berlin by agreement of allied leaders. Eisenhower stopped allied advance short of Berlin.
Honestly as a gay man, i can genuinely understand someone being so radicalized against a country who opposes your ability to love so cruelly and hatefully. People still sorta misunderstand homosexuality as an exclusively sexual thing... But poets and writers have waxed long about how love is what makes life worth living. And sex is just an expression of love and attraction. - theres a reason they call it "making love". And if you live in a society that will jail you for trying to find love, its very painful. Bad things happen to the psyche. We still see it in churches these days. Im not saying what he did is right. It is obviously very wrong, traitorous, selfish and messed up. Im just emphasizing how cruel and destructive condemning peoples ability to love is. We all know the trope of closeted men sometimes being the most vindictive homophobes. What should be understood is that it also applies to religious zealots, terrorists and all kinds of nasty people. If you take away someones right to love, hate festers.
I think you’re making the key point. I have made a comment asking if the 5 were a gay club. I’m not trying to be homophobic. I’m trying to emphasise that if you make people feel like outsiders then they are more inclined to be traitorous. During lockdown my livelihood and savings were taken from me. Since then I don’t feel fully part of our society.
@bramwell9544 it's true. I know if I lived in the society gay men did for 1500 years, I would be radicalized against it. Love is such a foundational part of life... To make someone feel like an outsider because of it - now that's the real sin. Why were your livelihood taken from you during lockdown? Because of the lockdowns? I mean, I get that that would be super depressing and hard to deal with... But fortunately, unlike being gay, you can move on from that - you just need to deal with the grief. As much as losing lockdowns sucked for many, many people - they may have saved your life. Hell, it may have saved you crippling medical debt if you lived in the US. Ventilation is not cheap. The US had a significantly higher (I think like 60% compared to Canada) mortality rate from COVID, despite being the biggest economy, with the most capital to address it. But lockdowns were avoided, and vaccines were downplayed, specifically so "the poors" would keep working (because Trump was the admin, and he's a classic "work my employees to death" type).. and people DID die. Many more than needed to. So... If it helps you reconcile that grief over your lost livelihood and savings, try to acknowledge that lockdowns protected your life. That lockdowns were government ("the people") efforts to protect people from the wealthy, who WOULD keep employees working, even as they exposed themselves to a pandemic. Sort of like a union, bargaining for safe working conditions. Which again, reflects on how America dealt with pandemic, with trump at the helm, and a wake of bodies at his stern. There was no "painless" way through the pandemic.... The choices were a temporary economic pain, or a permanent loss of life. Hope you find your way back to livelihood and savings, thanks for sharing
Nae . Margaret Thatcher was outraged by what she rightly perceived as establishment collusion . Remember she came from outside the establishment and had to fight her way into a career against such . Unfortunately if the facts are true our Queen was hypocritical in removing his honours and position as it appears she was informed of his traitorous actions years before .
As usual, ‘ One Law for THEM and another for US’. Can’t see it changing as the same Titled entitled class still owns most of the U.K. since they arrived in 1066.
How could Michael Straight have applied for a job in the Kennedy Administration in 1964? Kennedy was assassinated in Nov 1963. Did the vetting take so long that it spanned in the Johnson period?
Well, during the war all British battle plans in North Africa were passed to the Germans by an Italian American working for the US government! How many lives did this cost?
Really? What about the long list of American traitors? - Aldrich Ames, David Henry Barnett, David Boone, Christopher Boyce, Thomas Cavanagh, Lona Cohen, Morris Cohn, Judith Coplon, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, James Hall III, Robert Hansenn, Mildred Harnack, Arvid Jacobson, Robert Lee Johnson, William Kampiles, Andrew Dalton Lee, Robert Lipka, Clayton Lonetree, Richard Miller, Ronald Pelton, Michael Peri, Earl Pitts, Roy Rhodes, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (both executed in the electric chair), Morton and Myra Soble, Robert Soblen, Robert Thomson, George Troyimoff, Jerry Whitworth, John Walker Jr., Michael Walker. What an even bigger clown show...
It used to be in Hampshire. It was in Hampshire at the time of his birth. A local government reorganisation of county boundaries saw Bournemouth being moved from Hampshire to Dorset in 1974. In 1997, Bournemouth became a unitary authority.
