German airmen shot down over Ireland

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Alex (F)
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#16

Post by Alex (F) » 08 Aug 2006, 23:26

There was a 1995 movie made about the camp, "The Brylcreem Boys", with Gabriel Byrne, which featured those details you just described. I believe it's available on DVD or video.
I've seen the film (on TV). The names in the film were fictious, but the situations shown were quite likely.

Here is the link on the film, it shows that the film is available on video.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0115770/

and here another link with more historical background. http://www.columbus.com.lb/columbus/lib ... ys_the.htm

berliner
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#17

Post by berliner » 25 Jun 2007, 16:08

I have read the T Ryle Dwyer book and seen THE BRYLCREEM BOYS. Has anyone ever seen a 4-part TV series made by Irish TV over 20 years ago called CAUGHT IN A FREE STATE? It was a drama series about German spies caught in the Irish Free State during WW2.
But I have a question; does anyone know how I could find out if any of the German POWs in Ireland are still alive? I've just submitted a query to the German Embassy in Ireland. I'd love to hear the stories of German pilots or marines who had been interned in the Curragh. Thanks


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phylo_roadking
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#18

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Jun 2007, 21:26

"Caught In A Free State" was actually a three-parter...and I've been searching for it on DVD or VHS for most of that said twenty bloody years! Its a gem. It was mostly culled from Erno Stephan's legendary "Spies in Ireland" which is a must-read for events and conditions in the Curragh Camp...as the various German agents caught were imprisoned there too with the German airmen/sailors!

"imprisonment", "Internment" etc. seem very bleak terms....but apart from manufactured goods that had to come from the UK and the Commonwealth, including tea, coffee, coal, razor blades, shoelaces etc. ALL being rationed and in VERY short supply - Ireland had as far as I'm aware no other FOOD rationing during the war. Rations-wise, compared to ANYWHERE else in wartime Europe...it was like getting locked in a larder!!! :-)

Booknote
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#19

Post by Booknote » 02 Sep 2007, 22:50

"The Brylcreem Boys". I saw that one. As far as the American internees go, it was even close to accurate

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phylo_roadking
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#20

Post by phylo_roadking » 02 Sep 2007, 23:30

Meant to say - "Spies in ireland" also covers the massed breakout in great detail, because german agents caught in ireland were interned there also.

Booknote
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#21

Post by Booknote » 02 Sep 2007, 23:47

Update---I meant to say "It was NOT even close to accurate."

Animal
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#22

Post by Animal » 03 Sep 2007, 05:33

Booknote wrote:"The Brylcreem Boys". I saw that one. As far as the American internees go, it was even close to accurate
I think you mean the American internee, being as there was only one.

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#23

Post by Booknote » 05 Sep 2007, 00:55

In the movie, they had a lot more than just one American internee. There was a whole barracks full of them.

corsair
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Re: German airmen shot down over Ireland

#24

Post by corsair » 13 Nov 2008, 17:42

Came across this lately. Toman was looking for info on a German airmen. As it happens I have a book called 'Landfall Ireland' which lists the fate of all aircraft allied and German which came down in Ireland during WW2. The German officer who escaped and met your Mother could well have been Konrad Neymeyer.

He was later captured in London, so didn't get too far. He ended up in Canada as a prisoner. He'd have been better off staying put.

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Re:

#25

Post by Animal » 21 Nov 2008, 00:56

Booknote wrote:In the movie, they had a lot more than just one American internee. There was a whole barracks full of them.
Nope. Only 1 American, from the RAF Eagle Squadron, since the movie was set in 1941. Unless of course you're counting the Canadians there, who are after all also North Americans.

Taragh
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Re: German escapee from Curragh Internment Camp, Ireland

#26

Post by Taragh » 07 Feb 2009, 23:54

Tomans wrote:Hello everyone.

