In Defence of Michael Keogh, The Irish Soldier who Arrested and Saved Hitler

The story by Terrence Aym in Before its News about The Irish Soldier Michael Keogh who Arrested and Saved Adolf Hitler is factuly wrong in a lot of the details.

As for his ascertion that he caused the deaths of 70 millon people because he arrested a man for his own safety because he was being beaten to a pulp by a mob is ridiculous to say the least. True he may have saved his life but surly Terrence did not expect Michael Keogh to see into the future.

To address the inaccuracy’s in Terrence Aym’s story and in defence of Michael Keogh [Kehoe] who is dead 47 years let me put fingers to key board and tell you some of the True Story of this  Brave Irish Soldier.

Michael Kehoe with his Irish dancing medals 1906

The spelling of the name Kehoe changed in some cases to Keogh around 1950′s

Revolutionary Blood Flowed Through his Veins

Michael Patrick Kehoe was born in Tullamore, Ireland  in 1891. He was raised in Tullow Co. Carlow. His father Laurence was a police officer for a time and then a merchent. His grandfather  Michael became one of the leaders in the land wars against the British in Coolgreany Co. Wexford after the Kehoe’s land and home were taken by the British. His great grandfather was out in the 1798 Rebellion. So it is fair to say Michael Kehoe would not have been a fan of British rule and there Terrorism against the Irish People and there property.

By the age of 16 Michael Kehoe was emerced in Irish culture and was a member of the Gaelic League in Tullow. In 1906 his aunt and uncle who were banished from there land and were living in America invited him to New York. He took up there offer and arrived there in 1907. While he was studing engineering in New York he joined  the Fighting 69th Irish regiment of the National Guard. His battalion adjutant was Captain Tom Clarke who as history tells became one of the leaders in the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland. He also joined Clan na Gael and the I.R.B. were he meet the Irish Fenian O’Donovan Rossa. In 1911 at a Clan na Gael rally he was intrughduced to Roger Casement the great humanitarian and soon to become Irish Revolutionary. In this company you can see were this story is heading. In his journals he elaborates in much more detail about the Irish organization’s in America and indeed the rest of the story I’m writing here, I am merely skimming the surface.

Get reddy for the Call to Arms and the Fight for Freedom

Michael Kehoe returns to Ireland with others in 1913 and joins the Royal Irish Regiment of the British army with the sole purpose of deserting with arms when the call came to strike for Irish freedom. While waiting he was charged with sedition and locked up. On relese from his sentence WW1 broke out and he was shiped out with his regiment and ended up in the front lines in Mons, Belgium. In the early days at Mons the British and her Allies were quickly overrun and defeated by the German troops and had to retreat. On 24 August 1914 Michael Kehoe and many more solders were captured and after a 5 day march ended up in Sennelager POW camp in Westphalia, Germany. On 24 August the same day of Michael Kehoe’s capture a delegation from Clan na Gael meet the German ambassador to the US Count Bernstorff. They asked the Germans to supply arms and officers to help overthrow British rule in Ireland. The following day a proclamation written by Roger Casement and signed by 44 senor members of Clan na Gael was issued to the German Emperor.October 1914 Casement arrived in Berlin to negotiate an agreement to aid the end of British rule in Ireland. On December 1914 1500 Irish troops from different regiments were transferred to Limburg POW Camp.In brief this is what happened next.  Casement goes to Limburg and asks for volunteers to join an Irish brigade to go back to Ireland and help in the fight for freedom. Michael Kehoe and another soldier Timothy Quinlisk were first to join even doe they could be executed if caught by the British for doing so. In the coming weeks another 53 joined. They were transferred to Zossen military training camp out side Berlin. There they trained as 10 machine-gun teams.

NCO OFFICERS OF CASEMENTS IRISH BRIGADE ZOSSEN 1915

 Approaching Easter 1916 a ship containing 20,000 rifles, machine-guns and 1million rounds of ammunition headed for the west coast of Ireland. Casement and two Irish brigade officers followed in a German U-boat. For reasons still being pondered to this day, there were no volunteers to meet them? After waiting 72 hours in Tralee Bay, Co. Kerry, the British navy caught up with the arms ship [the Aud]. Casement and his two officers had already got ashore from the U-19 in a dingy. Captain Karl Spindler scuttled the Aud and it sank to the bottom of the sea.Casement and one officer Sergeant Bailey were captured and the other officer Captain Monteith escaped ending up in the US. Casement & Bailey were brought to London and put on trial. Bailey got off? And rejoined the British army and served in India till 1918. Roger Casement the great humanitarian and Irish Patriot was sent to his death at the end of a British rope for treason to the British Empire.