Hi @johanita9521 My book (The Traitor of Arnehm) also tells the story of Christiaan Lindemans aka agent King Kong who was also working for Stalin and betrayed Market Garden. My Dutch relative helped to catch up after the start of the battle in Eindhoven. There is no evidence that Blunt and Lindemans ever met but their evil treachery cost countless American, British and Dutch lives. Best, Robert.
No it did not. When a major ally’s spymaster was asked, after the likes of Phil y and Blunt were caught “what is the point of sharing intelligence with the Uk” he said “the difference between us and UK is they actually catch their spies and we do not”.
I am always stunned to see how the British broke every law and talk about it as if these laws didn't apply to them or when they say it was to shorten the war!!! IT IS STILL A CRIME, lucky they were on the winning side, for as Churchill said: "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it myself." Why an I slightly skeptical?
Yeah, it's a lot like saying having a cake isn't illegal, but putting flour sugar and eggs in a bowl, mixing them then baking it is illegal. But I like the accuracy.
@phineascampbell3103 Yep, if you're going to opine on law, accuracy is kind of important because many a person has escaped the Kings grasp on hair splitting technicalities. And large corporations avoid the burden of being good citizens by spending millions on lawyers and accountants to create technicalities that were invisible nanoseconds before creation.
Extremely provocative this new hypothesis is. Helping allies is one thing, helping nazis is something quite different. Let’s not rush with judgements, and wait for proper evidences
I suspect that the schooling was irrelevant as to have a political view is because of a "something or someone" ..OK that may have been a school teacher or Lecturer, as in those days they held a more prestigious and respected stance than unfortunately for many, they do now. My suspicion is more towards the sexuality and power connected, that having a control of the threat to "out" someone because of a secret maybe very powerful and might have enjoyed the situation. I have no idea, but suspect that the Soviets, who were themselves well versed in the power game, may have in turn had a control over some of the originators of the Cambridge set. This at a time when the politics was so polarized, as there were distinct Left and right groups and there seemed to be a certain desire to be in one or the other gang. (I say this based on conversations with my father who had distinct left leanings from an early age and died being the very type of person he hated as a youth...he had luxuries like an inside toilet, servants..i.e. someone who came and cleaned or gardened) my gut feeling is that there are more of these types as they were becoming obvious, they were then placed in the position to quell the story, as others did as well, so who allowed them to do so? or were the military men who found the information blinkered or stupid...or co operating? WW2 created some very odd bed fellows, but the question for me is, what if being a homosexual had not been illegal? I knew men who were homosexuals during this period and they always gave the impression that they were about to be captured and hid behind shells of respectability "beards" (Beard being a lady who accompanied them thus appearing to be a couple +1 thus hiding their true face...often brilliant for a Lady who loved male company but without the associated issues) and without this control, and hopefully like today where your sexuality is now seen by many as irrelevant to how you are with the person, which is brilliant, but now this threat would not work.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
I recommend Robert Verkaik's book, 'The Traitor of Arnhem' if you want to read all the evidence to support the argument that Blunt was Agent Josephine - amzn.to/4fwh62F
Another excellent read on the life of Anthony Blunt is 'His Lives' by Miranda Carter - amzn.to/40wVRK2
(affiliate links)
Verkaik’s case that Josephine was material to the defeat at Market Garden is poorly substantiated and his case that Blunt was Josephine is entirely circumstantial. His own promotional article for his book in April 2024 suggests a more plausible possibility Verkaik doesn’t even seem to realize: Blunt was not Josephine. “Josephine” was an identity mocked up by Soviet intelligence as a source for Karl Heinz Kraemer. The NKVD used the “Josephine” nameplate to pass to Germany “British intelligence” they wanted the Third Reich to believe. Much of that intelligence would have come from the Cambridge Five network, but the path would not have been from Blunt/Philby/etc. directly *to* Kraemer. The Five passed info to their Soviet handler; on occasions the Soviets wanted to get fake or real intel to Germany they would have “Josephine” do it. (This BTW is why spying for the USSR during the war was still Very Bad. Once the USSR had your info you had no control over what they did with it.)
This is why “Josephine’s” pre-Normandy intelligence supported Garbo’s disinformation about Calais; it “confirmed” what it was in the Soviets’ interest that Germany believe. After hearing from the OSS and then Falk, Blunt would have confronted his NKVD handler. Said handler would have told him, “Hey, we were just trying to help!” Give us a patsy for “Josephine” so we can shut that channel down. Blunt hands them Cervell; Josephine goes quiet. Maybe the NKVD even proactively asks Blunt to find a patsy. If it looks like the Brits have taken down Josephine that further enhances the credibility of the Garbo/Josephine deception. The real Josephine could have been Yuri Modin, one of his assistants or someone back in Moscow, pretending to be a British traitor.
