The man who spared Hitler in WW1; or did he?

In the History Channel’s series The World Wars there is scene depicting an event that is alleged to have happened to Adolf Hitler at the end of World War One.   The television series focuses on a retreating, disheveled, disoriented Hitler picking himself up wounded from the ground and coming face to face with a British soldier with his rifle leveled at the future dictator of Nazi Germany.  The suspense is maintained as the British soldier, Henry Tandey, ponders whether to pull the trigger.  The forlorn Hitler, at this stage a lance-corporal in the German Army, stands there resigned to his fate.  Tandey elects not to shoot as Hitler is unarmed and wounded.  He lowers his rifle.  Hitler nods a thankyou and limps back to his lines.   The scene now cuts to an American professor who exclaims effusively that this was one of the great What Ifs of history. What if Tandey had decided to pull that trigger?  The whole course of the history of the 20th century would have been changed.

But did this event really happen?  Is the History Channel guilty of fostering a myth?

The basic Hitler/Tandey story is as follows.  At Marcoigne in France on 28th September, 1918, Tandey had Hitler in his sights but decided not to shoot him.  At the end of the war, Hitler saw a photo of Tandey being awarded the Victoria Cross for valor for certain events that transpired on this very same day.  Hitler recognized the man and kept the cutting. In 1937 Hitler obtained a copy of the Matania painting, sometimes referred to as the Menin Crossroads, from Tandey’s old regiment, the Green Howards.  The painting shows Tandey carrying a wounded soldier at the village of Gheluvelt near Ypres in October 1914.  In 1938 while visiting Hitler at the height of the Munich Crisis, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain came across this painting at Hitler’s Berghof retreat at Berchtesgaden.  Hitler recounted the story of how Tandey had spared his life and asked him to pass on his good wishes to Tandey.  On his return, Chamberlain phoned Tandey with the call on Tandey’s end being witnessed by his nine-year-old nephew William Whateley who claimed his uncle came off the phone saying that he always thought there was something strangely familiar about Hitler.  (1)  This is the essence of the story, and if you think that it is a little hard to believe, that’s because it is.   When one examines the primary sources for this account, a totally different story emerges which might encourage the professor to check his sources before making so bold a claim.

To assess the accuracy of the History Channel’s claim, it is necessary to look at sources, preferably primary sources.  The words of Tandey, Hitler, and of people writing at the time reveals a somewhat different turn of events.

On Friday, 28th July 1939 the Yorkshire Evening Post (2) published a story describing how Private Henry Tandey, VC, would be attending a reunion of the Green Howards Regiment (it was the regiment’s 250th anniversary) the following night.  The article went on to say how Tandey was also famous as the central figure in the Matania painting called the Menin Crossroads.  The paper added two curious details.  The first was that Tandey was carrying a man shot by a machine gun team commanded by Corporal Hitler, and the second was that Hitler had a copy of this same picture in his Berchtesgaden home.  A week later on Saturday, 5th August 1939, the Coventry Herald (3) came out with a story that at the reunion Tandey was given a curious piece of information which led him to exclaim,

“According to them, I’ve met Adolf Hitler.  Maybe they’re right, but I don’t remember him.  I’ve met the dictator and taken no notice of him.”

Tandey then adds that he thinks the story originated from Chamberlain’s visit to Munich the previous September and that on coming across the painting, Hitler explained the reason for it.  Alas, Tandey had no more details, but his comment that there were several machine gun teams ranged against him suggests the machine gunner story is upmost in his mind.   The Chamberlain papers held at the University of Birmingham make no mention of this story nor is there any mention of the Matania painting although Chamberlain did mention an Italian nude hanging in the room.  (4) This primary source, however, does contradict one of the claims of the accepted story.  Chamberlain could not have phoned Tandey the year before as Tandey is only finding out about the incident now.  Add to the fact that Tandey also did not have a phone at his home (5), seriously questions the memory of the nine-year old witness.

So what was Hitler doing with a photograph of Tandey?  Evidence quoted from the Green Howards Regiment tells of a copy of the painting being sent to Hitler in 1937.    During the war, an officer of the regiment had been tended by a German doctor in one of the buildings in the painting and they had kept in touch after the war.  A copy of the painting was later sent to the doctor who was a member of Hitler’s staff and then another was sent to Hitler once he became aware of it.  Capt. Wedenmann, Hitler’s adjutant, thanked the Green Howards with these words.

