Vivian Stranders

Vivian Stranders (1881–1959) was a British-born Royal Air Force officer, German spy, and Nazi propagandist. In his younger years, Stranders worked as a clerk, schoolmaster, and commission agent. He joined the part-time Territorial Force Royal Engineers in 1911 and rose to the rank of lieutenant. Stranders transferred to the Royal Field Artillery upon the outbreak of the First World War and served on the Western Front. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 as an equipment officer and, following the creation of the Royal Air Force, became a staff officer specialising in intelligence. After the war he served in Germany as a translator for commissions supervising the terms of disarmament and reparations.

Demobilised in 1921, Stranders remained in Germany and established an import business. By 1926, he had begun working for the German intelligence services, gathering information on French aviation matters. He was detected by the British Secret Intelligence Service and marked for arrest but was picked up by the French police first. Stranders was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for industrial espionage. After his release, he emigrated to Germany, joining the Nazi Party in 1932 and taking German citizenship in 1933. He lectured on English at universities and received a doctorate. During the Second World War, Stranders became a officer specialising in propaganda and working with British prisoners of war. He was nominally head of the British Free Corps, a small and unsuccessful collaborationist military unit. After the war, Stranders was arrested but escaped prosecution for treason and lived out the rest of his life in Germany. Provided by Wikipedia