The day King George saved Jewish refugee from gallows

A new book out in Germany this week chronicles how King George VI saved a Jewish refugee from the gallows during wartime Britain.

As interest in the movie The King's Speech sweeps the world, the story of the stammering monarch's intervention to save the life of Irene Coffee makes fascinating reading.

She was born Irene Brann in 1911, and moved from the east German city of Dresden to London in 1937 following Hitler's rise to power, where she married Englishman Aron Coffee. With her new British passport, she was able to get her mother to Britain when her father was killed by the Nazis.

But Irene and her mother Margarette were consumed with fear that the Germans would one day invade Britain. They followed the news reports that chronicled the fate of Poland, Holland, Belgium and France. By 1941 the panzers were sweeping through the Soviet Union and mother and daughter feared it was only a matter of time before Hitler's legions would overrun Britain.

Irene, who lived in Maida Vale and worked as a bank clerk, secured poison that she and her mother intended to take in a suicide pact. Suicide at that time was against the law - anyone who assisted another in ending their life would forfeit their own under the statutes of the day.

Irene's mother died - but she did not - and so, aged 29, she was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murder. The court heard how a doctor received a letter telling him to go to their flat on 18 October 1941. He found Margarette dead and Irene in a semi-conscious state. Both had taken tablets of veronal and phanadorm.

Dresden author Heidrun Hannusch, who wrote the book Death Sentence For The Suicide Victim, said: "She and her mother wanted to end their lives out of fear that the Nazis were coming for them. Mr Victor Durrand, the counsel for Irene, described eloquently how the women were terrified that they would join the Jews of Europe in God-knows-what fate.

"But the law was the law and the judge in the case had no option but to hand down the death sentence."

In his summing up, Mr Justice Humphrey said no one could "fail to feel anything but the greatest sympathy" for Mrs Coffee. He added that he would forward the jury's "very strong recommendation for mercy" to the "proper quarters"- in this case the king. Irene also wrote a letter from the condemned cell to King George. Using his power, the king commuted the death sentence to one of life imprisonment. But within three months the authorities relented further and she was set free.

Irene moved for a while to the Lake District and emigrated to Australia after the war, where she lived in New South Wales. Her first marriage ended and she married a Swiss national, Adolf Schleiss, in 1955. They changed their names to Tell because they didn't like to be reminded of Germany through a German name. Irene died on 30 September in 1968.

Ms Hannusch added: "I couldn't get this story out of my soul. I think it reflects great credit on a compassionate king who deserved to be remembered for more than simply conquering an overpowering stutter."