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This article recounts the execution of William Joyce – known as “Lord Haw-Haw” – the fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster executed for high treason after World War II. The content is based on court records, contemporary newspapers, and historical sources. We condemn all acts of treason and fascism. This article is for historical education only, not to glorify violence or advocate for any political ideology.
Lord Haw-Haw: Why Was William Joyce Executed on the Gallows?
William Joyce, the man known as “Lord Haw-Haw”, was one of the most hated figures in Britain during World War II. His mock-aristocratic voice beamed across the airwaves from Berlin, mocking Britain’s war effort, cheering for Nazi Germany, and ending each broadcast with the infamous catchphrase: “Germany calling, Germany calling.” After the war, he was captured, tried, and executed. But why was he executed by hanging specifically? The answer lies in a legal loophole, a passport, and a 14th-century treason law.
1. Who Was William Joyce? From Street Fascist to Goebbels’ Voice
William Brooke Joyce was born on April 24, 1906, in Brooklyn, New York, to an Irish father and an English mother . He was raised in Ireland, later moved to England, and became an active member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) in the early 1930s . Joyce was known for his powerful oratory and also notorious for street brawling – a deep razor scar on his cheek from an attack became his identifying mark .
In late August 1939, just before the war broke out, Joyce and his wife fled to Germany . In Berlin, he was hired by the English Service of German Radio under Joseph Goebbels. His voice quickly became familiar to millions of British listeners. With his fake upper-class English accent, he read Nazi propaganda bulletins, exaggerated Allied losses, mocked Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and derided Britain’s war effort . An estimated 9 million British listeners tuned into his broadcasts .
2. The Capture and Treason Trial
When Nazi Germany collapsed in May 1945, Joyce was captured at Flensburg, near the Danish border. A British intelligence patrol recognised his distinctive voice. During the arrest, a German-Jewish soldier named Geoffrey Perry shot Joyce in the buttocks, believing he was reaching for a gun (in fact, he was only reaching for a fake passport) . Joyce was taken to London and tried at the Old Bailey on three counts of high treason .
However, the prosecution faced a major obstacle: William Joyce was not a British citizen. He was born in the United States (American citizen), had Irish parents, and had become a German citizen in 1940 . How could a non-British citizen be convicted of betraying Britain?
Joyce’s lawyers argued that the court had no jurisdiction because their client owed no allegiance to the British Crown. But the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, made a clever legal argument: Joyce had applied for and been issued a British passport in 1933 (to attend a Nazi rally in Nuremberg). By accepting that passport, he had “claimed and asserted” the right to British diplomatic protection. Therefore, until that passport expired, he owed allegiance to the King. His propaganda broadcasts while the passport was still valid (from September 1939 to July 1940) constituted high treason .
Judge Tucker accepted this argument. Joyce was convicted of high treason on September 19, 1945, and sentenced to death. His appeals to the Court of Appeal (November 1, 1945) and the House of Lords (December 13, 1945) were dismissed, by a 4-1 vote .
3. Why the Gallows? The Penalty Under 14th-Century Treason Law
At the time of Joyce’s trial, the mandatory sentence for high treason was death by hanging, drawing and quartering – though by the 20th century, the sentence had been reduced to simple hanging . The execution took place at 9:09 a.m. on January 3, 1946, at Wandsworth Prison, London. The hangman was Albert Pierrepoint – the man who hanged approximately 200 criminals, including many Nazi war criminals .
According to witnesses, Joyce remained defiant to the end. He declared: “In death as in life, I defy the Jews who caused this last war… I am proud to die for my ideals” . It is said that the scar on his face split open due to the force of the drop from the gallows .
4. A Legal Legacy and a Question of Justice
Historian A.J.P. Taylor famously remarked on Joyce’s case: “Technically, Joyce was hanged for making a false statement when applying for a passport, the usual penalty for which is a small fine” . This is one of the strangest quirks of British law: a man was effectively executed for a false statement on a passport application from 12 years earlier.
However, to the British public in 1945-1946, there was no sympathy for Joyce. His voice had mocked them for six years of war. He was “the voice of the enemy” and the “personification of Nazi Germany” . His execution by hanging – the standard method for common criminals and traitors – was seen as fitting punishment.
Joyce was the last person to be executed for high treason in the United Kingdom . (The last person executed for a non-murder offence was Theodore Schurch, hanged for treachery the following day, January 4, 1946 .) He was buried in an unmarked grave within Wandsworth Prison, later exhumed and reburied in Galway, Ireland, in 1976 .
William Joyce was executed on the gallows for high treason – an offence defined by a 14th-century English statute. But his case was more than that: it was a bizarre legal drama where a passport became the key piece of evidence and a false statement became a death sentence. To the British public, his death was just vengeance for a traitor. To legal historians, it remains a controversial precedent. And to history, William Joyce “Lord Haw-Haw” remains a symbol – of betrayal, of propaganda, and of the price paid for siding with the enemy in wartime.
Primary sources:
Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) records – William Joyce trial, September 1945 .
Contemporary newspaper reports from The Times, The Guardian, and other sources .
Historical sources on the British execution system and hangman Albert Pierrepoint .
Treason Act 1351 (25 Edw. 3, stat. 5, c. 2) .
Memoirs of Sir Hartley Shawcross, lead prosecutor .
David O’Donoghue, Hitler’s Irish Voices: The Story of German Radio’s Wartime Irish Service .