Abstract
In the opening period of World War II, there was little indication that the authorities were concerned that subversion could become an issue on the Australian home front. In the months before September 1939 the Department of Defence had prepared what was known as the War Book — a set of instructions and procedures to be followed by government bodies in the advent of war. As a precautionary measure against internal enemies, the book directed that internment was to be restricted to ‘the narrowest limits consistent with public safety and public sentiment’.1 Further to the powers outlined in the War Book, the government had prepared for the possibility of internal subversion with the passing of the National Security Act. This Act enabled the Australian government to invoke compulsory clauses of the Defence Act and to control areas that it was unable to control under the existing Constitution.
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Notes
Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People 1939–41 ( Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1952 ), p. 593.
Kay Saunders, ‘Enemies of the Empire? The Internment of Germans in Queensland During World War II’, in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkill (eds), The German Presence in Queensland over the last 150 Years ( St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1988 ), p. 56.
David Bird, Nazi Dreamtime: Australian Enthusiasts for Hitler’s Germany ( Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012 ), p. 254.
also Barbara Winter, Dreaming of a National Socialist Australia: The Australia First Movement, 1936–1942 ( Carindale: Interactive Publications, 2005 ), p. 123.
Richard Thurlow, ‘The Evolution of the Mythical British Fifth Column, 1939–46’, Twentieth Century British History, 10, 4 (1999), p. 485.
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© 2015 Robert Loeffel
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Loeffel, R. (2015). Before the Storm: The Beginning of World War II. In: The Fifth Column in World War II. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137506672_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137506672_3
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