“The Fuhrer is naturally very interested in things connected with his own war experiences.  He was obviously moved when I showed him the picture.  He has directed me to send you his best thanks for your friendly gift which is so rich in memories.” (6)

It is true that Hitler was very interested in things connected with his war experience. In 1932 an attack on Hitler’s war record during his unsuccessful bid for the German presidency led to Hitler bringing a successful lawsuit against the publication Echo de Woche which had accused Hitler of fabricating his war record. (7)   Many front-line soldiers had considered Hitler a ‘rear area pig’ in his role as a regimental dispatch runner. (8)  It is true that Hitler spent most of the war as a regimental runner but he clearly states in comments found in Hitler’s Table Talk, informal conversations with his cronies during the war years which stenographers had recorded, that he often visited the front and explained how he would look after his dog Foxl when he had to do that.  (9) Consequently, the Nazi party archive combed the country looking for documents, photographs or paintings of Hitler’s war-time experience (10) so that he could present a full picture of his First World War experience.  Hitler had been a volunteer, had fought in the front line, had been wounded twice, promoted once, and decorated on numerous occasions including an Iron Cross First Class which he proudly wore on numerous occasions.  (11)  A copy of the Matania painting would be an essential element of his war experience not for who it shows, but rather where the location was.

The Menin Crossroad is actually the Kruiseke Crossroads outside the village of Gheluvelt near Ypres in Belgium where Private Hitler underwent his baptism of fire as a front-line soldier of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment (RIR16) which was also known as the List Regiment after its first colonel.  We possess two letters written by Hitler on this event (12).  His regiment was reduced from 3,600 to just over 600 men, but Hitler boasts that in the end after four days of hard fighting they beat the English and captured the village of Gheluvelt and the Kruiseke Crossroads.  In his letter to Ernst Hepp (13), Hitler mention that a miracle took place at this battle.  Was it that his life was spared by a British soldier?  No!  The miracle was that a bullet tore through his right sleeve, but somehow he had survived unscathed.  It is therefore quite likely that the painting was important to Hitler because of the place, Gheluvelt, and not the man, Tandey.   Tandey had however been at Gheluvelt.  The Matania painting of him at the Kruiseke Crossroads came from a sketch of an actual event that took place a few weeks prior to the German assault in which Hitler figured when the British still held the village.  Hitler’s regiment attacked on October 29th, 1914.  Tandey’s regiment was withdrawn that same day.  It is possible that Tandey and Hitler were firing at each other and that Tandey contributed to the decimation of Hitler’s regiment on that day.   However, Hitler could not have been the corporal in charge of the machine gun section that hit the wounded soldier carried by Tandey in the painting because Hitler was not a corporal at that time, nor a machine gunner, and as stated above, the sketch was made prior to Hitler’s arrival at the Front.   Thus the story printed in the Yorkshire Post on July 28th, 1939 identifying Hitler as the man who shot the man that Tandey was carrying is incorrect.

Going back to Tandey and the “I’ve met Hitler’’ story, there was a flurry of newspaper articles over the next few weeks claiming that Tandey and Hitler came face to face or faced each other across No Man’s Land.  (14)  The final article on Tandey and Hitler is dated September 23rd, 1939.  By now World War 2 had started.  However, the paper basically asks Tandey if he would join up again. There is no mention of any regret of having Hitler in his sights and letting him walk away.  So it must be concluded that after all these articles from August and September 1939, nobody knew of the story as presented by the History Channel.   Thus the story does not originate at Gheluvelt in 1914 according to these primary sources that I have investigated.

So where does the story come from?

To answer this question, we must fast forward one year to December 1st, 1940 and a British Sunday tabloid paper called the Sunday Graphic. (15)   This is the source of the History Channel’s claim.  The article opens with a sensational headline, “ I Had Hitler At My Mercy.” The reporter, Vivien Batchelor, claims that the story came from the mouth of Henry Tandey, “the VC who chased the Fuhrer with a bayonet.”

Tandey certainly was in low spirits at the end of November 1940.  The devastating German bombing raids on the City of Coventry had destroyed much of the town, killed many hundreds of civilians, and had reduced Tandey’s own home to rubble.   The reporter has Tandey regretting the incident that is portrayed in the scene in the History Channel.  However, the article is littered with inaccuracies starting with the very first word “Corporal”.   Tandey had refused all promotion in the First World War and only became a sergeant after the conflict.  The second error, far more serious this time, is found in the second paragraph where the date of the encounter is given.  The date is stated as September 28th, 1918.  We know exactly where Henry Tandey was on this date.  He was in Marcoigne in France as this was the day he was destined to win his VC making him the most decorated British private soldier of the First World War.  Amazingly the reporter places the event back at Menin near Ypres where four years before the pair had been shooting at each other during the First Battle of Ypres and where Hitler’s regiment had been decimated.

