Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Lest it be thought that Wodehouse was a Nazi sympathizer, this is far from the case --- it's more a sign of the Germans and Americans being unable to "get" British humor. The apparent flippancy with which he took his internment (first in an honest-to-goodness detention camp, and then more famously in the Berlin hotel) was interpreted by some (including the Germans) as a sign of sympathy for the German "cause," but it seems more likely he was trying to be very "British" about his capture and detention.
In fact, the five broadcasts were rehashed from a long morale speech he gave to fellow British internees at the camp in Tost in Upper Silesia --- stiff upper lip; it's not too bad, chaps; show the blighters, etc. Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry then projected the recordings into Great Britain in an effort to convince the British public that Wodehouse was on their side. This is probably not so, as Wodehouse was largely apolitical but repeatedly cariacatured the British fascist movement in his fiction as being a bunch of idiots and Nazi dupes, most notably with his Spode character, a mockery of Sir Oswald Mosley.
Shortly after the war, the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence cleared him of any wrongdoing --- probably because, after the war was over, they "got" what Wodehouse was doing by proclaiming that detention had no effect on the spirits of British detainees. Of course, one wonders what he would have written if the magnitude of the Nazis' other little project had been more widely known, or known to him.
I'm a fan, but admit I've seen more of the Fry & Laurie adaptations than I've read.
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Anyone who's ever had a heart
Wouldn't turn around and break it
and anyone who's ever played a part
Wouldn't turn around and hate it
