The “Black Book” was what the
British called the
Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. (“Special Search List
Great Britain”), a list of 2820 individuals to be rounded up and placed in “
protective custody” by the
Gestapo following a
German invasion of
Britain in
World War II. The list was compiled by the
RSHA, the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (“
Reich Central Security Office”). Charged with overseeing the operation was
SS officer
Frank Six, formerly dean of
economics at the
University of Berlin. After the war, Six was in prison for unrelated
war crimes until
1952.
Many of the British citizens included bragged about their placement on the list, and even their “ranking”, though the list was alphabetical. Among the politicians, authors, and others included were
Winston Churchill,
Anthony Eden,
Noel Coward,
H.G. Wells,
E.M. Forster,
Virginia Woolf,
Rebecca West,
C.P. Snow,
Robert Baden-Powell (
Boy Scout founder and former intelligence operative),
David Low (a
cartoonist noded for his satirical depictions of
Adolf Hitler), and
Lady Astor.
Among the more puzzling inclusions were
Bernard Baruch (an American political advisor),
Paul Robeson (an American living in Europe),
Aldous Huxley (a Brit living in America), and
Sigmund Freud (not living anywhere because he was dead). Perhaps the most prominent exculsion was
George Bernard Shaw, on the grounds that he had written an essay promoting peace.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, ed. Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, 1997.