The
Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. ("Special Search List Great Britain") was a secret list of prominent British residents to be arrested, produced in
1940 by the
SS as part of the preparation for the proposed invasion of Britain codenamed
Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operation Sea Lion). After the war, the list became known as
The Black Book.
The information was prepared by the
Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) under
Reinhard Heydrich. Later, SS-Oberführer
Walter Schellenberg claimed in his memoirs that he had compiled the list, starting at the end of
June 1940. It contained
2,820 names of people, including British nationals and European exiles, who were to be immediately arrested by SS Einsatzgruppen upon the invasion, occupation, and annexation of Great Britain to the Third Reich. Abbreviations after each name indicated whether the individual was to be detained by RSHA Amt IV (the
Gestapo) or Amt VI (
Ausland-SD, Foreign Intelligence).
The list was printed as a supplement or appendix to the secret
Informationsheft G.B. handbook, which Schellenberg also claimed to have written. This handbook noted
opportunities for looting, and named
potentially dangerous anti-Nazi institutions including
Masonic lodges, the
Church of England and the
Boy Scouts. On
17 September 1940,
SS-Brigadeführer Dr
Franz Six was designated to a position in London where he
would implement the post-invasion arrests and actions against institutions, but on the same day,
Hitler postponed the invasion indefinitely. In
September 1945, at the end of the war, the
list was discovered in Berlin. Reporting included the reactions of some of the people listed.
...
When told the previous day that they were on the Gestapo's list,
Lady Astor ("enemy of Germany") said
"It is the complete answer to the terrible lie that the so-called 'Cliveden Set' was pro-Fascist", while
Lord Vansittart [best remembered for his
opposition to appeasement and his strong stance against Germany during and after the WW2] said "The German black-list might indicate to some of those who now find themselves on it that their views, divergent from mine, were somewhat misplaced. Perhaps it will be an eye-opener to them", and the cartoonist
David Low said "That is all right. I had them on my list too."
..
