“The Greatest Detective Story in History”: The BBC, the International Tracing Service, and the Memory of Nazi Crimes in Early Postwar Britain

Abstract

Alan Burgess's 1950 BBC radio play, The Greatest Detective Story in History , presented a moving and insightful analysis of the work of the International Tracing Service (ITS) and revealed how much was known about the crimes of the Nazis so soon after the war. This article uses Burgess's play in order to focus on the operation of the ITS's child search branch and considers why the work of the ITS was deemed an appropriate topic for a radio drama in Britain in 1950. It argues that, despite the limits of its analysis and adherence to culturally familiar narrative frameworks and conventions, Burgess's play captures the ways in which the Third Reich was understood in Britain in the postwar years: as a vast act of criminality which the British could proudly claim to have helped to destroy. The play also reminds us of the postwar moment when Britain was proud to be involved in international organizations and when rebuilding Europe was perceived to be in British interests.