Iain Sproat

In the spring of 1940, the British humorist P.G. Wodehouse was taken prisoner by the German army on its advance into France. He was soon moved from a form of house arrest to an internment camp, where he spent the next year with other male British prisoners of war in highly restricted - but not inhumane - accommodations. Thanks in part to his fame in the then-neutral United States, he was released in mid-1941 and allowed to live with and his wife Ethel at the Albon Hotel in Berlin, where they remained until the arrival of Allied forces several years later. At the onset of his release, however, he agreed to make five broadcasts over German radio, detailing the different stages of his life as an internee in light, comic terms, akin to the narratives of his famous creation, Bertie Wooster. These broadcasts saw Wodehouse condemned as a Nazi collaborator and traitor within the British press and, to a great degree, among the British public. It was an accusation he never managed to live down over the next thirty years.

Sprout, a British MP and self-confessed fan of Wodehouse, made it his goal to uncover the truth about Wodehouse's complicity with the Nazis; this book is the result. More of an extended treatise than a narrative, Sprout uses different sources to outline the German objective behind the broadcasts, their reception in the United Kingdom, and the actual, rather timid content of the broadcasts themselves. If Sprout's argument is to be accepted, Wodehouse's major failing was in believing that the Germans had no ulterior motive, and that his audience would accept as satire a light, frothy account of the British "stiff upper lip" when faced with adversity. In short: he was staggeringly idealistic and probably quite naive, which seems to be borne out by the testimony of many friends and acquaintances, including his own wife. The manipulation of his comments by journalists, and Wodehouse's own failure to publish a rebuttal against the accusations, only made the situation worse.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the book actually comes after the main argument. Sprout has included full transcripts of all five radio broadcasts, Wodehouse's comprehensive statement to Allied authorities, reports of finances during their Berlin residence by both Wodehouse and his wife, and the concluding report made by Maj. Cussen on Wodehouse's complicity to the Home Office. Even without Sprout's analysis, the documents allow the reader to come to a pretty strong conclusion, and the great mystery - acknowledged by Sprout himself - is why the British government kept the full details secret for almost forty years.

Although misinformation about Wodehouse's wartime activities persists to this day, Sprout's book seems to have been accepted as the definitive word on the subject. It's a quick read and quite interesting to any fan of Wodehouse and his writing. Sprout's narrative is very accessible, albeit slightly repetitive, and he provides a vivid portrait of an author attempting to please his audience that spiraled rapidly and irreparably out of control.… (meer)