Here’s the part the flies right by Verkaik. He writes that “Josephine” resurfaces, right before Market Garden, when it is *arguably* in the USSR’s interest to pass along true intelligence damaging to Britain, not disinformation: “The day after the Arnhem betrayal an emotional Blunt contacted his Russian handler to say that he was quitting. The Russians responded by love-bombing their agent and at the end of September 1944 Blunt met his handler, Boris Kreshin, in London.”
It doesn’t make sense that Blunt spends a year as a witting, part-time Nazi agent and only after compromising the Market Garden plans makes an “emotional” resignation from the NKVD. What makes a lot more sense is if Blunt is surprised and horrified to discover the Soviets used his work product to get British troops killed when he’s been telling his conscience all along that “Ain’t nobody here but us Allies. Why, it’s hardly betrayal at all!” He’s pissed. He wants out. The Soviets can’t just disappear him; too many questions. Plus, it would risk souring things with the other Cambridge spies; plus agent-runners get attached. Meanwhile Blunt knows he dare not actually come clean to his British bosses. It’s a stalemate and the line of least resistance becomes the Soviet love-bombing and Blunt being mollified by it.
The above stipulates for the sake of argument the Josephine intel about Market Garden either really did matter or that Blunt thought it did. It doesn’t make Blunt “innocent” or wronged - the US “felony murder” concept applies if nothing else: Blunt willingly entered a conspiracy; he’s morally accountable for the consequences (in the US he’d be legally accountable as well). But it fits the facts better than the claim Blunt himself somehow made contact with German intelligence - when? how? whom? - to first pass along disinformation and then actual damaging stuff.
It's just sick that people are making money from books about creeps like Blunt....
The guy is a scumbag, but isn't it possible that he passed the information regarding Operation Market Garden to the Soviets, who due to - you know ,- being Soviets and being very good about this line of work somehow leaked it back to the Nazis? I mean: with all his academical and social standing - despite his personal life's giving a number of opportunities for blackmail - this is the part of the story where this does not add up.
@@peedee-zo1yqwhy? Shouldn’t they be compensated for their work?
Why would it benefit the Soviets for Arnhem to fail?
I’ve always thought that he got away with so much more than the British government is letting on. I’m going to have some tea 🍵 and enjoy
Way too embarrassing for our corrupt, decadent, ruling elites. Keeper of the Queen's Pictures indeed!
That's true. He kicked my cat and set my car on fire in 1959
@@VenmayloveI believe you. I believe that factually, that may have happened. I believe it because Otto von Bismarck is a vampire who's still alive with a pseudonym. He visited my group of high school friends disguised as a local police officer. He told them that a) he was a redneck (I'm black), and b) I could be a fashion model if my boobs were bigger. This pair of comments echoed a previous incident where he worked as an assistant camp counselor at my day care. He told me I must be more mature than the other little girls in day care. I was 7. A decade later he didn't stop at the lewd remarks. He acted up so badly that I thought he was impersonating a police officer. I called the cops on HIM.
He was a back door receiver .
for the British establishment to say he was a traitor it must be true, they stand behind their class no matter what, so the damage must have been severe
And for him to be executed, their own sons and daughters had to be sold out in front of their own eyes.
Thank you once again Philip for this repulsive yet fascinating view of history. My nephew graduated from Cambridge recently, can’t wait to pick his brain during the upcoming Holidays.
Bravo again Philip for delicious view of our Past!
PT A New video! Perfect!! Awesome as usual! Cannot wait for the next one!
Well explained. No music , great. In the Crown it showed him living in a flat in the palace. How many lives must have been lost in WW2 because of him. He looks like many of the Royals with that long area in his face from the upper lip to the edge of his nose. What a horrible man.
How many lives were lost in Soviet union to defeat nazi Germany and save Europe?
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this excellent video- so I subscribed!
@@imlistening1137 thank you! Hope to see you in the next one.
other masterpiece and masterclass! keep it up Phill!
Knew about the Cambridge Five thingy in detail, but this new data seems fascinating!!
Will definitely read Verkaik's book!
Excellant as always, so much BETTER than watching NETFLIX!! Had me totally GRIPPED to the END!