Irish Rebels Declare War on the British Empire.

The Irish Rebellion went ahead in Easter 1916 but Casements Irish Brigade was stranded in Germany. After a gallant fight the rebellion failed and the leader’s executed including Captain Tom Clarke mentioned earlier, Big Mistake. By killing these men the British only archived the equivalent of poking an angry Hornet’s nest. A nest that had been contained for close to 800 years and were about to break loose and sting like hell.

In Germany

The Brigade in Germany trained for a few more months but eventually disbanded.Some of the men went to work in farms and factories. Michael Kehoe and some others ended up in Bavaria. While there he married a Bavarian women name    Anna Maria Seuffert.

Michael Kehoe’s marrage to Anna Marie Seuffert, Nurnberg 25/Jan/1919

He joined the Bavarian 16^th Infantry Regiment “giving that he couldn’t fight the British on his home soil he would fight them on European soil”. He had the rank of field-lieutenant with the machine-gun company and took part in the spring offensive 1918 on the Western Front. To him Britain’s difficulties were Ireland opportunities. None the less he goes on to describe the horror of modern warfare and admits to at times shutting of the feed to his machine-gun.

First Encounter with Adolf Hitler.

Bavarian machine-gun team

He says “I was standing outside a field-dressing post on the French border, and it was the first time I took any notice of Lance Corporal Hitler. Somebody nearby said   sympathetically “Kaput” and he goes on to say Hitler had a wound to the side of his head and a bad wound to the groin and not the effects of gas as some have reported. He says he had come to know Hitler by sight over the past two months.

A couple of days later Michael Kehoe contracted trench fever [Black Flue of 1918]

And he goes on to say it killed more men than the shells and bullets. He was put on a hospital train and ended up in a military hospital in Danzig, when he eventually got out the war was over.

He meet some of the ex Irish Brigade members in Danzig. The British were soon to take control of the port of Danzig under the terms of the Armistice and the Irish could still be court-martial for treason. With this in-mind they got assistance from the German authorities to go to Munich in Bavaria with new German names and papers.

This would be the third different name for Michael Kehoe, he was known in the Bavarian Regiment as Georg Konig [Kehoe] now he was Kurt Schwarz. He assisted the Irish in getting attached to the Bavarian Guard in Turken Strasse Kaserne barracks while waiting for demobilisation.

He says he was on leave at his wife’s home in Nuremberg when the Communist lead by Kurt Eisner freed 5000 Russian prisoners and took over Munich and set up there Soviet “government”. He returned to Munich and joined the Freikorps with four other Irish solders, Jeremiah O Callaghan, Patrick Sweeney, John Murphy and James Carr.

Michael Kehoe was Captain of a machine-gun company when they fought there way into Munich and says the fighting was bitter. The Freikorps regained control of the Turken Strasse barracks and Munich. Private Patrick Sweeney was killed in Munich.

Second Encounter with Hitler

A few weeks after the Communist defeat in Munich, Michael Kehoe was officer of the day in the Turken Strasse barracks. “I got an urgent call about eight o’clock in the evening. A riot had broken out over two political agents in the gymnasium. These “political officers”, as they were called, were allowed to visit each barracks and make speeches or approach the men for votes and support. They came from all the new parties that had sprung up as a result of the new freedom existing in Germany. And they were very active in Munich just then because municipal elections were coming up in a few weeks. But many soldiers awaiting demobilisation, tired of war and already disillusioned with peace, had little time for politicians.

I ordered out a sergeant and six men and, with fixed bayonets, led them off at the double. There were about 200 men in the gymnasium, among them some tough Tyrolean troops. Two political agents, who had been lecturing from a table top, had been dragged to the floor and were being beaten up. Some of the mobs were trying to save them. Bayonets –each man carried one at his belt –were beginning to flash. The two on the floor were in danger of being kicked to death.

I ordered the guard to fire one round over the heads of the rioters. It stopped the commotion. We hauled out the two politicians. Both were cut, bleeding and in need of a doctor. The crowd around muttered and growled, boiling for blood.

