Product Description

William and Margaret Joyce – Lord and Lady Haw-Haw – became one of the most mythologized, feared and ridiculed partnerships of the Second World War. His ‘Germany Calling’ broadcasts and her pro-Nazi wireless talks were part of the very fabric of the Home Front. Yet, when the couple were captured in May 1945, only William was charged with high treason - despite its becoming apparent that he wasn't actually a British subject.

Authorized by William Joyce’s daughter, Heather, and based on new interviews and unpublished letters, diaries and recently declassified Secret Service files, Haw-Haw is a meticulously researched biography: an incisive and shocking study of two people whose beliefs overrode everything.

'Makes Joyce's belief in the eventual victory of British fascism seem credible to today's readers. . . masterful use of source material' James Wood, Scotland on Sunday

'Exciting and endlessly fascinating' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday (5 stars)

'Well-researched and fast-paced' Michael Burleigh, Sunday Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #370103 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 356 pages

Catherine Shoard, Evening Standard
'Nigel Farndale charts his rise and fall with pace, compassion...'

Robert Colvile , Daily Telegraph
'Joyce's life was endlessly fascinating - or at least it becomes so in the hands of Nigel Farndale.'

Robert Colvile , Daily Telegraph
'related with wit, compassion and insight'

Customer Reviews

Compelling and surprising
I grew up listening to Haw-Haw on the radio, so I was pleased to find an account that is so accessible to the non-academic reader. Farndale's style is engaging and difficult to put down: it drew me along and I felt he developed a kinship with his subject matter that I had not found with the other books on Joyce, which are often indigestible and, in at least one case, riddled with errors.

I'm very glad to see that the elegance of Farndale's style and care in research has been recognised by the Whitbread prize committee: if you buy this book you won't be disappointed: it reveals much about the motivations and thoughts of those behind propaganda, but is more importantly a genuine biographical account of a couple who have been sidelined and misrepresented by time.

Unputdownable.
This is an excellent, well-researched and original joint biography of a flawed but fascinating couple. I found the chapters concerning the Joyces’ time in wartime Berlin especially edifying and unexpected. I read some of the papers on Lord Haw-Haw which the National Archives published in book form three years ago, but found the accompany text irritating and sour. That book was full of mistakes, too – the writer claimed the MI5 spymaster Maxwell Knight had been a member of the British Union of Fascists, for example, when he hadn’t. This book seems to have set the record about the Joyces straight. I found it gripping and beautifully written.

Elegant and accessible
I bought this biography because it has been shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and, I have to say, it lives up to expectations. The story of William and Margaret Joyce is a strange and sometimes disturbing one and Nigel Farndale tells it with great deftness and humanity. The account of Lord Haw-Haw’s controversial treason trial in 1945 is particularly haunting. A brilliantly crafted and unforgettable book.