When Count Dracula Met Marshal Tito – Or Did He?

 

Lately I’ve been slogging my way through Tito’s Secret Empire: How the Maharaja of the Balkans Fooled the World by William Klinger and Denis Kuljiš, recently published by Oxford University Press. The profusion of South Slavic surnames has made the book a bit bewildering, but one name I wasn’t expecting to see was that of actor Christopher Lee, who reinvigorated the role of Count Dracula in a long-running franchise for Britain’s Hammer Films and would go on to appear in the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings series. Tito’s Secret Empire offers this account:

The importance of [the Bosnian city] Drvar cannot be overestimated. […] Also, this redoubt of Tito’s has symbolic importance as the center of resistance in Hitler’s Fortress Europe. No wonder Churchill also sends to Drvar a strong British political mission – the people who will provide reliable information about the character of this protagonist who came out of nowhere and set up an army that has great strategic potential, provided it becomes integrated in the Allied operations. The mission is headed by Britain’s best secret agent, Brigadier Maclean. Joining it will be the premier’s own son, Randolph Churchill, famous writer and commando Evelyn Waugh, and Colonel Valentine Vivian, vice-chief of SIS, the British secret service (better known as MI6). There is yet another “celeb” – later a famous actor, Christopher Lee. Before becoming an actor, he joined the paratroopers as a nineteen-year-old volunteer. In the adventure of his life, he was dropped into Bosnia, where he met Tito. [1]

Croatian historian William Klinger, who was probably the principal author of this book, was murdered in New York City in late January 2015 by Croatian translator Alexander Bonich [2]. Co-ethnic journalist Denis Kuljiš, who died in August 2019, was presumably hired to complete or polish Klinger’s unfinished manuscript. Had Klinger lived just a few more months, however, he might have read the following in a Daily Mail article by Guy Walters, published in the wake of Christopher Lee’s death in June of that year:

This was a part that the late actor Sir Christopher Lee played brilliantly and often. The lines were well-rehearsed and the effect they had on an audience mesmeric. 

Invariably, they would be accompanied by a faraway look in his deep brown eyes, as if he were recalling unspeakable horrors. In some ways, it was Lee’s greatest performance.

But the lines he spoke were not for a role that brought him fame. They were not for Count Dracula, Saruman in The Lord of The Rings nor Count Dooku in Star Wars.

Lee in 1944

Instead, they were lines he had scripted himself, designed to add depth and complexity to another character – his own. And he used them mostly in interviews when asked about his experiences during World War II.

For more than two years, Lee served as an intelligence officer for the RAF in North Africa, Italy and the Balkans. He rose to the rank of flight lieutenant – the equivalent of an Army captain. Though he was not a flyer, he was often exposed to danger and had what is often known as a “good war”.

However, Lee liked to hint that his war had been more interesting than that – much more interesting.

He would tell interviewers that in his role with the RAF, he had been “attached” to some of the most glamorous units of the war. These included the Long Range Desert Group, which was the forerunner of another unit with which he said he had served – the Special Air Service (SAS).

In addition, he had also supposedly worked with the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Yugoslavia, carrying out secret missions behind enemy lines.

And finally, after the war, Lee also claimed to have been a Nazi hunter, a role that required him to visit concentration camps and seek out fugitive SS officers.

Invariably, whenever Lee was pressed for more details, he would clam up and state that his work was still subject to the Official Secrets Act, so he was in no position to elucidate. […]

Not only are there countless websites that gush about Lee’s amazingly brave and “badass” exploits, but newspaper obituaries last month dutifully reported that the actor had served in all these elite units and had even taken part in raids on enemy airfields.

However, this week, the true story of Lee’s wartime service has started to emerge – and it will dismay the late actor’s legion of devoted fans.

Writing in the Spectator magazine, historian Gavin Mortimer, who has written an authoritative history of the SAS in World War II, dismisses the notion that Lee ever served with the Long Range Desert Group, the SAS or SOE.

“In reality, he served in none,” Mortimer states. “He was attached to the SAS and SOE as an RAF liaison officer at various times between 1943 and 1945, but did not serve in them.”

Mortimer also scoffs at the idea that Lee was not able to discuss his work. […]

Until the end of the war, the man who would be Dracula served with the air force as an intelligence officer, briefing and debriefing pilots, and liaising with other units.

It was during this time that he claimed to have served in some way with the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS.

As Gavin Mortimer has shown, there is simply no evidence to support this. Lee may have worked alongside these units in some way, but he was emphatically not a part of them. […]

Perhaps people were too scared of contradicting a man such as Lee, who was not only a global film star, but also a knight of the realm.

This was doubtless also the reason why his supposed membership of SOE was never challenged. According to many accounts, Lee worked behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia and helped fight alongside the resistance led by Tito.

Again, this is another story that is just too good to be true.

For a start, the absence of an SOE personnel file bearing Lee’s name at the National Archives in Kew is problematic. It is possible that the file was destroyed, but the fact not one member of SOE in the Balkans has ever confirmed Lee’s story is grounds for serious scepticism. [3]

In mythologizing his life, however, Lee was doing no more than the Yugoslav leader himself would have done. As Tito’s Secret Empire puts it:

[…] a legend has been created to veil and mystify both the person and his deeds. In his lifetime, Tito’s personal history was a closely guarded secret. While he was in power, the state he ruled took care of that. Great powers were interested in a programmed reception of his activities. When he died, experts and the public more or less lost interest in him, or identified him with the regime that survived for another ten years. They thus glorified or questioned his work, his crimes, his achievements. What they failed to notice was a thrilling story about a cryptic man who, like a phantom, emerged from the Balkan mists and became one of the key protagonists of the modern history of Europe and the world. [4]

Rainer Chlodwig von K.

Rainer is the author of Drugs, Jungles, and Jingoism.

Endnotes

[1] Klinger, William; and Denis Kuljiš. Tito’s Secret Empire: How the Maharaja of the Balkans Fooled the World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021, p. 156.

[2] McNulty, Matt. “Man Gunned Down in NYC ID’d as Communist Historian”. New York Post (February 2, 2015): https://nypost.com/2015/02/02/man-gunned-down-in-nyc-idd-as-communist-historian/

[3] Walters, Guy. “How Film Legend Christopher Lee Made Up His Heroic War Record: He Claimed to Be an SAS Veteran and Nazi Hunter. But the Stories Don’t Add Up”. Daily Mail (July 17, 2015): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3165860/How-film-legend-Christopher-Lee-heroic-war-record-claimed-SAS-veteran-Nazi-hunter-stories-don-t-add-up.html

[4] Klinger, William; and Denis Kuljiš. Tito’s Secret Empire: How the Maharaja of the Balkans Fooled the World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021, p. 11.