I am seeking some help in identifying a German internee, who escaped / departed from the Curragh Internment Camp in Ireland in or around 1940 or in the early 40's. He arrived in a house in the Rathcoole area of Co. Dublin, where a local woman assisted him with food, and directions to Templeogue Co. Dublin.

During this time, I understand that there was a German agent , surname "Held" in the Templeogue area. It is likely that the man called to the wrong house in Rathcoole, as it was known that a sister of a local woman was married to a "Held".

Does anyone know the names of those Germans who escaped, or can anyone direct me to someone who might know?

I am interested as it is reputed locally that a man returned after the war to seek out the woman who had helped him. However, she had moved house and did not meet him.

Its a long shot, but all guidance would be greatly appreciated. The woman was my mother.

Thanks,



Tom
Just found this posting, the person that the German was looking for was Karl Held who lived on the Templeogue Road, as far as I know Held was picked up and interned himself at some point during the emergency.

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Andy H
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Re: German airmen shot down over Ireland

#27

Post by Andy H » 10 Feb 2009, 22:58

Following a police raid on the Dublin home of Stephen Karl Held, member of the IRA and adopted son of a German father, on the 22 May 1940, the police found unmistakable evidence for the earlier presence of a German spy, Hermann Goertz. The seized equipment, included a radio transmitter and receiver, a file containing information about Irish airfields, harbours and other targets, the distribution of the Irish defence forces and the crude outline of a German plan to invade Northern Ireland with the support of the IRA from the south. It was the so-called 'Plan Kathleen' that had earlier been brought to Germany by Held himself, but it was so ludicrous that the German intelligence agency turned it down right away.
http://www.ww2f.com/battle-europe/13283 ... nazis.html

Regards

Andy H

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phylo_roadking
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Re: German airmen shot down over Ireland

#28

Post by phylo_roadking » 11 Feb 2009, 02:46

I DID wonder who "Karl" Held was....but as Stephen Carroll Held he's of course far better known. He's occasionally referred to as the IRA's treasurer, and was sent in April 1940 to Berlin as an emissary. The illegitimate son of an Irish mother and an adoptive German father (and thus bilingual), he travelled from Britain via neutral Belgium and across into Germany carrying the famous "Plan Kathleen".

He encountered problems initially because various groups in the IRA weren't concerted, and Kurt Haller of the Abwehr, who had been instrumental in getting Frank Ryan transferred from Spain to Germany, claimed that the whole Plan was so amateurish that the authorities FIRST thought Held was a double-crossing them as a British agent! Plan Kathleen had however been approved by Stephen Hayes, C.O.S of the IRA, and Held was observed in debriefing by Goertz, who accepted the intivation Held had brought from Hayes, for the Germans to send over a liaison offficer...

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Re: German airmen shot down over Ireland

#29

Post by Dannyboy69 » 14 Feb 2009, 16:31

Hi, first time poster so I've a 'first time poster' sought of question I'm afraid!!
my mother recently opened up about family history she never disclosed before. She was born in 1941 and never knew her father but had some vague recollection in her memory that he was German. Upon pressing her mother for info about this her mother confessed to her that her father was actually a German pilot but for years and years she couldn't (or thought she couldn't) reveal this. My mother pressed her some more and asked if she meant a 'commercial airlines' type of pilot and the answer was "no he was military...and he had to leave...he had to go". I'm totally intrigued to aquire more info on my grandfather. My mother grew up in the Rathcoole/Newcastle areas of County Dublin. I fthis story has any substance to it where could this pilot have come from? Thanks in advance to anyone who responds with their thoughts.

Jonmac
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Re: German airmen shot down over Ireland

#30

Post by Jonmac » 01 Jun 2009, 23:30

I remember some years ago seeing a movie about an airman shot down in Ireland. Part of the dialogue went: 'Can you tell me where I am?' and the farmer and his companion looked at each other and he replied 'Have you ever heard of Balivor?'

Can anyone tell me what it was called, and if it's available to buy? It was in black and white.

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