Madam, – My family lived at 72, Northumberland Road from 1940 to 1962, a few doors away from the German embassy. Consequently, I remember clearly events involving the embassy which was guarded in front by an Irish armed garda detective and at the rear by an armed uniformed garda, 24/7.
A radio transmitter which operated from the embassy was picked up by a local Irish radio enthusiast, later confirmed by Irish Army intelligence. Weather reports and movements of Irish Defence Forces were transmitted to an offshore U-boat: this was vital to both Germany and the Allies; the Normandy invasion was severely hampered by adverse weather resulting in the loss by drowning of many brave Allied soldiers before even reaching the beaches.
In later years, a patient told me that his Local Defence Forces’ platoon guarded the Boyne Bridge, 24/7, armed with one rifle, one round of ammunition and binoculars, hurleys and walking sticks. A U-boat surfaced regularly, a sailor appeared on deck, surveyed them and at two to three miles distance couldn’t distinguish hurleys or walking sticks from real guns.
Ireland was very short of arms and ammunitions at that time.
Then the Luftwaffe bombed North Strand, Terenure twice and South Circular Road, all in Dublin; Wexford with serious loss of innocent civilian life and property; and blitzed Belfast.
To compound Ireland’s sufferings, German warships and planes sank almost the entire Irish Merchant Marine fleet with the loss of many brave innocent merchant seamen who were just bringing food and medicines to Ireland. At wars end, Ireland sent a gift of two boatloads of live cattle and medicines to the starving, destitute German people.
Now Germany, and some of its neighbours, are imposing usurious interest rates on loans given to us to help us recover from an economic collapse which they were largely responsible for causing. They saw Ireland as a good gamble for their surplus funds, they lost, and are now complaining and acting as the financial bully-boys of Europe.
With friends like these, who needs enemies? – Yours, etc,