{{Short description|Irish diplomat (1888–1969)}} {{Use British English|date=October 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2023}} '''Charles Henry Bewley''', [[GCSG]] (12 July 1888 – 1969) was an Irish diplomat.
[[File:Charles_Bewley.jpg|thumb|right|Charles Bewley]]
Raised in a prominent Dublin [[Quaker]] business family, he embraced [[Irish Republicanism]] and Roman Catholicism. He was the Irish [[Diplomacy|envoy]] to [[Berlin]] who reportedly thwarted efforts to obtain [[Visa (document)|visas]] for [[Jew]]s wanting to leave [[Nazi Germany]] in the 1930s and to move to the safety of the [[Irish Free State]].
==Family and early life== Bewley was born in [[Dublin]], Ireland, into a wealthy privileged family, the eldest of four brothers. His mother was Elizabeth Eveleen Pim, whose family owned a large [[department store]] in George's Street, [[Dublin]]. His father was [[physician]] Dr. Henry Theodore Bewley (1860-1945), related to the family that operated the successful "[[Bewleys|Bewley's cafés]]" chain of [[Coffeehouse|coffee houses]] in Dublin that is still famous today. His parents were both [[Religious Society of Friends|Quakers]], and Charles and his brothers were raised in that tradition.
He was educated at Park House, a boarding school in England. In 1901, he won a scholarship to [[Winchester College]], where he became the Library [[Prefect]]. That honour was withdrawn when he declared in a [[World Schools Style debating|debate]] that "England is not a musical nation" and ridiculed the [[National anthem|anthem]] "[[God Save the Queen|God save the King]]". He proceeded to [[New College, Oxford]], where he read Law. In 1910, he won the [[Newdigate Prize]] for poetry.<ref>Charles Bewley Won the Newdigate Prize 1910 for "Atlantis". 1910–1913: Winter in Ireland; A Girl's Song on Her Lover, Paidin, Ruadh [http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/oxpoetry/index/ib.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060603144232/http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/oxpoetry/index/ib.html|date=3 June 2006}}</ref> He completed his training as a barrister at [[King's Inns]], Dublin, and in 1914 he was [[Call to the bar|called to the bar]].
Charles' brother Kenneth also attended Oxford University. Kenneth was a career civil servant in [[H.M. Treasury]]. His younger brothers, Geoffrey and Maurice, studied [[physician|medicine]] at [[Trinity College Dublin]].
Charles Bewley was seen as an "enfant terrible". He rejected his [[Anglo-Irish]] heritage and embraced [[Celtic mythology]]{{Citation needed|date=June 2007}} of the kind popularised by [[W. B. Yeats]]. He spoke against the "evils of Anglicization", supported the [[Boer]]s in [[South Africa]], and converted to [[Roman Catholicism]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Free State Representative Leaves for Vatican City |url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001123/19290607/170/0012 |accessdate=12 December 2015 |newspaper=Derry Journal |date=7 June 1929 |via=[[British Newspaper Archive]] |url-access=subscription |quote=Mr. Bewley belongs to an old Quaker family, but is a convert to Catholicism}}</ref> He rejected [[Unionism (Ireland)|Unionist politics]] and supported the [[Home rule#Irish home rule|Home Rule]] movement.{{Citation needed|date=June 2007}}
==Career== At the outbreak of [[World War I]] in 1914, he was in Ireland, acting as a defending barrister for many nationalists and republicans. He wrote [[Seán Mac Eoin]]'s death-sentence speech. In the [[1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland|1918 general election]], he stood, unsuccessfully, as a [[Sinn Féin]] candidate. During the [[Irish Civil War]], he took the pro-Treaty side. As a barrister, he prosecuted many anti-Treaty prisoners. At the [[1923 Irish general election|1923 general election]], he was a [[Cumann na nGaedheal]] candidate in the [[Mayo South (Dáil constituency)|Mayo South constituency]], but he was not elected.<ref>{{cite web |title=Charles Bewley |url=https://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=1394 |website=ElectionsIreland.org |access-date=21 July 2023 |archive-date=28 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201128135343/https://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=1394 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Between the truce in the [[Irish War of Independence]] and the [[Anglo-Irish Treaty]] being signed, he was Irish consul in [[Berlin]] with responsibility for trade. He was appointed Irish ambassador to the [[Vatican City|Vatican]] (resident minister to the [[Holy See]]) in 1929. At that time, Irish diplomatic appointments were meant to be made by the British monarch, but Bewley frequently flouted the diplomatic niceties by ignoring the implications of that. If anything, the complaints of [[Henry Chilton|H.J. Chilton]], the British representative, and of [[Robert Clive (diplomat)|Sir Robert Clive]], his successor, improved Bewley's reputation in Ireland.{{Citation needed|date=June 2007}}
In July 1933, the British Foreign Office became annoyed when the [[Pope]], [[Pius XI]], knighted Bewley into the [[Order of St. Gregory the Great|Order of the Grand Cross of St Gregory the Great]], because the King's agreement had not been sought. Bewley was told, with no effect, that, as a King's representative, he was not entitled to wear the decoration without royal permission.
