Bugged mansion where Senior German PoW Officers unwittingly gave away secrets during WW2
She has built a career out of making us laugh, but Absolutely Fabulous star Helen Lederer has a serious story to tell too.
The actress and comedian, 70, had always believed that her grandfather - who fled to Britain from Czechoslovakia as a Jewish refugee before the Second World War began - had only served as a conscript in the Home Guard.
It was only decades later, when she appeared in a documentary for Channel 5, that she discovered his part in an operation that helped turn the tide of the Second World War.
For Arnost Lederer had key roles at Trent Park - a mansion in North London where hundreds of captured German generals and senior officers were allowed to live in the lap of luxury.
Made to feel comfortable, they revealed Nazi military secrets and Holocaust war crimes in conversations that were being recorded by dozens of hidden microphones.
Arnost is believed to have been both a 'secret listener' and a so-called 'stool pigeon' - the name for the fluent German speakers who mixed with the high-status captives in an effort to get them to open up.
Between 1939 and 1945, more than 10,000 German and Italian prisoners - including dozens of generals and senior officers - passed through Trent Park and two other listening centres.
At the Imperial War Museum earlier this month, Helen delivered a moving talk on both her grandfather's wartime role and the plight of relatives who were murdered in Nazi death camps.
Absolutely Fabulous star Helen Lederer had always believed that her grandfather only served in the Home Guard after fleeing the clutches of the Nazis and settling in Britain. But Arnost Lederer (right) in fact had a key role at Trent Park, the mansion in North London where Nazi generals were listened to without their knowledge
The actress is a trustee for a museum that is set to open at Trent Park next year and is also working on an upcoming TV drama inspired by her grandfather's story.
Helen was barely five when Arnost passed away in 1959, but fondly remembers her grandfather - the 'head of the family' - as 'affable, strong, friendly, and warm'.
A family photo shows Helen as a toddler looking nervously across the dinner table at the smartly-dressed Arnost.
Even then, more than a decade after Nazi Germany's defeat, he hadn't said a word to his family about his role at Trent Park - in large part because he had signed the Official Secrets Act and was still bound by it.
Helen, who portrayed Catriona in hit comedy Absolutely Fabulous after making her name as a comedian in the 1980s, only found out the extent of his heroics when she appeared in TV show War Hero in my Family in 2012.
Arnost had come to England as a refugee in 1938, after fleeing his home in the Sudetenland - the region of what was then Czechoslovakia that was invaded by Germany.
The businessman got out with his wife and children, including Helen's father - but many other members of the Lederer family were not so lucky.
Channel 5 viewers also saw Helen go to Auschwitz, where she learned that many of her relatives had perished there.
Senior German captives at Trent Park. Back row from left to right: General Dietrich von Choltitz, Oberst Gerhard Wilck, General Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke, Generalmajor Knut Eberding, Oberst Hermann Eberhard Wildermuth. Front row from left to right: General Rüdiger von Heyking, General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, General Wilhelm Daser
Once owned by the aristocratic Sassoon family, Trent Park, near Enfield in north London, had been requisitioned by the government for its special purpose
A secret listener using his equipment. At Trent Park, microphones were hidden in every conceivable spot
Remarkably, there was a ray of light in the horror - her father's first cousin had survived Auschwitz and was still alive.
Helen made an emotional trip to Prague to meet Frantisek Lederer, who was then in his 80s.
Being fluent in both Czech and German, Arnost - who settled with his family near Hampstead Heath - was useful to the British war effort and so was recruited into top secret War Office department MI9.
Each morning, he would leave home wearing his Home Guard uniform under the pretence that he was patrolling Hampstead - but in reality he was going to Trent Park.
Helen told MailOnline: 'The beauty of being given the documentary and being given that information is that you end up at least going, "well he did something. Because we didn't know he did anything.
'You could say they got out, that's great they got out, people with connections and luck got out.
'But then you go, "what about the guilt?". His family didn't.'
She added: 'The main thing is the positivity of what he did do, and the positivity of what the Lederers did going forward.
'It is about what you do have and why you should make your life count. It does give you that ethos inside when you know what they went through.
'You have to move on and just go, "okay, this is now".'
Incredibly, while Arnost was going to Trent Park, Helen's mother was working at Bletchley Park - the renowned codebreaking centre where a team led by Alan Turing cracked the Enigma code.
In 1944, Arnost was thanked for his wartime efforts by none other than the director of military intelligence Sir John Sinclair, who would later serve as the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in the 1950s.
