Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

4 May 2015 Comments 2 Comments

I reviewed the 1940-45 visitors books at Chequers. I was struck by how often Lord Cherwell (Frederick Lindemann) was there—far more than family and staff. He visited more than Bracken and Beaverbrook, or the Chiefs of Staff. What do you make of him? What’s best to read on him? —A.R., London

Lindemann, Air Marshal Portal, Admiral Cunningham and Churchill watching an antiaircraft gunnery exhibition, June 1941. (Imperial War Museum) — Lindemann, Air Marshal Portal, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound and Churchill watching an anti-aircraft gunnery exhibition, June 1941. (Imperial War Museum)

Most frequent visitor

After the death of the F.E. Smith, the first Lord Birkenhead, Frederick Lindemann, Lord Cherwell (1886-1957) was probably Churchill’s closest friend. His signature is also the most frequent in the visitors book at Chartwell, where it appears 86 times, more than anyone else (Brendan Bracken only 31, although visitors usually signed only when staying overnight, and Bracken frequently returned to London). He was invaluable to Churchill in his ability to reduce complicated scientific principles and theories to brief layman terms everyone could understand.

Ardently pro-Churchill, Cherwell several times clashed with government scientific advisors. He wanted even more strategic bombing of Germany than “Bomber” Harris; he opposed the effective “Window” (Chaff) radar jamming technique; he deemed Hitler’s V2 rockets impractical, until they began falling on London. On the other hand, he was one of the first to urge the importance of atom bomb research. An excellent article on his wartime role is Antoine Capet, “Scientific Weaponry: How Churchill Encouraged the ‘Boffins’ and Defied the ‘Blimps,'” The Churchillian, Spring 2013.

Books on Cherwell / Lindemann

The “standard work” on Cherwell is still the second Lord Birkenhead’s The Prof in Two World Wars (London: Collins, 1961), aka The Professor and the Prime Minister (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962). A more recent biography is Adrian Fort, Prof (London: Jonathan Cape, 2003).

Thomas Wilson’s Churchill and the Prof (London: Cassell, 1995) focuses on the relationship in World War II, including Radar, the German Knickebein guidance system, strategic bombing, even the Battle of the Atlantic, including the comparatively neglected area of shipping to the Middle and Far East. Wilson also considers Cherwell’s many memos to Churchill on postwar recovery. Despite deep hostility to Germany, Lindemann never bought into the Morgenthau Plan of creating a “pastoral,” non-industrial Germany after the war.

2 thoughts on “Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell”

Thank-you. Amended

In your photograph, top left, of Churchill with Prof Lindemann, the naval officer standing next to Churchill was Admiral and First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound, the immediate predecessor of Admiral Cunningham (who does not appear anywhere in this photograph).