Charles Arnold-Baker

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Charles Arnold-Baker, born Wolfgang Charles Werner von Blumenthal (Berlin, 25 June 1918) is an English barrister (called 1948), an academic and a historian. He is the author of the Companion to British History. He has been awarded an OBE (1966) and the King Haakon VII Medal of Freedom (1945).

Contents 1 Background 2 War 3 Civilian career 4 Publications

[edit] Background

Charles Arnold-Baker is the second son of Professor Baron Albrecht Werner von Blumenthal (10 August 1889, Staffelde, by Stettin, Prussia - 28 March 1945, Marburg an der Lahn), of Gross Schloenwitz by Stolp, Pomerania, by his first wife, an English lady, Alice Wilhelmine, née Hainsworth (1883 - 1978). (They divorced in 1921 and she returned to England and remarried, 1923, Percy Baker,(1875 - 1944).

Wolfgang Charles was educated Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford University (BA History 1940).

As World War II approached Charles and his elder brother Werner Gaunt (Richard) took British Nationality, and adopted their stepfather's surname, witnessed by Deed poll, and abandoned the use of their first Christian names.

[edit] War

Upon the outbreak of war they both volunteered for the British Army. Charles's recruitment was deferred by the authorities to the following year to enable him to complete his degree. He joined the Buffs as a private soldier but was promoted corporal within 10 days and commissioned directly (Feb 25 1941). He then commanded one of two platoons of the 70th Battalion which were guarding Chartwell during Churchill's recuperation from illness there for three months.

From there he was posted to the 9th Battalion (Aug 4th 1943) but on December 14th 1943 he joined MI6 where he was given the code-name Anderton and worked with the traitor Kim Philby, whom he disliked, and in whom he saw none of the supposed Philby charm. His brother Richard was also in MI6 by now and interrogated Rudolf Hess. Charles took part in the liberation of Belgium. He and his boss, Richard Gatty, were accidentally the first Allied soldiers in Antwerp, where Charles was billeted on the generous hospitality of the Baroness van der Gracht de Rommerswael, having got ahead of the advancing Canadians and arrived in the town while the Germans were still there. Aided by the competent Belgian Commissaire Bloch, Gatty and he then rounded up the entire German local network of 68 spies, an action for which the Brussels office of MI6, which was headed by Robert Barclay and included Malcolm Muggeridge, claimed the credit, provoking an angry written protest from Gatty to Barclay which said "our job is to tell lies to the enemy."

Charles then took part in the liberation of Norway, where he captured the complete Gestapo archive which enabled him to arrest fugitive Nazis, including Karl Fritsch the Deputy Commandant of Auschwitz, and senior German military figures. (King Haakon's Medal of Freedom). He took the view that as the war was now practically over, it was important to gather as much intelligence about the Soviet army, since this was plainly the new threat. In this he was thwarted, and his reports concerning his interrogations of such figures as the Chief of Staff, von Ow, who described the pro-German stance of the Ukrainians, were buried by his superiors who were, as it later emerged, Soviet spies.

[edit] Civilian career

Charles Arnold-Baker was called to the Bar in 1948, and practised in the Admiralty Division until 1952. He received the Gwylim Gibbons Award from Nuffield College, Oxford in 1959.

After leaving the Admiralty Division he accepted a post as Secretary of the National Association of Parish Councils. This body he transformed into the union of all rural local councils in England and Wales, the National Association of Local Councils, (NALC), and he endeavoured to strengthen local custom and government on a small scale against the growth of larger local government blocs. In 1966 he was awarded the OBE for this work. He served as a member of the European Committee of the International Union of Local Authorities 1966-1978, and was a Delegate to the European Local Government Assembly at Strassburg 1960-1978.

In 1977 he left the NALC to pursue an academic career as a Professor of Arts administration at the City University, London, where he lectured in Law, and architecture a subject on which he had no formal training; his lectures were always nevertheless packed.

In 1965 he commenced writing The Companion to British History. The work was originally commissioned the Oxford University Press, but after several disagreements with editors he decided to publish his work himself. The book has run to three editions, and is now longer than the Bible.

Since 1942 he has lived in the Inner Temple, where he is the Senior Barrister, and looks after his invalid wife. He is currently, aged 88, planning a further edition of his Companion to British History.

Charles Arnold-Baker married at Kensington, London, 2 January 1943, Edith May, née Woods (b.1918). They have two children:

• Henry Charles Edward Alexis von Blumenthal (b.1961) (resumed family surname 1978), educated at Westminster School and Christ Church College, Oxford University (B.A. Theology), who resides with his wife & family in Luxembourg (district), and

• Katherine Elizabeth Arnold-Baker (b.1948), (unmarried), who lives in Venice.

[edit] Publications

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, Everyman's Dictionary of Dates, London, 1954.

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, Parish Administration. London, 1958.

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, New Law and Practice of Parish Administration, London, 1966.

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, O.B.E., The 5000 and the Power Tangle, London, 1967.

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, O.B.E., The Local Government Act, London, 1972 & 1973.

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, O.B.E., Local Council Administration, London, 1975 (6th edition 2001).

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, O.B.E., The Local Government Planning & Land Act 1980, London, 1981.

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, O.B.E., Practical Law for Arts Administrators, London, 1983 (3rd edition 1992).

• Genealogisches Handbuch des Adeligen Hauser, A Band XVIII, Limburg an der Lahn, 1985 edition, page 19.

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, O.B.E., The 5000 and the Living Constitution, London, 1986.

• Arnold-Baker, Professor Charles, O.B.E., Monarchy, published by the International Monarchist League, London, 1991, (P/B).

• Arnold-Baker, Charles, O.B.E., The Companion to British History, London, (1st edition 1996, Longcross Press), 2nd edition, 2001, Routledge publishers, ISBN 978-0-415-18583-7