The Violent Vigilantes that Attacked a Hitler Cult

The two black saloon cars had been there all morning. Not many had noticed them, tucked away in an off-road lane. And, if they had, they had not made a fuss. The people of River, however reluctantly, had become used to seeing strange people doing strange things in their serene village. Not too long ago, the peace of the farmland had been broken by the thunderous voice of a Pastor contending for his Christian faith. It had all started when new owners had arrived at River House. They had quickly renamed it Kingdom House. It was as if a shadow followed the new inhabitants; a dark cloud that washed over the village. Almost everyone in the village knew that these men and women were fascists, and that at least all of the men had been interred in a prison camp for most of the war. The villagers hadn’t accepted them with open arms. But they had been respectful. Then, the newspapers started to report that these people were trying to bring in a massive bust of Hitler’s head to the house. To their village. Their fathers, brothers, sons and friends had fought and died in a war trying to defeat the evil of Hitler and his regime. Now, they were expected to accept a bastion of this ideology, in their village? Not only this, these people, this League of Christian Reformers, were worshiping him. That’s why the Pastor had come, that’s why the atmosphere of the village had shifted. 

The government had done nothing. And said they wouldn’t do anything. Inaction had been tolerated long enough. 

There were fourteen of them, seven in each car. They pulled the masks over their faces; black handkerchiefs with eye holes cut out. Some were in uniform. Their navy colours looked black in the dark of the car. They hid their identities but wanted Kingdom House to know who it was that was coming for them. They clicked open the doors, filed out of the saloons and ran down the lane. They hopped over the wall, hiding in the hedges. Coming round the back of the house, they could see movement in the upstairs windows. Desperately trying to stay quiet, they crouched low. Armed with bats and latent anger, the began to creep towards the house. They were silent. Suddenly, there was a crash behind them. It wasn’t too loud, it shouldn’t have alerted the League. The vigilantes froze. Silence descended. 

They heard a click. Looking up, the top window swung open and a woman stuck out her head. ‘Arthur!’ She called. ‘Arthur, I heard some noises out the back here!’ 

The intruders knew they had only a matter of second before they were found. They listened for the window to close, then ran to the back door. They huddled against the wall. Hearts pounding, sweat dripping behind their handkerchief masks. They heard footsteps from behind the door. A key turned. The door swung open. Arthur Schneider stepped out, his deep-set eyes scanning the garden. Without thinking, the vigilante closest to the door swung round, crashing a fist into Schneider’s face. Arthur stumbled backwards. The attackers followed. They pushed him to the ground, beating him with fists and bats. 

Hearing the commotion, the woman from the window, Joan Schneider, raced downstairs. She grabbed the phone from the wall, desperately trying to ring in the numbers. One of the attackers saw, stepped over Arthur’s bleeding form, ripped the receiver from her hand, pulled the wires from the wall and dropped it to the floor. 

‘If you wouldn’t mind, go sit in the other room,’ the intruder murmured to her. By this time, the attackers had filled the house, rummaging through drawers and cupboards, looking for propaganda, papers and leaflets. Two men appeared from another room, members of the League, but the vigilantes didn’t recognise them. Unfazed, they grabbed them, threw them to the floor and told them to stay down. 

As they tore through the League’s files, they barely heard the gravel crunch outside. A car was drawing up. One of the masked men peered through the window. ‘We have to go!’ He shouted. He recognised the man in the car. 

Stepping out of the car was a man, imposing, not in stature but in presence. He was calm, serene, but a fire burned behind his eyes. Something wild, untamed, terrifying. Thomas St. Barbe Baker. He opened the front door and was taken back by the carnage. Immediately, the raiders leapt on him, pulling him to the ground.

Finally aware that Baker had returned, Arthur cried, ’Help me, captain!’, straining against the pain. 

‘I can’t,’ Baker replied, twisting, trying to release himself from the intruder’s grip. ‘I’m being held down myself.’ 

The attackers grabbed Arthur, tying his hands, gagging his mouth, tearing the shirt off his back. Joan exclaimed as the intruders dragged Arthur out the door. A couple of the other masked men grabbed the papers and raced outside. One of the vigilantes had been digging around in one of the back rooms, and as soon as he heard a shout, he shot up, smashing his head on the open cupboard. He slumped to the floor, dazed. The rest of his crew left, throwing Arthur into the back of the car. They sped off, racing down the hill, towards Petworth. 

The two members of the League the attackers had barely engaged rose and found the bewildered commando in the back. They seized him and held him down. Baker rose slowly. He surveyed the carnage around him. His face didn’t register an emotion. He looked over at the table and saw that the raiders had left a note. 

‘We, a party of young officers in H.M. Services, carried out the operation at Kingdom House because the authorities seemed to be doing nothing about this setting up of a Hitler cult in England. All of us have served overseas. We have come home to find this worship of Hitler going on here. It is not good enough to read that Scotland Yard are making inquiries. We want this thing stamped out. We hope that what we have done tonight will compel the Government to take instant action and end this business once and for all.’

He sighed. Stepping into the back room, he found the raider, dazed, clad in navy uniform, held down by the arms. Baker crouched down in front of him. 

‘Why are you here?’ He asked.

‘I, uh, I where am I?’ The masked man stuttered. 

