Another Nazi to take advantage of the soft approach of the Irish government was Andrija Artukovic, who was responsible for the death of 1m people in Croatia. Cathal O’Shannon, who has researched Ireland’s treatment of the Nazis after 1945, has discovered that there is a file on Artukovic in the Department of Foreign Affairs but the government has refused to release it.Victims in Artukovic’s camps died from a mixture of hard labour, starvation and poisoning. He had a particular penchant for poisoning children and enjoyed having his picture taken with dead bodies.
Artukovic worked for Hitler as the minister for the interior in Croatia. He arrived in Ireland in 1947 after being referred by a Franciscan church in Switzerland and lived under the assumed name Alois Annick in Rathgar, south Dublin.
After gaining an Irish identity card he left for America in 1948 and settled in California, where he worked as a book keeper.
This doesn't surprise me. The Irish hated the English. A matter of fact, my grandmother moved from Ireland in the late 30's. She then received a Christmas card from my great grandmother a few years later. On the card there is a Nazi swastika on the corner of it.
And I'm of Irish blood (County Kerry)...and Catholic.
DeValera participated in the Easter Rebellion in 1916. Sinn Fein got its Mauser rifles from Germany, and was expecting more German aid for its uprising. When he became Prime Minister, he refused to allow Ireland to participate in any way in World War II. It shocks me, but it's not entirely a surprise, that he helped out Germany's agents after World War II.
fyi
bump for later
Belfast was bombed by the Germans in 1941 with much damage and human losses. DeValera sent firemen from the Republic to help out those from Northern Ireland who'd been working overtime.
Had Dublin been bombed, as Belfast was, it could well have toppled the government, and the Republic itself.
Moreover, the Irish would naturally have wondered if the British would have kept their promise and whether Churchill or his successor could have gotten the Ulster Protestants to go along with the deal.
So while we can wish that DeValera had acted otherwise and taken the offer, he had his reasons for not doing so, however much we might disagree ourselves in hindsight.