The argument that Blunt spied for the Nazis is very weak. No one disputes that Blunt acted primarily out of ideological anti-fascist conviction, and the interests of the Nazis and the Soviet Union were diametrically opposed. Most historians are also in agreement that the Allied disaster at Arnhem was due to poor planning and bad luck, not betrayal.
The interests of the Nazis and the Communist Soviet Union were exactly the same. It says so right in their names. NAZI is an acronym for the National Socialist Workers' Party. Socialism differs very little from Communism. Which brings us to the most dumbfoundingly audacious spy you would never imagine: Rasputin, the Russian mystic who infiltrated the Imperial Romanov family. Rasputin had a Russian daughter named Maria who evacuated to America before...well...you know. Adolf Hitler's most important female employee was also an Eastern European named Maria. And like Rasputin's daughter she was also a professional dancer-turned-psychic. Which partially explains how Joe Blow from Kokomo was somehow appointed Chancellor of an important nation. His credentials were a lot more impressive than the general public is aware of. I call him "dumbfoundingly audacious" because he famously seduced every female in that family except for Anastasia. And he sexually assaulted a household servant who voiced concerns about him.
... It's also a little known fact that the REM song The One I Love is largely about Rasputin's daughter Maria. The lyrics go, "This one goes out to the one I love. This one goes out to the one I left behind...". It's about Maria, specifically. Rasputin abandoned her for the call of duty even before he faked his death. However Maria still described him as a "kind man" years later.
Hitler was actually a vampire with many, many other notable pseudonyms throughout history. For example he and the composer Mozart were both brazen ethnocentric Germanophiles. Mozart's wife called him Wolfie and Eva Braun nicknamed Hitler Wolf. I'm his great-great-great granddaughter. I'm an African-American female. He's a racist misogynist. He IS a kind man. However this kindness is diluted by the many generations which separate us biologically. I suspect him of this, that and the other which I've reported to various government agencies. Nevertheless I was the right person to reveal his identity to become I'm clingy, needy and fragile. I'm far too codependent on him to let some foreign government apprehend him for espionage without a fight. I just want to run damage control because he does terrible things.
The reason why I would never harm Hitler is because he provided me with some absolutely critical information. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is lauded as the heroic emancipator of the black race, especially in America. However the Civil Rights Movement was originally publicized by the US mass media. America's motion picture industry was founded by the KKK, so why this impartial reporting of racial events all of a sudden? I'll tell you why. For one, the wealth inequality between the races hasn't narrowed since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was instituted. It has instead widened exponentially. I know why because I have a B.A. in Economics, but I'll spare you the tedious details. It's called peonage.
Additionally, King decreed that blacks' love for our oppressors should be primarily impersonal and "spiritual" in nature, as opposed to emotional or erotic. King thereby espoused the ownership of blacks' persons on a very intimate level, which contradicts his grandstanding declaration to achieve freedom. Personally, I'm instinctively mainly attracted to guys like my dad who is white. However I'm too phenotypically black to merit exemption from this policy. And since I was raised by a single black mother, I'm also too poor. Hitler taught me in no uncertain terms that I could not hope to resolve racial discord in a civilized manner. I instead need to treat the American public like animals.
@@evelynzlon9492
Your grasp of WWII history & basic economics is laughably terrible. There’s plenty of channels here on TH-cam that debunk all those lies about the 3rd Reich being socialists. They were as capitalistic as could be. They literally gave their nationalised industries to rich capitalists who ran everything 😂
And there we have it 9:31 "provided one had gone to the 'right' school, had good family connections, and generally considered a 'good egg', you were in". Class obsessed Britain and there is very little difference now.
....not to mention 'sexual orientation'.....
same as in USA, except class is defined as incompetence. The more useless you are, the more important they make you appear and the higher you rise.
@@craigd1275 Guess in the US it's often about glamour and public image...not what's between the ears....
@@craigd1275 Given the recent election result you are undoubtedly correct on that!!
Indeed. His statement that 'he remained true to his conscience' might well have been one of Tony Blairs
Love it bud. He’s often overlooked due to Philby etc. looking forward to this.
I've always wondered how much of Philby's treason was daddy issues and how much was political conviction.
must be a theme, i just made some tea and then see a PT video just dropped. perfect.
Excellent and concise .
How many of his fellow countrymen needlessly died due to him?
I doubt that the 'needlessly dead' , their families and thousands of others, could ever see Blunt as a 'fellow countryman'....
Thank you, this was a really interesting watch.