There was only one thing to do. I told them: “I’m taking you two into custody. I’m putting you under arrest for your own safety.” One nodded agreement. We carried them to the guardroom and called a doctor. While waiting for him. I questioned them.

The fellow with the moustache gave his name promptly: Adolf Hitler. It was the Lance Corporal of Ligny. I would not have recognised him. He had been five months in hospital in Passewalk, Pomerania. He was thin and emaciated from his wounds. He told me he was still on sick leave and was still getting his lance-corporals pay and rations.

Then he began to talk about his new party, the other man with him was named Zimmer. It was plain from the start that it was not a party which appealed to decent men like the veterans from the Turken Strasse barracks. They saw there country falling apart and there people starving, a country were housewives raided farms and dug up potatoes with there bare hands.

It was a country of blank despair and the veterans at the Turken Strasse had no time for Hitler and the other political prophets. But Adolf Hitler that night was not cowed. He would have carried on his political arguments in the guardroom if I had bothered to listen. The man I left behind me in the guardroom that night was brimful of his own convictions. And yet, if one of those kicks had landed in his old stomach wound…

He was transferred next day to hospital in Nuremberg, after the doctor had stitched up his cuts.

The next time I saw him, he was in no longer in need of a guardroom for his safety.”

[In fact the next time Michael Kehoe saw him was Nuremberg 1930. Hitler was on a massive platform and Kehoe was standing on the fringe of a vast crowed. One month later Hitler's party won 107 seats in the Reichstag. And the fate of Germany lay in his hands]

Adolf Hitler in Nurnberg

Back and forth from Germany to Ireland.

Michael Kehoe was dismissed from the German army in September 1919. The Irish War of Independence had begun in January 1919. He made his way back to Ireland with his wife and two young sons. He had changed his name again, this time to George King. He got his family to the what he taught at the time was, the safety of his parent’s home in Tullow Co. Carlow.

He meet Michael Collins in Lucan on the outskirts of Dublin and with his connections in Germany was soon going back there in the coal bunkers of ships to and fro from Hamburg, aiding in the smuggling of guns for the war. Sergeant John Kavanagh formerly of Casements Brigade was now serving with the Hamburg mounted dock police and was keen to help smuggle arms to Ireland in the cause of her freedom.

John Kavanagh above known as Jack Neumann in Germany

By now most of the surviving members of Casements Brigade were fluent in the German language and with there friends in Germany were of great assistance in securing arms and passage to Ireland.

Bloody and Ruthless Guerrilla War

 Back in Ireland again Kehoe was attached as Staff Captain to an IRA unit [the Midland Brigade] fighting the guerrilla war against British. He recalls on some occasions of going to fight the British on there bicycles. They had introduced new units of there armed forces to Ireland. They soon became known for there Barbarism and Terrorism against the Irish people.

The most notorious of these were the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans.  At times executing POW’s and burning down the homes of families suspected of being sympathetic to the Republicans. “Sounds familiar” look what’s happing around the world today.

With 42,000 heavily armed British forces in Ireland at the time, there were 15,000 Irish volunteers but only 3000 were active at any given time due to the shortage of arms. Never the less the volunteers under the leadership of legendary leaders such as Michael Collins, Dan Breen, Tom Barry and many others decided to become just as ruthless if not more so than there British counterparts.

Black and Tan Terrorists in Ireland 1920

The Black and Tans looking for Michael Kehoe raided his parents home a number of times and on finding his wife Anna Maria was a German she came in for extra abuse.

Michael Kehoe’s mother says:

“She understood very little of what they shouted at her as she had little or no English in her early years in Ireland, but she realised the danger”. From then on she and the children would move from house to house in her endeavours to keep along with her husband.

After a year on the move Michael Kehoe moved his family back to his wife’s family in Nuremberg, Germany. Interestingly his wife Anna Maria’s mother Franziska Seuffert was the daughter of Baron Pankraz von Loerner from Kitzingen, Bavaria.

