The Black Book

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The Black Book was the post-war name given to the "Sonderfahndungsliste G.B.", German for "Special Search List Great Britain". It was a product of the SS Einsatzgruppen and contained the names of thousands of people living in Britain to be arrested if Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain, succeeded. It was compiled by Walter Schellenberg. Many of the people on the list had already died, as in the case of Sigmund Freud, or had fled, as had Paul Robeson. Of the 20,000 original copies of this book, only two are known to be in existence. One is currently at the Imperial War Museum.

Notable people on the list were:

• Winston Churchill (for being a prominent anti-Nazi);
• Noel Coward (for being homosexual);
• H. G. Wells (for being a socialist);
• Virginia Woolf (likely for being bisexual);
• E. M. Forster (for being homosexual);
• John Buchan (for being "a Jewish sympathiser");
• Sigmund Freud (for being Jewish);
• Paul Robeson (for being a communist)

On knowing the book, Rebecca West is said to have sent a telegram to Noel Coward saying My dear - the people we should have been seen dead with.

[edit] See also

• Dr. Franz Six.

[edit] References

• Schellenberg, Walter - Invasion, 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain - accessed at the IWM