Interesting, and very well done.
He was speared a criminal process due to his delicate relationship to the royal house because he knew lots of things which were rather comromizing. This is pretty certain.
1000s met a brutal end while he drank tea eating scones ,also getting paid very nicely
Great video as always! Will you be doing an episode on Guy Burgess? I would love to see your analysis.
DO ONE ON ALL OF THEM FIVE TIMES, OR WAS THETE MORE LET'S FIND OUT 🤔. 😮😊
Dude, that was a brilliant summary, well done.
20:06 suppositions and guesswork I believe..
@@DaveSCameron A second front was in Soviet interests...
@PhilMcCrackin-f3n I certainly agree but without evidence Anthony Blunt will remain rhyming slang 😂🤗☘️😉
If Blunt was tasked by the King in August 1945, as asserted above at 22:15, the mission could not have been signed off by Winston Churchill. He had ceased to be prime minister in July having lost the general election to Clement Attlee and the Labour Party.
I have read that some of the correspondence he recovered was that by Queen Mary.
It might have been sanctioned before Churchill left office.
They should have sent the son of privilege to live in the soviet union.that would have been a good punishment in itself. Interesting that he chose not to go there.
He may well have had begging letters from Burgess to get him back to the UK ,which of course was impossible.
Very realistic. After being outed as a traitor he just gets to live his life. Same as in the States; if you’re rich or powerful you have every right to take sensitive info and then scatter it like it’s trash.
I enjoy your work. You have taught me much!
Fantastic video - well enjoyed from New Zealand!
He got away with it
Anthony Blunt is now rhyming slang here in 🇬🇧. 😂
Perfidious Albion
Hardly, more like perfidious USSR!
I hope that is a book title🎉
Excellent documentary you will never see a program like this on the bbc
Awesome video as usual my South African brother... I'm Scottish-American, I live in South Alabama.
This has been up for 8 hours and I still haven't been notified, glad it showed up in my algorithm.
Blunt, the name is quite revealing.
Of what? Did he mayhaps enjoy toking on a blunt now and then?
An alternative explanation is that the Soviets were double-crossing the other Allies the whole time, leaking to the Nazis as they saw fit, including intelligence supplied by Blunt himself. Blunt fits the typical profile of a double agent, a malcontent narcissist with a delusional belief in his own genius. Any evidence of his profound errors of judgement would have been too much for his ego to bear (which explains his initial denial, and then his flustered state when confronted with the reality). On top of that, Blunt would know that any investigation by the British would eventually lead back to his door, no matter what.
How Anthony Blunt's treachery was handled is a prime example of how important Class Status is in Great Britain. No matter hw scandalous or treacherous the behavior, if you went to the right school and had the right connections, the British Upper Class will rally around one of their own. Think of all the treachery that was successfully covered up.
Nothings changed then .
Thanks for this program. Question: Did George Blake gripe that the “West” was doing better than Commie Russia & how could this happen? If these guys were so smart, how could they not see the weakness of Communism also? I’d like to see a documentary on this divide as the upper class saw it vs what really happned.
Such mess such fakeness. Makes me wanna roar. Thanks PT, always great.
6:15 - Finally, someone finally pointing out the true irony...His name was Straight but he was probably gay!
+Thank you. I'm become innured to watching sensationalist rubbish on You Tube and found this genuinly refreshing. I always underestimated him because he was the last to be publicly exposed but this has given me a totally fresh perspective. Amazing how the 5 could do what they did because they had the "right" background and contacts.
Anyone else see the family resemblance with Blunt and Mountbatten?
No matter what happened in Market Garden, the Soviets would have grabbed what they saw as their share of Europe. And there was no race to Berlin. Eisenhower didn't want to take it, which is why he sent Patton tpwards Prague.
Thanks!
@@BobSpector-up7lw thanks so much Bob!
The upper echelons of SIS have always been inhabited by the well connected upper classes.
the more they are given the more treacherous they are.
Great documantry. Can you make a documentry of Prins Bernard of the Netherlands. He has a shady past and living too.
didn’t know about this guy until i watched ‘a spy among friends’ last week…a mostly non-fiction dramatization of the kim philby defection…very la carré
Yes I’ve read that, very well researched and written
Anthony Blunt is he a quare?
Looks like a quare and sounds like quare. What do you say, Bunny?
Bunny says “ definitely…. quare “
You bet your ass he was!