Black and Tans in Ireland

 Kehoe returned immediately to Ireland to be with his comrades till the cease-fire in July 1921. Some time later he made his way to his wife and children in Germany. When the treaty was announced between Ireland and Britain,December 1921, Michael Kehoe got in touch with as many of the German-Irish families [former Irish Brigade members] as possible, to see who wanted to return to Ireland. Some decided to stay in Germany; it took 3 months to make arrangements for those returning. The Kehoe and Kavanagh families along with some others were due to sail from Germany on 12 March 1922, with there new Irish passports and papers at hand. The officials from the US Lines refused to let them board the Hudson US steamer unless they got there passports visa stamped by the British Consul. Being free Irishmen they refused to do so and managed to get passage 3 weeks later on an Irish ship. Says a lot for what the Allies said was one of the reasons they went to war for “In defence of small nations” like Belgium, but what about Ireland. The Allies wouldn’t even entertain any talk of the small nation of Ireland being represented during the Versailles talks, to be truthful the British, French and the US under Woodrow Wilson didn’t give a dam at that time about any small nations.

Irish Rebels take control of the British army base in the Curragh, Co. Kildare,Michael Kehoe far right

The War is Over, but Soon Another Begins

Kehoe and Kavanagh along with some others joined the Irish army but soon another war was about to begin, Civil War and a bloody one at that. Kehoe was attached to an engineering division and said he was glad not to have raised his rifle in anger against his fellow country men. It was at this time that he wrote the bulk of his journals Both he and Kavanagh left the army in1929 -1930 and  with very little prospect of work they soon headed for Germany were they eventually got work, Kehoe in engineering on the Autobahn & U-bahn, Kavanagh unknown. They returned to Ireland, Kavanagh 1933 and Kehoe 1936, but there troubles were not over yet, not by a long shot. They and the surviving volunteers of Casements Irish Brigade were shunned by the new Irish State. [Long story for another time]

Michael Kehoe in the Irish Army.

They felt some the new establishment had merely stepped into the shoes of the old British ones, for financial gain more than anything else. [Has anything changed in 2011 one might ask, the same dynasty of politicians and bankers and there elite friends have Crippled Ireland and her people with there greed and lust for power, can’t blame the British this time].

Michael Kehoe & 3 of his sons with the Irish Taoiseach [Irish Leader] Sean Lemass and surviving volunteers of the Irish Brigade

 They also felt the Irish government was not doing enough to clear the good name of There Chief Roger Casement whom the British had blackened with there propaganda.

Kehoe set up the Casement Commemoration Committee in honour of there Chief as they called him. He also lobbied the governments of the day on behalf of the veterans and old solders. Extracts from his journals were published over the years but he could not get a book he wrote published unless it was censored, he refused to do so.

 He was still writing and lecturing up until his death in 1964 and never gave up the cause and rarely went anywhere without his journals. One wonders what he would have taught of Ireland 2011 with the Good Friday Peace Agreement working well, the Queen of England’s recent visit and her historic bow in the Garden of Remembrance in recognition of the Revolutionaries who fought against the Crown Forces and the good relations with Britain. Positive I suspect.

The Queen of England in The Garden of Remembrance, Dublin, Ireland

Mystery of his Missing Book and Journals.

When Michael Kehoe was ill in Blanchardstown hospital, Co. Dublin  in1964, a priest or a man dressed as one came to visit him. While Kehoe slept he made off with his journals. Michael Kehoe was distraught when he discovered his journals were missing and died the following day aged 73.

41 years later in 2005 his grandson was researching his family history when he discovered part of his grandfathers missing journals in the Archives of University College Dublin.

Michael Kehoe’s son Kevin then aged 81 retrieved the journals but never got a satisfactory answer as to how they got there. His father’s writings covering the War of Independence the Civil War and his political writing from 1930- 1964 were never recovered. The historian and writer Brian Maye edited the remaining journals and they were published in 2010 title

“With Casements Irish Brigade”

Michael Kehoe’s movements and records have been checked from his disembarkation at Ellis Island in 1907 and all his journeys till he eventually settled back in Ireland 1936.

He received the Mons Star from the British. [All soldiers at Mons received this]

From the Germans he received The Hindenburg Cross, The Wound badge and The Kaiser Wilhelm badge.

The Black and Tan, War of Independence medal from Ireland.

Some of the Last Words Michael Kehoe Wrote

“Machine guns, disguises, knives, murder – and bicycles. Its been a mixed-up life. But my last war is done. I have outlived almost all the men I fought. I have no enemies. I am at peace”.

A portrait of Michael Kehoe by his grandson Jeremiah.