Hughes initially agreed to hand out what he had been told were
Red Cross forms to his fellow prisoners, believing that the data was to be used to help contact the POWs' families. They were in fact forms designed to elicit more personal data than the "name, rank and serial number" which was all that PoWs (Prisoners of War) were required to reveal, which would later be used in interrogations. Hughes soon became useful to the Germans and remained at the Dulag Luft instead of being moved on to a standard PoW camp. His assistance was rewarded by better accommodation and more privileges than other prisoners, including being allowed to wear civilian clothes, and it was even reported that by November 1943 he was wearing a German uniform. Using the alias of John Charles Baker, Hughes agreed to broadcast propaganda and went to Berlin where he was allowed a substantial degree of freedom, renting a flat while he was employed as a broadcaster and scriptwriter at
Radio Metropole, for which he was paid 600
RM monthly. Between January and March 1944 he made several broadcasts in the Welsh language directed at Welsh troops fighting in the
Italian campaign. Evidence gathered by
MI9, which maintained secret links with Allied PoWs, later suggested that Hughes had also been writing
anti-Jewish propaganda for broadcast. Hughes initially worked under Reinhard Haferkorn, who was the Head of English Propaganda in the German foreign office at the time. Haferkorn had lectured at
University of Wales Aberystwyth in the 1920s but had returned to Germany and by 1933 was rated a completely reliable Nazi. Haferkorn was not satisfied with Hughes work, and passed him on to
Joseph Goebbels to broadcast in Welsh to Allied troops fighting in the Mediterranean. Sometime in 1944 Hughes was stripped of his privileges and confined to a POW camp, where he was eventually liberated by the advancing Soviet forces in April 1945. While awaiting transport to Britain he was arrested and charged with voluntarily aiding the enemy while a POW. ==Court-martial==