"Germany Calling..." - When Lord Haw-Haw Ruled The Airwaves

Introducing the Fuhrer's favourite disc jockey...

"Germany calling..." With these words began some of the most haunting radio broadcasts of the Second World War. These anti-Ally, pro-Nazi sentiments were voiced by an English aristocrat - or rather, a person doing a rather poor impression of a refined public school accent. And just who was this Hitler-supporting sophisticate? One William Joyce, aka Lord Haw-Haw.

In actual fact, a number of people broadcast pro-Nazi propaganda during the war years. But while the Haw-Haw nickname mightn't have been applied exclusively to Joyce, the fervency and frequency of his broadcasts meant he became synonymous with the term, coined by the Daily Express columnist Jonah Barrington to describe his "haw-hawing, dammit-get-out-of-my-way" tones.

American by birth but raised in Ireland, Joyce had settled in Berlin in the 1930s after failing to introduce National Socialism to the United Kingdom. A huge fan of the Fuhrer, he found an outlet for his slavish devotion via the air waves. It was here that he treated the good people of Britain to stories about the natural superiority of the Aryan race and the inevitability of the Allied defeat. Such talk was meant to weaken morale but as with the vast majority of propaganda programmes, it simply strengthened opposition resolve.

Joyce was well rewarded for his treachery - pay raises and promotions eventually gave way to private audiences with Adolf. While Hitler might have been delighted with Haw-Haw, all the Lord had to show for his work were hugely impressive listening figures with millions of Britons tuning in every night to hear what the massive twat had to say about them.

Joyce's ineffectiveness eventually gave way to alcohol-fueled frustration - his later recordings were the equivalent of a drunkard lecturing a temperance group. If a traitor can be accorded something as respectable as credit, Haw-Haw never sought to distance himself from his chosen cause. It was because of this misplaced loyalty that, upon his capture in 1945, William Joyce was tried for high treason. He was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 3 January 1946.

Haw-Haw's legacy was every bit as ugly as the man himself - Joyce sported a particularly massive Chelsea smile, the result of a brawl in a London bar. If you want to experience his chilling handiwork, check out Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen, in which Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas and Co. while away their evenings listening to a smug Englishman whose every broadcast begins with the words "Germany calling..."