Quite interesting. I remember the film Scandal which I think touched a little on these characters or something similar. It’s been 2 decades since I’ve seen it.
Its WHO you know...not as much WHAT...but if you have some of both, and you hate your own country/culture/religon/whatever ... you can have this guy.
We’ve got tenfold out them now .
“What evil people there are in the world, how they promise, and how they deceive”-Solzhenitsyn.
That applies equally to Politicians as well as secret intelligence officers.
And Solzhenitsyn of course knew the best!
A deceptive ,
Cheap and opportunistic AH like him is difficult to find
@@01claudia1 Both being Jewish.
@@peter.marshall
Being Jewish has nothing to do with anything.
@raymondfrye5017 Unfortunately, you are wrong.
The establishment let of the hook !
Very interesting video, on the life of the man. One thing is that I personally don't think the Germans knew of Market Garden, the head of the German Army in Arnhem Friedrich Kussin was captured by the British forces and he was Scalped to death..... yeah, that's one way to do it... but the fact that he was captured shows the Germans did not prepare I don't think. The Germans failed to blow up multiple bridge in advance, if they knew of the plan they would have had no reason not to blow them up?
It's improbable that Blunt, ideologically committed to Marxism as the Cambridge Five were, would spy for both the Communists and the Nazis.
Blunt's father was a vicar. Perhaps the rebellion that led him to support the USSR was not only against his class but also against Christianity?
Very probably, might have been something between him and his father during early years, or his upbringing.
@@jojoanggono3229Perhaps his homosexuality played a role? Homosexuality was punished/discriminated against in the USSR as well but that reality might not have dawned on the young Blunt. Perhaps learning this could have contributed to his disillusionment?
@charlesiragui2473 I believe very much so. There is a common theme in this, which is rebellious attitude. So it was sexual rebellion against religious value which his father symbolizes, and rebellion against ideology norm in Britain at that time.
Utterly despicable and no one can accurately assess the loss of life he caused.
Somebody mentioned Blunt in comments but it reminded me of this from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"the book). Exerpt by John himself. RIP John Le'Carre.
"How do I remember the book now, sixteen years on? Partly, I suppose, for the luck that followed it-the exposure of Blunt, the TV series, Alec Guinness triumphant as George Smiley, not to mention the marvellous...."
I have to assume that (1) the Soviets would have kept tight control on Blunt to make sure he did not also work directly with Germany, and (2) if the Soviets wanted Market Garden to fail (and that's a big 'if') they would have had someone else pass the info to Berlin, as Blunt was too valuable to risk unnecessarily on that errand.
spycatcher book by by Dutch intelligence agent Oreste Pinto makes a good case the germans were informed prior
19:14 “raising suspicions” - more weasel words. Raising suspicions among whom?
Peter Wright M15 was onto this sob...read Spycathcer...🧨
How the heck can a well known secret service be so blind ? MI 6?
Blunt was Mi5. Philby & Burgess were Mi6. Donald Maclean was Foreign Office.
A sad day for a huge mistake. Secret services should focus more on capability than aristocracy . Then Blunt was capable, but arrogant and assumptions..so was Mi5+6..
It should have been published by Ampersand Books.
Nicholas Elliot RIP.
Hm I see that was a lucky guess😂
The failure of market/garden falls solely on Monte.
The soviets were given Berlin by agreement of allied leaders. Eisenhower stopped allied advance short of Berlin.
The academics would probably celebrate him now.
He was evil pure evil
Honestly as a gay man, i can genuinely understand someone being so radicalized against a country who opposes your ability to love so cruelly and hatefully. People still sorta misunderstand homosexuality as an exclusively sexual thing... But poets and writers have waxed long about how love is what makes life worth living. And sex is just an expression of love and attraction. - theres a reason they call it "making love". And if you live in a society that will jail you for trying to find love, its very painful. Bad things happen to the psyche. We still see it in churches these days.
Im not saying what he did is right. It is obviously very wrong, traitorous, selfish and messed up. Im just emphasizing how cruel and destructive condemning peoples ability to love is. We all know the trope of closeted men sometimes being the most vindictive homophobes. What should be understood is that it also applies to religious zealots, terrorists and all kinds of nasty people. If you take away someones right to love, hate festers.
I think you’re making the key point. I have made a comment asking if the 5 were a gay club. I’m not trying to be homophobic. I’m trying to emphasise that if you make people feel like outsiders then they are more inclined to be traitorous. During lockdown my livelihood and savings were taken from me. Since then I don’t feel fully part of our society.