He told him in a letter: 'The results of interrogation in the U.K. have proved valuable, not only to the War Office, but also to the Forces in the Field.
'Your keenness and self-sacrifice in volunteering to assist in this work, and the efficiency shown in its execution, have materially contributed to these satisfactory results.'
Arnost, who fought on the side of Germany ally Austria-Hungary in the First World War, went on to count the UK Defence Medal - which was given to members of the Home Guard and other non-operational service - among his collection of awards.
Growing up, Helen was only vaguely aware that there was deep tragedy in the family, but did not know any details.
'It is weird about how these things can be buried in family folklore. I don't think we talked about it,' she said.
'We knew if we talked to my grandmother about it, she went very quiet and became very sad.
'So we thought, "why would you go there?".
'We just thought there's something going on but it's not spoken about. You get used to that vibe, because why would you want to make your grandmother sad?'
Once owned by the aristocratic Sassoon family, Trent Park, near Enfield in north London, had been requisitioned by the government for its special purpose.
Until 1942, the house was used as an interrogation centre for German and Italian prisoners of war.
But its purpose then shifted to one involving just senior PoWs - generals and senior officers.
The leader of the operation - officially called the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) - was Thomas Joseph Kendrick, who until taking on his new role had been a key intelligence agent.
Until 1942, the house was used as an interrogation centre for German and Italian prisoners of war
As historian Helen Fry recounted in her 2019 book The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of World War II, hundreds of recording technicians, stenographers, German-speaking interpreters and transcribers were involved.
But central to the ruse were fake prisoners called 'stool pigeons', who were tasked with mixing with the captives to encourage conversations.
Besides Arnost Lederer, another undercover prisoner was the father of singer and actress Olivia Newton-John.
Speaking to MailOnline, Ms Fry said: 'The significance of Trent Park is quite simply, without it and without Bletchley Park we could have lost the war.'
She added: 'Trent Park was full by D-Day. We are talking about 59 German generals in one house.
'And then 40 senior German officers just below the rank of General.
'The other side of that is treating them to a life of relative luxury seems outrageous, but it was all designed to get them to relax.
'We treated them like military gentlemen, and they were relaxed. They gave us stuff we could never have got in interrogation.
'Helen's family was one of many who had no idea that their contribution to the war was immeasurable.'
Hidden anywhere they wouldn't be spotted were microphones. They were in the light fittings, fireplaces, under floorboards and even hung in trees in the grounds.
It meant that everything that was said was being secretly listened to.
On arrival at Trent Park, generals and senior officers were greeted by a one-legged aristocrat who called himself Lord Aberfeldy and claimed he was their welfare officer.
In fact, Aberfeldy was the cover name of intelligence officer Ian Munroe, who embraced his acting role with glee.
Munroe's role was to make the generals feel at home, including by buying them treats.
There were also lunch trips out, first to Simpson's on the Strand and then - after Churchill had those dinners stopped - at the Ritz.
Information they collected from the PoWs included valuable intelligence on the programme that made the V1 and V2 rockets; troop positions; battle plans; U-boat bases and new aircraft technology.
Also revealed in conversations was evidence of Holocaust war crimes.
One general speaking 1943 about the number of Jews killed said: 'It must be three million by now.'
Another, General Dietrich von Choltitz, confessed to a colleague: 'The gravest task I ever undertook, and I did at the time strictly, was the liquidation of the Jews.'
Von Choltitz had been in command of Paris in 1944 as the Allied armies drew closer.
He defied an order from Hitler to destroy the city in the face of certain defeat.
A third talked of witnessing a massacre of 300 Jews in Latvia, telling how 'children as young as three were despatched with a shot to the neck and then thrown into a pit.'
The role of Trent Park remained largely unknown until transcripts of generals' conversations emerged in the early 2000s.
There are still classified files that could contain more revelations, but the original recordings are all believed to have been lost.
The aim of the new museum is to 'to open one of London's grandest houses to the public and reveal the incredible story of the Secret Listeners that has remained hidden in the house for over 70 years', according to its website.
After the war, Arnost continued to run his furniture business. He passed away in 1959.
Helen released her memoir, Not That I'm Bitter, last year.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14430149/Ab-Fab-star-Helen-Lederer-reveals-amazing-family-link-bugged-WWII-mansion-Nazis-PoWs-unwittingly-gave-away-secrets-spoke-war-crimes.html