However, the constant bickering between the Irish and British representatives to the Vatican pleased neither Dublin nor London. It paved the way for Bewley to obtain the appointment he really wanted, and he went to [[Berlin]] in July 1933. The [[President of Germany]], [[Paul von Hindenburg|Hindenburg]], praised his impeccable German.
Bewley's reports from Berlin enthusiastically praised [[Nazism|National Socialism]] and [[Chancellor of Germany (German Reich)|Chancellor]] [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]. He gave interviews to German papers which were anti-British, and annoyed the British embassy in Berlin, ignoring the [[Silver Jubilee of George V]] in 1935. With the ending of the [[Anglo-Irish Trade War]] and the return of the [[Treaty Ports (Ireland)|treaty ports]], good relations were established between Ireland and Britain. Bewley was frequently reprimanded by Dublin, which was no longer tolerant of his anti-British jibes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nolan |first=Aengus |title=Joseph Walshe: Irish foreign policy, 1922–1946 |year=2008 |publisher=Mercier Press |isbn=978-1-85635-580-3 |page=79}}</ref>
==Anti-Semitism== The first indication that Bewley was [[antisemitism|anti-Semitic]] came in Berlin in 1921, where Bewley was the Irish consul for trade. The new Irish state was not yet formally recognised, and the Irish leader, [[Michael Collins (Irish leader)|Michael Collins]], asked [[Robert Briscoe (politician)|Robert Briscoe]], an IRA quartermaster, to buy guns. In time, Briscoe would play an important political role and would be the first Jewish [[Lord Mayor of Dublin]]. Bewley and Briscoe went to a Jewish-owned music hall in the [[Tauentzienstraße|Tauenzien Palast]], but, after Briscoe left, it was reported that Bewley insulted Judaism and was thrown out, resulting in a drunken brawl.<ref>{{cite book |last=Roth |first=Andreas |title=Mr Bewley in Berlin |year=2000 |publisher=Four Courts Press |isbn=978-1-85182-559-2 |page=14}}</ref> [[John Smith Chartres|John Chartres]], the head of the Irish Bureau, was going to take action, but the [[Irish Civil War]] broke out. Briscoe took the losing anti-Treaty side, while Bewley returned to Dublin, took the pro-Treaty side, and prosecuted anti-Treaty prisoners in the courts.<ref>According to the late Professor [[D. A. Binchy|Dan Binchy]], [[Seán T. O'Kelly]] held that against him afterwards.</ref>
In March 1922, [[George Gavan Duffy]] wrote to [[Ernest Blythe]] opposing Bewley's appointment as an Irish envoy to Germany: "...there is a great objection to appointing him to such a post in Germany, because his semitic [sic] convictions are so pronounced that it would be very difficult for him to deal properly with all the persons and questions within the scope of an Envoy to Berlin, where the Jewish element is very strong." Gavan Duffy suggested instead that [[Munich]] or [[Vienna]] might be more suitable, "... as the same considerations would not arise in those places".<ref>[[National Archives of Ireland]] file DFA ES Box 34 File 239; ([http://www.difp.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=257 text on line] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004043007/http://www.difp.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=257 |date=4 October 2011 }})</ref>
It is believed Bewley's hatred of Jews was partly influenced by the controversial teachings of Irish Catholic priest [[Denis Fahey]]. While he was serving as an envoy to Berlin, Bewley once referred to Fahey's pamphlet ''The Rulers of Russia'' when being interviewed by the permanent secretary of the Irish Ministry for External Affairs [[Joseph Walshe]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.difp.ie/docs/1938/Anti-Semitism-in-Germany/2395.htm |title=Documents on Irish Foreign Affairs, Report from Charles Bewley to Joseph Walsh, 1938 |access-date=15 January 2018 |archive-date=27 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171127134723/http://difp.ie/docs/1938/Anti-Semitism-in-Germany/2395.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Envoy to Berlin== Bewley was the "Irish Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary" in Berlin in the crucial years from 1933 to 1939. Reading his reports to Dublin during the 1930s gives the impression that German Jews were not threatened, and that they were involved in pornography, abortion and "the international white slave traffic". That from a man responsible for processing visa applications from Jews wishing to leave Germany for Ireland. His explanation of the Nuremberg Laws was: "As the Chancellor pointed out, it amounts to the making of the Jews into a national minority; and as they themselves claim to be a separate race, they should have nothing to complain of." He reported that he had no knowledge of any "deliberate cruelty on the part of the <nowiki>[</nowiki>German<nowiki>]</nowiki> Government ... towards the Jews", and criticised Irish refugee policy as "inordinately liberal, and facilitating the entry of the wrong class of people" (meaning Jews). The Irish legation in Berlin consisted of two people, Bewley and a German secretary called Frau Kamberg. She appeared more sympathetic to the Jews than Bewley.<ref>[http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/5780725?view=Eircomnet ''Escaping the Holocaust to an Irish safe haven'']{{dead link|date=November 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Fewer than a hundred Jews obtained Irish visas between 1933 and 1939. Bewley was dismissed from his position in 1939.
