John Amery was born in London on March 14, 1912, into a family of considerable political standing. His father, Leo Amery, was a British statesman and Conservative government minister. His mother, Florence Greenwood, came from a prominent Canadian legal family. Despite this privileged background, John’s behavior worried his family from an early age.
At just two years old, a nanny described him as a very hard child prone to violent tantrums. By the age of five, a teacher observed that he was an extremely abnormal boy with a disturbing inward focus. His formal education began at Miss Ironside School, where the headmistress quickly labeled him unteachable. A series of private tutors followed, none of whom could control him.
John was eventually sent to Harrow, one of Britain’s most elite public schools. His rebellious nature became immediately apparent. He was caught sneaking out at night to attend London nightclubs. The school’s punishment book from 1926 records a sanction for shop stealing and moral breakdown. His housemaster later remarked that John was without doubt the most difficult boy he had ever tried to manage.
Concerned, his parents took him to see a psychologist, Dr. Maurice Wright, who concluded that the boy had no moral sense of right and wrong. In a final attempt to stabilize him, John was sent to a school in Switzerland. The result was disastrous. He returned home having contracted syphilis, a condition that would affect him for years. He told his tutor he had caught it by prostituting himself to men.
Despite his chaotic upbringing, John was intellectually capable. In 1929, he secured a place at Oxford University. Instead of attending, he turned it down and set his sights on the film industry. He briefly worked as an assistant director for a small traveling company. With charm and self-confidence, he convinced friends and family members to invest in a film project titled Jungle Skies, to be shot in Africa. The proposed budget was $100,000. The project never materialized.
Around this time, John announced his intention to marry Una Eveene Wing, an actress he claimed would restore confidence in his creditors through her supposed wealth. In reality, Una was known to police as a common prostitute. The couple married in Greece and later settled in Paris, funding an extravagant lifestyle through borrowing and pawning valuables.
In Paris, John’s eccentricity grew. He often carried his childhood teddy bear to cafes, placing it beside him at the table and buying it drinks. He also carried a gun at all times, convinced that creditors were hunting him down. According to Una, John continued working as a male prostitute and made frequent visits to brothels.
Politically, John began to shift. A staunch anti-communist, he embraced fascism as a counterbalance to the spread of Bolshevism. In 1936, he was declared bankrupt. He left his wife in London and traveled to Spain, where he supported Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War. He later claimed to have witnessed communist torture chambers in Barcelona, experiences that deepened his ideological hatred.
He came under the influence of French fascist leader Jacques Doriot and his French Popular Party. John traveled with members of the movement through Austria, Italy, and Germany, eager to witness fascist rule firsthand. When World War II began in September 1939, John returned to Paris with a new girlfriend, Janine Bard, who worked as a prostitute.
After the fall of France and the establishment of the Vichy regime in June 1940, John remained in unoccupied France. Nazi officials saw his family name and political connections as an unusual asset. In October 1942, with the assistance of German officers, John relocated to Berlin to serve the Nazi cause. There, he was received by Adolf Hitler himself, who approved his presence and granted him the status of a guest of the Reich.
John was quickly pushed into Nazi propaganda efforts. He was offered the opportunity to speak to British audiences via German state radio. On November 19, 1942, he made his first broadcast. Framing himself as a patriotic Englishman, he declared that a crime was being committed against civilization and that the British people were being lied to. He called for the overthrow of Churchill’s government and urged his countrymen to support Nazi Germany’s campaign against the Soviet Union.
As his usefulness to Nazi propaganda waned, John returned to Paris. There, with Michelle Toma, another woman known to French police as a prostitute, he began working on a new idea: the creation of a pro-German British military unit. His proposal was to recruit British prisoners of war to fight alongside the Germans against the Soviet Union. Even his own father would later call this plan undoubtedly his most heinous offense.
The project made little progress until early 1943, when John reconnected with Jacques Doriot. Encouraged by Doriot’s success in recruiting French volunteers, John revived his plan. He aimed to form a core group of 50 to 100 men for propaganda purposes, with the potential to expand into a larger fighting force.
His first official recruiting attempt took place at the Saint Denis prisoner of war camp outside Paris. He addressed a group of 40 to 50 British and Commonwealth prisoners. He handed out printed material and spoke passionately about the need to fight Bolshevism. The reception was overwhelmingly negative, with most inmates rejecting his appeal outright.
Despite the failure, John persisted and eventually found two men who showed interest. Only one of them, Kenneth Barry, actually joined what would later be called the British Free Corps. John’s involvement with the unit ended in October 1943, when the Waffen-SS decided his services were no longer required. Control of the project passed into other hands, and the unit was formally renamed.
In 1944, John traveled to Italy at the invitation of Benito Mussolini. By this time, the Axis powers were in retreat, and Italy was descending into chaos. While there, John was captured by Italian partisans. He reportedly expressed relief when British forces arrived to take him into custody. According to Captain Alan Wicker, the officer sent to bring him in, John greeted him by saying, “Thank God you’re here. I thought they were going to shoot me.”
John was transferred to an internment camp in the town of Terni, where he was interrogated by British investigators. The officers found him strangely detached from the seriousness of his situation. He spoke at length about personal possessions he had lost, including his childhood teddy bear and his wife’s fur coats. He appeared far more concerned about missing belongings than the charges he would soon face.
At one point, he told investigators, “I don’t suppose for a moment they’ll bring a charge against me, but if they did, of course, my father would see to it.” John was eventually flown back to England. In a symbolic moment, he arrived dressed in full fascist uniform, complete with jack boots.
He was held in a London prison to await trial and charged with eight counts of high treason. Under British law, the penalty for treason was death. His family launched a desperate campaign to save him, calling in political favors and even petitioning the king. His younger brother, Julian, argued that John had taken Spanish citizenship and therefore could not legally be guilty of treason against Britain.
His lawyer attempted to present evidence of mental illness, supported by John’s father, who believed his son was unstable. Despite these efforts, the court did not accept any argument based on diminished responsibility. In a dramatic and unexpected turn, on the very first day of his trial on November 28, 1945, John pleaded guilty to all eight charges of treason and was sentenced to death. The entire hearing lasted just eight minutes.
John Amery was 33 years old when he was hanged on December 19, 1945, by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint. According to reports, Amery maintained a strange composure until the very end. As he approached the gallows, he is said to have turned to Pierrepoint and said, “Mr. Pierrepoint, I’ve always wanted to meet you, but not of course under these circumstances.”