‘You are in Kingdom House, where did you come from?’ Baker was unimpressed by the man’s ignorance. 

‘Somewhere near the sea,’ the officer had been de-masked and was a young man, blood trickling from a gash somewhere under his hair. 

Baker realised this man was going to be entirely unhelpful and pulled him to his feet. ‘Go home.’ Baker said.

‘I have no, no money, sir,’ the raider replied. 

Baker dusted down the man’s shirt, ‘Here’s £1,’ 

The man gripped the pound close. 

‘Come with me.’ Baker began to lead the man to his car. The house phone began to ring. Joan picked it up. Her face lightened up when she heard the voice on the other end. It was Arthur. Apparently, the vigilante crew had taken him to Petworth Market Square and dumped him out. He had taken refuge in the nearby Petworth fire station, and called the house. Baker smiled slightly, sat the leftover intruder in his car and headed off for Petworth. 

Arriving in Petworth, Baker dropped his rather uninvited guest off unharmed. He found Schneider, and walked him to the car. He took him back to Kingdom House, where he received first aid from the women of the League. 

After this violent raid, the members of the League did not retaliate, and Baker even went as far as to say that, because the League was not a political entity, he did not want to press any charges, and said he had ‘forgiven’ the raiders.

In the face of this attack, it seems the League may have been genuine in distancing themselves from their politics. A political party would probably haven taken police action, or used it as an opportunity to cement their position within the wider community. Instead, Baker and the League let the raiders off, seemingly showing that their shift away from politics had been a real and genuine one. 

Nevertheless, this event became a means by which the community and the government could politicise the League. The raid was brought before Parliament by Tom Driberg, MP for Maldon. He claimed that this was a political issue, a new threat of a Fascist resurgence in Britain. He demanded that ‘steps be taken to check Fascist provocation in view of the risk of political gang feuds’. The Home Secretary remained firm in the position he had held since April 1945: that until the League broke the law, the ‘revulsion’ both he and the rest of the country felt would not be enough to bring an enforced end to the League.

Therefore, it can be seen that whether they believed it or not, whether they wanted to present themselves as a political party or not, they were viewed as one, and were being treated as one by those in both the neighbourhood and the government. 

This issue was raised again by Flight Lieutenant Haire on 13th December 1945, who brought the matter up with the Home Secretary, James Ede, asking him whether ‘in view of our efforts in Europe to destroy Fascism, he will take steps to curb the growth of Hitler worship in this country.’

This politicisation of their position also led to questions about their view of the Holocaust, and how they reconciled the ‘extermination of millions’ with their deification of the man responsible. A Daily Mirror  Reporter posed this question to Battersby, to which he replied, ‘I am not interested in politics’. This was a dismissive reply to a legitimate concern. As aforementioned, however, this would not have been an issue too difficult for the League’s leadership to reconcile. They believed in a global Jewish conspiracy, and that Hitler, being used as the divine instrument of judgement, and as the reincarnation of Christ himself, was the vessel of destruction to be poured out on the Jewish Mammon world. Therefore, it was entirely within their theology to accept that Hitler could be responsible for the Holocaust and still be the instrument of God for judgement. What is fascinating, however, is that Battersby viewed the Holocaust as merely a political issue, and, as the League put no stock in politics, and actively distanced themselves from political statements, it can be seen that to the League, the Holocaust was irrelevant, inconsequential and an issue they would have no need to discuss. Battersby also seems to suggest that the Holocaust may have been part of God’s plan for ridding the world of the Mammon curse. On Friday 30th November 1945, Battersby was asked by a Daily Express reporter about his views on the Belsen and Buchenwald camps. In response, he quoted Matthew 13:37: ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man’, by which he was suggesting that the Holocaust was a ‘good seed’, and that the one who ‘planted it’, Hitler, was the ‘Son of Man’, a title only given to Christ in Scripture. In this passage too, Jesus speaks about the sifting of the ‘wheat and the tares’, in which the tares will be pulled up and tossed into the fire. To Battersby, this was a perfect description of what he believed Hitler had been divinely appointed to do: to sift the Jewish tares from the Christian wheat.

Despite this being an issue that could make or break their theology, they rather astutely avoided it, or attempted to assimilate it into their theology. Battersby is the only one on record for having made a response to the Holocaust. There is no evidence of how the other members felt, or how they viewed the massacre of Europe’s Jews.

The League of Christian Reformers seems to have petered out after the raid in December 1945, with very little media coverage afterwards. However, they were still intent on ‘Following the Führer to Glory and Eternity’. Stay tuned to find out about the end of the League and its aftermath. The story isn’t quite over just yet.

References

‘Masked Men’s Raid’, Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 1945.

‘Parliament: Mosley Interrogation’, Chelmsford Chronicle, 1945.

‘Christian Reform League’, House of Commons, Hansard, 12 April 1945, Volume 416.

‘Christian Reform League’, House of Commons, Hansard, 13 December 1945, Volume 417.

Daily Mirror Reporter, ‘Adolf Divine Society’, Daily Mirror, 28 November 1945.

Daily Express, 30 November 1945, p.1.

‘Headless man is identified was Hitler Disciple Inquest Story’, Liverpool Echo, 04 October 1955.