The newspaper story now gives an account of what took place which is basically a combination of a Tandey account of the events at Gheluvelt in October 1914 (16) where he is shooting at the German machine gun teams, and Tandey’s VC citation of September 1918 (17) which had been published in the London Gazette on 14th December, 1918, where with eight other men he leads a bayonet charge and takes a large number of prisoners.   But these are two separate actions.   Thus a confused and erroneous story from a Sunday tabloid, conflating two actions from two separate events four years apart, has become the basis for the History Channel’s claim.

The meeting between the two at Marcoigne on September 28th, 1918 is impossible.   We know where Tandey was on this date.   We also know where Hitler was.  On this particular date Hitler was 50 miles away at Comines near Ypres.  (18)  We know this because the British academic Thomas Weber located the Brigade and Divisional records to which the Hitler’s RIR16 belonged in the Bavarian War Archive in Munich. (19)   This is irrefutable evidence.  The Sunday Graphic is wrong.  The whole story sensationalized.

I leave the final comment to the reporter of the Midland Daily Telegraph on Monday, August 14th, 1939,  (20) who commented on an attempt by a Blackpool showman to persuade Henry Tandey to exhibit himself at a Blackpool side-show as the man who carried the man who was shot by a machine gun commanded by Corporal Hitler back in 1914.  The reporter says that it was a good story which would pique the interest of those eager to make some money.  He writes, “Imagine the attractiveness of the story outlined against the background of raucous publicity which depends more upon glamour than accuracy of detail; more upon sensation than probability.  It’s a money-spinning attraction.”   Henry Tandey turned down the Blackpool showman.  However, where the Blackpool showman failed, 70 years later the History Channel succeeded.  Who needs accuracy when you can pander to sensationalism?

From my studies I can conclude that such an encounter as portrayed by the History Channel would have been highly improbable in 1914 at Gheluvelt and totally impossible in 1918 at Marcoigne.   If the History Channel had checked its primary sources, they would not have portrayed myth as history.

Postscript

There is a postscript to this which might give another more plausible account of the story and it actually comes from the Sunday Graphic.  The reporter quotes a comment made by Hitler to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938.  It states, “That man came so near to killing me that I thought I should never see Germany again.  Providence saved me from such devilishly accurate fire as those English boys were aiming at us.”   Perhaps this was the message passed on to Tandey at the reunion dinner.  It was that Tandey was one of the regular soldiers of the British BEF who decimated Hitler’s regiment at Gheluvelt.  The bullet passing through Hitler’s sleeve and not through his body was providential, a sign that he was destined for greatness.   Hitler certainly saw his rise to power as some form of divine will.   Tandey therefore did ‘meet’ and not shoot Hitler at Gheluvelt but not in the way the History Channel portrays it.  This version of the story reminds me of an anecdote I heard about Sir Anthony Eden’s visit to Hitler back in 1935 when in an after-dinner chat they realized they had been stationed 500 yards from each other at the Front in March 1918.    This led to the French ambassador taking Eden aside and stating, “I understand that you were opposite Hitler.  And you missed?!” (21)  Just as Eden and Hitler had a bizarre shared memory at La Fere in 1918, so it is likely that Tandey and Hitler had a different one at Gheluvelt in 1914.   Like Eden, Tandey missed Hitler.  This seems the more plausible story.

  1. Johnson, David, “The Man who didn’t shoot Hitler,” (2014), p. 144.
  2. Yorkshire Evening Post, July 28th, 1939, “Private Tandey, V.C. Goes North.”
  3. Coventry Herald, August 5th, 1939, “Coventry V.C. Who Met Adolf Hitler.”
  4. Johnson, p. 146-147.
  5. Johnson, p. 145.
  6. Johnson, p. 150.
  7. Weber, Thomas, “Hitler’s First War,” (2010), p. 283.
  8. Weber, p. 261.
  9. Bormann, Martin, “Hitler’s Table Talk,” (2012), p.99.
  10. Weber, p.292.
  11. Maser, Werner, “Hitler’s Letters and Notes,” (1974), p. 108.
  12. Maser, p.53.
  13. Maser, p.86.
  14. The Coventry Standard, September 23rd, 1939, “Carrying On With His Job.”
  15. The Sunday Graphic, December 1st, 1940, “I Had Hitler At My Mercy.”
  16. Johnson, p.152.
  17. 14788 Supplement to the London Gazette, 14th December, 1918.
  18. Weber, p.220.
  19. Weber, p.5.
  20. Midland Daily Telegraph, August 14th, 1939, “On Show.”
  21. Reynolds, David, “The Long Shadow, (part one, 29 minute mark)” BBC Video.