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Catalogue description Home Office: Internees, Personal Files
| Reference: | HO 214 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Home Office: Internees, Personal Files |
| Description: |
These files deal with individuals interned; chiefly enemy or neutral aliens, but including a few British subjects detained under Defence Regulation 18B. The papers in this series date from 1940 when the I/P series was created following the institution of mass internment. The Home Office was the Department with overall responsibility for the welfare of internees and, from August 1940 onwards, for the internal management and administration of the camps in which they were kept (the War Office retained responsibility for security and the provision of guards). A Home Office personal file would be created whenever the Department became involved in the case of a particular internee for whatever reason: when there was correspondence from the camp authorities or from a protecting power, when the internee himself or his relatives wrote to the Department or to a Member of Parliament, when an internee was released or died during internment. The personal case files in the series, a small sample of the total created, as a whole give a picture of how the internees were treated and of the conditions under which they were kept. Most of the files relate to enemy aliens who were interned under the Royal Prerogative; some however relate to nationals of friendly countries who were detained under Article 12(5A) of the Aliens Order 1920 (as amended by the Aliens Order 1940) which provided for the detention of any alien considered dangerous or undesirable and who but for the war would have been deported; a few relate to British nationals considered to be of"hostile origins or association" who were detained under Defence Regulation 18B. |
| Date: | 1940-1949 |
| Arrangement: |
In numerical order by departmental file number by transfer. |
| Held by: | The National Archives, Kew |
| Legal status: | Public Record(s) |
| Language: | English |
| Physical description: | 87 file(s) |
| Access conditions: | Open unless otherwise stated |
| Immediate source of acquisition: |
From 1986 Home Office |
| Administrative / biographical background: |
Internment, of a relatively small number of German nationals considered to be potentially hostile, began immediately before the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939. Shortly thereafter tribunals, operating under the guidance of the Home Office and usually under the chairmanship of a member of the legal profession, were set up in order to decide which enemy aliens were to be interned and which were to be allowed to remain at liberty, with or without restriction. It was initially the intention of the Home Office that only those enemy aliens who remained sympathetic to the war aims of their native countries, or who were otherwise considered to be dangerous or disreputable, should be interned; refugees, most of whom were Jewish, who had left Germany or Austria to escape Nazi persecution were to be allowed to remain free, in the main without restriction. However, as the threat of invasion and fears of a 'fifth column' increased, all enemy aliens came to be regarded as a potential threat. The number of German and Austrian nationals being interned increased dramatically from 12 May 1940 onwards, Italian nationals began to be arrested following Italy's declaration of war on 10 June 1940 and by July 1940 many aliens previously considered to have had the status of refugees had been arrested and interned. The Government was subsequently to recognise that it had acted precipitately in initiating mass internment and, in a reversal of policy, the release of internees in substantial numbers began in the autumn of 1940 (although a few had been released as early as August of that year). Most internees had been released by the end of 1942; of those that remained many were repatriated from 1943 onwards. It was not, however, until late in 1945 that the last of the internees were finally released. |
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