Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne
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Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne (29 March 1880 - 6 November 1944) was a British politician. He was assassinated in November 1944 in Cairo by the Jewish group Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang, who were opposed to British rule in pre-state Israel, and were fighting the British government's decision to halt the immigration of Jews fleeing the Holocaust.
Early life and career
Guinness was born in Dublin, Ireland the third son of the 1st Earl of Iveagh.From Eton, he volunteered for service in the Second Boer War, where he was wounded. In 1907, he was elected to Parliament as Conservative member for Bury St Edmunds, which he continued to represent until 1931. During World War I, he served with distinction in the Suffolk Yeomanry in Egypt, and at Gallipoli. In the fighting around Passchendaele he was awarded the DSO in 1917 and a bar to it in 1918, which was rare for an elected politician. In 1922, he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for War, the first of several political appointments which culminated in his term of office as Minister of Agriculture from November 1925 until June 1929.
After the Conservative defeat in 1929, he retired from office and was created Baron Moyne of Bury St Edmunds in 1932.
During World War II, he became Secretary of State for the Colonies and Leader of the House of Lords in 1941. In August 1942, he was appointed Deputy Minister of State in Cairo, and in January 1944, Minister Resident in the Middle East.
Assassination
On 6 November 1944 Moyne was assassinated in Cairo by two members of the Jewish group known in Hebrew as Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), and named the Stern Gang by the British, who were opposed to the League of Nations' British Mandate of Palestine.Although the Lehi had targeted British Mandate personnel since its creation in 1940, Lord Moyne was the first high-profile British official to be successfully targeted by them. This was therefore the opening shot in the new Lehi campaign. Lord Moyne was an ally and close personal friend of then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, but the assassination hurt the group very little because the Conservatives fell from power in 1945. This led to increased resistance by the hardline Etzel (National Military Organization) of Menachem Begin, and even the moderate Hagana of David Ben-Gurion over the next four years, though often this was limited to illegal immigration in the latter case.
Lord Moyne was chosen in part he was the highest ranking British official within reach of the Lehi. Several explanations have been proposed as to why they decided to kill him. He has been blamed for the Struma disaster though he was not stationed in the Middle East at the time. It is claimed that he is to blame for the 1939 White Paper on Palestine, though he had nothing to do with its creation. He was also in no sense a leader, symbolic or otherwise, of anti-Zionism in British politics. He had been Minister Resident in Cairo for one month prior to his murder in 1944.
Accusations against Lord Moyne were also made by Joel Brand, a member of the Hungarian Aid and Rescue Committee, who approached the British in April 1944 with a proposal from Adolf Eichmann to trade up to one million Jews for 10,000 trucks and other goods from the Western Allies, the so-called "blood for trucks" proposal. According to Brand, Lord Moyne ridiculed the proposal, saying: "What would I do with a million Jews?"
Moyne's murder was condemned by the Jewish establishment in Palestine, who began to co-operate with the British authorities in dealing with the Lehi and the Irgun; see The Hunting Season.
See also
| Preceded by: E.F.L. Wood | Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries 1925–1929 | Followed by: Noel Buxton |
| Preceded by: The Lord Lloyd | Secretary of State for the Colonies 1941–1942 | Followed by: Viscount Cranborne |
| Preceded by: The Lord Lloyd | Leader of the House of Lords 1941–1942 | Followed by: Viscount Cranborne |
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