Quoted By:
A terse paragraph in the Irish national dailies on 3 May 1945 started the avalanche of international protest. Under the heading ‘People and Places’, the Fianna Fáil-backed Irish Press reported laconically that the Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs, Éamon de Valera, accompanied by the Secretary of External Affairs, Joseph Walshe, ‘called on Dr Hempel, the German minister, last evening, to express his condolences’. The condolences were for Hitler who had committed suicide on 30 April. The Irish Times was prevented by the censor from publishing the following report from Reuter on 3 May: ‘Éire delegation mourns Hitler. Lisbon, May 3. The Éireann Minister in Lisbon today hoisted the German swastika at half mast over the legation as a sign of mourning for Hitler’. While the report that de Valera had condoled with the German minister was accurate, the Lisbon report was incorrect on one count. The swastika did fly at half mast over the Irish legation in Lisbon; but it had not been placed there by an Irish diplomat. While the Irish occupied the ground floor, the headquarters of German intelligence for the Iberian peninsula was situated on the floor above. They, not the Irish, had hung out the swastika in sympathy.
Both pieces of information—one accurate and the other false—were sent by the international wire agencies around the world. Éamon de Valera, the leader of neutral Ireland, was widely interpreted internationally as being pro-Axis and personally sympathetic to Hitler. The swastika at half mast was further proof, if proof were needed, that the Irish diplomatic service abroad had been instructed to show respect for Hitler and his fallen Reich.