==Later years== Bewley was dismissed just as [[World War II]] was breaking out, and never received a pension. However, [[Joseph Goebbels]] gave him a job writing propaganda. For a time, Bewley worked for a Swedish news agency, which was part of Goebbels' propaganda machine.
At the end of the War he was held by British troops, having been picked up in [[Merano]], Northern Italy, in May 1945 and held in [[Terni]]. He was carrying Irish diplomatic papers identifying him as the Irish minister to Berlin and to the Vatican. [[Joe Walshe|Joseph Walshe]], Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, and [[John Loader Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby|Sir John Maffey]], the British diplomatic representative in independent Ireland, decided on a solution that would undermine Bewley's ego.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gray|first=Tony|title=The Lost Years|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|year=1997|pages=242|isbn=0-316-88189-9|quote=It was decided – between Joseph Walsh, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs and Sir John Maffey – that the best punishment for Bewley would be to demonstrate how unimportant he was by releasing him with a kick in the pants}}</ref>
At that time, passports required the identification of the holder's trade or profession. Bewley was issued with a new Irish passport which had for that entry, "a person of no importance".<ref>{{cite news |last=Russell |first=Michael |title=Three hatreds drove him: the English, the Jews and de Valera |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=15 May 2017 |quote=Finding himself without identity papers, he applied to Dublin for a passport. Eventually he received one. In the "description" section, someone at Iveagh House had written: "A person of no importance".}}</ref> At the end of the war, passport checkpoints were frequent. Bewley never produced that passport. He was released in Rome, and apparently never left. He wrote some newspaper articles, and a biography of [[Hermann Göring]] in 1956.
In his final years, he and [[Monsignor]] [[Hugh O'Flaherty]], "the Vatican Pimpernel", who had rescued thousands of Jews and escaped POWs from the Nazis, became great friends.{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}} Charles Henry Bewley died unmarried in Rome in 1969.
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *C. Bewley, ''Memoirs of a Wild Goose'', edited by W.J. McCormack, Dublin 1989, *D. Keogh, ''Jews in 20th-Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust'', Cork 1998, *Mervyn O'Driscoll ''Ireland, Germany and the Nazis: politics and diplomacy, 1919–1939'' Four Courts Press, Dublin 2004 *Robert Tracy, ''The Jews of Ireland'' Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought. Summer, 1999 *Andreas Roth, ''Mr Bewley in Berlin – Aspects of the Career of an Irish Diplomat, 1933–1939'' Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2000 * Lost report reveals our man in Berlin was Nazi apologist – ''[[Sunday Independent (Ireland)|Sunday Independent]]'' newspaper article by Andrew Bushe, 26 November 2006
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bewley, Charles}} [[Category:1888 births]] [[Category:1969 deaths]] [[Category:Antisemitism in Ireland]] [[Category:Alumni of King's Inns]] [[Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford]] [[Category:Ambassadors of Ireland to Germany]] [[Category:Ambassadors of Ireland to the Holy See]] [[Category:Bewley family|Charles]] [[Category:Irish Quakers]] [[Category:Former Quakers]] [[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Quakerism]] [[Category:Irish Roman Catholics]] [[Category:Irish barristers]] [[Category:Irish Nazi propagandists]] [[Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Gregory the Great]] [[Category:People educated at Winchester College]] [[Category:People of the Irish Civil War (Pro-Treaty side)]] [[Category:Cumann na nGaedheal candidates in Dáil elections]]