Barry Domvile

Admiral Sir Barry Edward Domvile, (5 September 1878 – 13 August 1971) was a high-ranking Royal Navy officer who was interned during the Second World War for being a Nazi sympathiser. Throughout the 1930s, he expressed support for Germany's Adolf Hitler as well as pro-Nazi and antisemitic sentiments. Domvile was implicated in two fascist plots against the British government in 1940.

Naval career Domvile was the son of Admiral Sir Compton Domvile and followed his father into the Royal Navy in 1892. In 1912, he became Naval Assistant Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, and during the First World War he commanded the destroyer HMS Miranda, the destroyer HMS Tipperary, the cruiser HMS Centaur and then the cruiser HMS Curacoa.

He served as Director of Naval Intelligence from 1927 to 1930, then commanded the Third Cruiser Squadron from 1931 to 1932, and served as President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich from 1932 to 1934.

Domvile supported St John Philby, the antisemitic British People's Party candidate in the Hythe by-election of 1939, and visited Salzburg that summer, which attracted some criticism. Domvile was prominent in British far-right circles as the prospect of war seemed imminent in the late 1930s. His pro-Nazi and anti-war sympathies were expressed in an endorsement to the 1939 book The Case For Germany.

Second World War In 1940, Domvile was implicated as a participant in a fascist plot, organized by Leigh Vaughan-Henry, against the British government. Vaughan-Henry was reported to have already organized 18 cells of 25 members each for the coup, which was intended to take place when Germany landed in Britain. He was also implicated in another plot organized by Archibald Maule Ramsay, the founder of the Right Club.

In June 1940, Domvile's mistress, Olive Baker, was arrested for distributing leaflets promoting Reichssender Hamburg. She tried to commit suicide in prison and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Domvile himself was interned during Second World War under Defence Regulation 18B from 7 July 1940 to 29 July 1943. During his wartime captivity, he wrote an autobiographical memoir, From Admiral to Cabin Boy. It was first published in 1947 and republished in 2008.

Later life Domvile largely faded from public life in the postwar period. He denied the Holocaust and continued to defend Germany, describing the war as a "punitive expedition" against a "nation which had rebelled against the financial system." Domvile decried the Nuremberg executions in October 1946, stating that, "The Nuremberg victims died bravely, and are more likely to survive in history as martyrs, than criminals." He later became a supporter of the League of Empire Loyalists but was never more than a peripheral figure in that group. Domvile was a member of the National Front's National Council from its formation in 1967 to his death in 1971.

Domvile served on the "Armed Services Committee" of the extreme right grouping known as the "Shickshinny Knights of Malta", not to be confused with the actual Knights of Malta.

Books By and Large, pub Hutchinson, 1936 (His autobiography) From Admiral to Cabin Boy (1947; the 'cabin' referred to is Domvile's cell at Brixton prison during his internment) ; online Look to Your Moat (A history of British naval and merchant seamen) The Great Taboo: Freemasonry Straight from the Jew's Mouth Truth about Anti-Semitism