This article is from page 8 of the 2012-01-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
CLARE TD and Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera was accused of showing “allegiance to the devil” when he expressed condolences to the German ambassador in Ireland on the death of Adolf Hitler.
State papers have revealed a well of anger at Mr de Valera, who represented the Clare constituency from 1917 to 1959, over his controversial decision to express condolences to ambassador Dr Eduard Hempel on the behalf of the Free State on May 2, 1945, two days after Hitler’s suicide.
The file on the controversy in the National Archives contains a number of letters sent in the immediate aftermath.
Angela D Walsh, with an address at East 44th Street, New York, writes to de Valera the day after: “I am horrified, ashamed, humiliated. You, who are the head of a Catholic coun- try, have now shown allegiance to a devil.”
Patrick O’Reilly wrote of de Valera to President Hyde from Stratfordon-Avon: “We feel ashamed to let people know we are of the blood of people who have such as man as their leader.”
The episode resurfaced in a letter dated January 22, 1970, when de Valera was President. Fr Kevin Keegan, writing from an address in France, said he had been watching a television documentary in which the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal “said that you went to the German ambassador to express your sympathy when you heard that Hitler had committed suicide”.
“Needless to say I was astounded to hear such a statement. I would be very grateful to you if you inform me whether it is true or not.
“In the case of it being untrue, I will inform the French television immediately, asking them to make a public rectification,” the letter added.
The State papers also reveal that Mr de Valera considered lowering the Irish flag over Government buildings as a mark of respect following the death of Hitler, as had happened following the death of American President Franklin D Roosevelt two weeks earlier.
The whole affair led to a memorable joust over the airwaves between Mr de Valera and Winston Churchill. The British prime minister praised himself for having the “restraint and poise” in refraining from laying “a violent hand” on Ireland and said “we left the de Valera government to frolic with the Germans and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart’s content”.
However, in response three days later on Radio Éireann, de Valera had what his supporters and even some of his detractors described as his finest hour.
“I know the kind of response that I am expected to make,” he said. “I know the reply I would have given a quarter of a century ago.
“But I have deliberately decided that this is not the reply that I will make tonight. I shall strive not to be guilty of adding any fuel to the flames of hatred and passion, which, if continued to be fed, promise to burn up whatever is left by the war of decent human feeling in Europe,” he continued.
“Could he not find it in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone, not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed so many times into insensibility, but that each time, on returning to consciousness, took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul,” he added.