Charles Turner (composer)

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Charles Turner (born 1907 - died 1977) was an English composer and part-time spy, who took the last recorded British pre-World War II photographs of Adolf Hitler.

Born in the early 1900s, Turner life changed when his father died and his mother became a good friend of the Duke of Newcastle, who took care of the young boy. Turner resultantly attended public school, and latterly the University of Cambridge, where he became a noted composer and fluent German speaker.

In 1934 Turner made the first of a series of annual visits to the Wagner festival in Bayreuth. On subsequent visits and through friends Turner was introduced to Winifred Wagner, the English wife of Richard Wagner's son Siegfried and one of the Führer's inner circle. In 1938 the British secret service MI5, convinced war was imminent, started to examine and assess the German threat. Approached by mutual friend Alan Angles, Turner was given a Kodak Box Brownie and recruited to furnish MI5 with a record of the Führer at leisure.^[1]

Having been hosted by the chairman of the Bayreuth Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, July 26, 1939 Turner was invited to attend the festival with the Führer's group, where he took the pictures and had a discussion with Hitler.^[2] British ambassador to Berlin Sir Nevile Henderson also attended the festival and had hoped to engage in some last-minute diplomatic discussion, but the Führer refused to see him.^[3] Turner also took photographs of Hitler with other leading Nazis including armaments minister Albert Speer, SS commander Heinrich Himmler, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. Turner subsequently sent a report to MI5, which is still regarded as Top Secret and according to British Government sources in 2007 may never be publicly released.^[4]

Post World War II Turner continued composing and travelling, having married and started a family. He spent a large amount of time in Moscow, and reportedly on one occasion took his son on a tour around a suburban housing estate searching for spy Kim Philby. Such activity according to his son means that Turner was probably still working for the British Secret service.

Turner died in 1977, and his photographs were released to the public in 2007.^[5]