@bramwell9544 it's true. I know if I lived in the society gay men did for 1500 years, I would be radicalized against it. Love is such a foundational part of life... To make someone feel like an outsider because of it - now that's the real sin. Why were your livelihood taken from you during lockdown? Because of the lockdowns? I mean, I get that that would be super depressing and hard to deal with... But fortunately, unlike being gay, you can move on from that - you just need to deal with the grief. As much as losing lockdowns sucked for many, many people - they may have saved your life. Hell, it may have saved you crippling medical debt if you lived in the US. Ventilation is not cheap. The US had a significantly higher (I think like 60% compared to Canada) mortality rate from COVID, despite being the biggest economy, with the most capital to address it. But lockdowns were avoided, and vaccines were downplayed, specifically so "the poors" would keep working (because Trump was the admin, and he's a classic "work my employees to death" type).. and people DID die. Many more than needed to.
So... If it helps you reconcile that grief over your lost livelihood and savings, try to acknowledge that lockdowns protected your life. That lockdowns were government ("the people") efforts to protect people from the wealthy, who WOULD keep employees working, even as they exposed themselves to a pandemic. Sort of like a union, bargaining for safe working conditions. Which again, reflects on how America dealt with pandemic, with trump at the helm, and a wake of bodies at his stern. There was no "painless" way through the pandemic.... The choices were a temporary economic pain, or a permanent loss of life.
Hope you find your way back to livelihood and savings, thanks for sharing
Bournemouth is in Dorset not Hampshire.
EDIT: you are correct Bournemouth was in Hampshire up until the 70s and is not part of Dorset.
Thatcher was such a blatant hypocrite.
Finally I have a face and back story to the name Anthony Blunt, thank you so much!
Nae . Margaret Thatcher was outraged by what she rightly perceived as establishment collusion . Remember she came from outside the establishment and had to fight her way into a career against such .
Unfortunately if the facts are true our Queen was hypocritical in removing his honours and position as it appears she was informed of his traitorous actions years before .
WHAT'S WITH THE MOONLIGHT SONATA??!
As usual, ‘ One Law for THEM and another for US’. Can’t see it changing as the same Titled entitled class still owns most of the U.K. since they arrived in 1066.
How could Michael Straight have applied for a job in the Kennedy Administration in 1964? Kennedy was assassinated in Nov 1963. Did the vetting take so long that it spanned in the Johnson period?
Great audacious Soviet spy
What a Clown Show the Brits had for Intelligence.
Well, during the war all British battle plans in North Africa were passed to the Germans by an Italian American working for the US government! How many lives did this cost?
Really? What about the long list of American traitors? - Aldrich Ames, David Henry Barnett, David Boone, Christopher Boyce, Thomas Cavanagh, Lona Cohen, Morris Cohn, Judith Coplon, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, James Hall III, Robert Hansenn, Mildred Harnack, Arvid Jacobson, Robert Lee Johnson, William Kampiles, Andrew Dalton Lee, Robert Lipka, Clayton Lonetree, Richard Miller, Ronald Pelton, Michael Peri, Earl Pitts, Roy Rhodes, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (both executed in the electric chair), Morton and Myra Soble, Robert Soblen, Robert Thomson, George Troyimoff, Jerry Whitworth, John Walker Jr., Michael Walker. What an even bigger clown show...
British Intelligence has not earned its reputation.
@@penelopeprill211 Neither has American Intelligence. I'll let you have a list of 35 Americans who betrayed their country and their allies.
@@nickjung7394I thought it was the US embassy using a non secure line
But he informed USSR of the impending Nazi attack at Kursk which was pivotal in its failure and subsequent Russian advances.
"He should have been thrown into prison". Why was he not???
Once apon a time, a spy wife was love another man after that........😂
Bournemouth is in Dorset, not Hampshire!
It used to be in Hampshire. It was in Hampshire at the time of his birth. A local government reorganisation of county boundaries saw Bournemouth being moved from Hampshire to Dorset in 1974. In 1997, Bournemouth became a unitary authority.
Weird I have a book printed in the 1940’s with Bournemouth in Dorset
I never heard of Josephine. I did hear of agent King kong. So, what about that?
Hi @johanita9521 My book (The Traitor of Arnehm) also tells the story of Christiaan Lindemans aka agent King Kong who was also working for Stalin and betrayed Market Garden. My Dutch relative helped to catch up after the start of the battle in Eindhoven. There is no evidence that Blunt and Lindemans ever met but their evil treachery cost countless American, British and Dutch lives. Best, Robert.
