Catalogue description Records of the Enemy Branch, Economic Advisory Branch and Economic Warfare Department

It had been agreed before the war that the conduct of all operations of economic warfare should be in the hands of a single, independent Ministry which was accordingly established on 3 September 1939. A minister was appointed under the Minister of Economic Warfare Order, 1939 (SR & O 1939 No. 1188), made pursuant to the Ministers of the Crown (Emergency Appointments) Act, 1939 (2 & 3 Geo. VI Chap. 77).

Ministers of Economic Warfare and their date of appointment

• Rt. Hon.Ronald H.Cross, MP - 3 September 1939
• Rt. Hon.Hugh Dalton, MP - 15 May 1940
• Rt. Hon.Viscount Wolmer (later Earl of Selborne) - 22 February 1942

Director-Generals of the Ministry of Economic Warfare and their date of appointment

• Sir Frederick William Leith-Ross - 1939
• Henry Charles Ponsonby Moore, 10th Earl of Drogheda - April 1942

The ministry was made responsible for all measures designed to undermine the enemy's economic structure and lead to its ultimate collapse. It advised on, and to a large extent directed, all possible measures to restrict the enemy's relations with the outside world and also provided reports and gave advice to guide the planning of the war. Its activities included control of contraband, restriction of enemy supplies and making recommendations for aerial attack on targets most likely to affect the enemy's economy. It was also responsible for control of the Special Operations Executive.

Also important in the work of the ministry from the beginning of the war were three committees which included representatives of other interested departments, in particular the Admiralty, the Ministry of Shipping and the Board of Trade. Central assessment of the nature of cargoes intercepted by the Royal Navy was made by a Contraband Committee, and the Enemy Exports Committee considered particular cases arising from the embargo on enemy exports.

In January 1942 these two committees were amalgamated with the purely departmental Permits Committee to form the Blockade Committee, which continued until the end of the war. Finally there was a Black List Committee which controlled the placing on a statutory list of the names of firms and individuals thought to be dealing with the enemy. British firms were prohibited from trading with those on the list.

Initially the ministry was divided into four departments, but these soon increased in number and were divided into two branches known later in the war as the General Branch and the Enemy Branch, each under a director. The work of the two directors was at first co-ordinated by a director general, but in 1943 he himself became head of the General Branch, the Enemy Branch being put under the charge of the deputy director general.

The Enemy Branch developed in 1942 into a purely intelligence organisation, and in April 1944 it was transferred to the Foreign Office, where it became the Economic Advisory Branch. The General Branch dealt with operational aspects of the ministry's work. The Export Surpluses and Post war Relief Department of the ministry, established in February 1941, was responsible to the minister without portfolio until it was transferred to the Board of Trade in March 1942.

From the beginning of 1942 the Ministry was responsible for co-ordinating all questions affecting supplies to, and purchase from, the European neutrals. The ministry played a leading part in the Economic and Industrial Planning Staff, an interdepartmental body set up early in 1944 to study the economic aspects of plans for liberated or occupied territories in Europe.

The Ministry of Economic Warfare was dissolved on 28 May 1945 (SR & O 1945 No.613), its residual functions passing to the new Economic Warfare Department of the Foreign Office.

In April 1944 the Enemy Branch of the Ministry of Economic Warfare was partially transferred to the Foreign Office under the title Enemy Branch, Foreign Office and Ministry of Economic Warfare. It remained at Lansdowne House, Berkeley Square with its own Establishments Department and with civil, not foreign, service grades.

The work of Enemy Branch principally involved the evaluation of economic intelligence, for example on potential bombing targets, for the specific needs of its, mainly service, customers. Increasing involvement with post-war planning and negotiations with neutral countries made it desirable for Enemy Branch to be under Foreign Office control.

The title of the branch was changed to Economic Advisory Branch, Foreign Office and Ministry of Economic Warfare in October 1944, and in June 1945 it was dissolved. Some of its departments, including the Economic and Industrial Planning Staff, went to the Control Office for Germany and Austria and a new Foreign Office Economic Intelligence Department was established, but this, too, was wound up in 1952.

The Economic Warfare Department was established within the Foreign Office to take over the residual functions of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, which was wound up in May 1945, including supply purchase agreements with neutrals, blacklists and contraband control. This included responsibility for the campaign against German external assets, known as the Safehaven Programme, which included tracing and restoring loot, such as works of art; preventing the escape of war criminals and their assets; and taking steps against the resurgence of Nazi Germany in neutral countries and under neutral cloaks by the settlement of technicians and the establishment of funds as a basis for industrial rearmament.

The department's work and staff gradually diminished and it was wound up on 31 December 1949, and its remaining functions taken over by the German General Economic Department, German Section.