Nazis on the State Payroll in 1930s Ireland

The Austro-German population of Ireland in 1936 was 529. Approximately 25% of the adult male cohort were, or became, members of Hitler’s Nazi Party (NSDAP). A small cadre of senior figures in the party were active in recruiting new members as Nazi Germany’s fortunes rose from 1933 to 1939. Some 32 Germans and Austrians resident in pre-war Ireland have been identified as Nazi Party members, although a small number of these were exchange students rather than full-time residents. This paper examines the six NSDAP members who held senior positions in the Irish public service. As Irish state employees they were in a contradictory position: swearing loyalty to Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich while attempting to hold down important jobs on the Irish state payroll. Dr. David O’Donoghue’s article scrutinises the activities of these six men, as well as explaining how they tried, by varying degrees, to serve two masters. The paper also examines their wartime and post-war lives.