It was not illegal to be a homosexual. Certain homosexual behaviour was illegal - as was some heterosexual behaviour.
The Cambridge 5. What a complete shit show. Nearly destroyed the cred of the UK with other Allies in the Intel community.
No it did not. When a major ally’s spymaster was asked, after the likes of Phil y and Blunt were caught “what is the point of sharing intelligence with the Uk” he said “the difference between us and UK is they actually catch their spies and we do not”.
"Nearly"
@@AndrewMacFarlane-d2n
So, it appears Senator Joseph McCarthy was right about the betrayal of intelligence by the Army of the US and GB.
Should have been jailed for life. Traitor. He tipped of Philby.
hyper -- bolic? we say that a bit different in the states
@@appaho9tel it's a genuine word! Relating to hyperbole of course. 👍
Was he related to the royals. He looks like them
I am always stunned to see how the British broke every law and talk about it as if these laws didn't apply to them or when they say it was to shorten the war!!! IT IS STILL A CRIME, lucky they were on the winning side, for as Churchill said: "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it myself." Why an I slightly skeptical?
Thatcher's public outing of Blunt is the only thing I give her credit for.
that's because she was of a middle class background, if she was from the upper class all that we'd have seen is a lump under the carpet
And The Falklands. And sending the SAS into the Iranian Embassy. Everything else about her, I cannot stand.
And her war on cfc’s
Well, she did have a wonderful hairdo, an example to all.
Thatcher was the best PM since the end of the war, so it's irrelevant that nobodies can't stand her.
So, a closet warmongerer then. Horrible man.
Tinker Taylor spy where was the control.
Control shouldn't have gone on holiday at this juncture.
The Germans presumably had no interest in Scotland, Wales and N Ireland?
Have attitudes and habits changed or just the law?
A traitor nonetheless . And escaped the noose .
It may be a distinction without a difference, but being a homosexual has never been a crime. Certain homosexual acts were crimes.
Yeah, it's a lot like saying having a cake isn't illegal, but putting flour sugar and eggs in a bowl, mixing them then baking it is illegal.
But I like the accuracy.
@phineascampbell3103 Yep, if you're going to opine on law, accuracy is kind of important because many a person has escaped the Kings grasp on hair splitting technicalities. And large corporations avoid the burden of being good citizens by spending millions on lawyers and accountants to create technicalities that were invisible nanoseconds before creation.
18:36 “Blunt is said to…” These are weasel words. Said by whom?
I'd say by Peter Falk and we now know who the other Marxist, I mean weasel in the room is.
We’re the 5 spies a kind of gay club?
Extremely provocative this new hypothesis is. Helping allies is one thing, helping nazis is something quite different. Let’s not rush with judgements, and wait for proper evidences
Think you will find Trump is far worse
You are a 🤡
I suspect that the schooling was irrelevant as to have a political view is because of a "something or someone" ..OK that may have been a school teacher or Lecturer, as in those days they held a more prestigious and respected stance than unfortunately for many, they do now. My suspicion is more towards the sexuality and power connected, that having a control of the threat to "out" someone because of a secret maybe very powerful and might have enjoyed the situation. I have no idea, but suspect that the Soviets, who were themselves well versed in the power game, may have in turn had a control over some of the originators of the Cambridge set. This at a time when the politics was so polarized, as there were distinct Left and right groups and there seemed to be a certain desire to be in one or the other gang. (I say this based on conversations with my father who had distinct left leanings from an early age and died being the very type of person he hated as a youth...he had luxuries like an inside toilet, servants..i.e. someone who came and cleaned or gardened) my gut feeling is that there are more of these types as they were becoming obvious, they were then placed in the position to quell the story, as others did as well, so who allowed them to do so? or were the military men who found the information blinkered or stupid...or co operating? WW2 created some very odd bed fellows, but the question for me is, what if being a homosexual had not been illegal? I knew men who were homosexuals during this period and they always gave the impression that they were about to be captured and hid behind shells of respectability "beards" (Beard being a lady who accompanied them thus appearing to be a couple +1 thus hiding their true face...often brilliant for a Lady who loved male company but without the associated issues) and without this control, and hopefully like today where your sexuality is now seen by many as irrelevant to how you are with the person, which is brilliant, but now this threat would not work.
He will be judged by a higher power.