Читать онлайн "Tapping Hitler's Generals: Transcripts of Secret Conversations 1942-45" - Neitzel Sonke - RuLit

The WO 208 protocols exist in the original German text accompanied always by an English translation. Documents 142–4 in this book are only available in the archives in English translation.

The book concludes with short biographies of all 85 personalities who lend their voice to the protocols. These biographies give brief career notes together with an assessment of character and political stance which the CSDIC prepared on most of the German officers at Trent Park. German Army assessments of the time were not particularly usefuclass="underline" in June 1943, Generalleutnant Rudolf Schmundt, Head of the OKH Personnel Office, complained that the frequent employment in personnel files of expressions such as ‘he stands on National Socialist ground’ were so vague as to be virtually useless for making judgements of an officer.[14] The CSDIC (UK) character studies[15] were probably elaborated by Lord Aberfeldy, but this is not absolutely certain. It should also be noted that from the British point of view a ‘Nazi’ might be a general whose position in the political spectrum was not known but whose conduct or appearance was overtly Prussian. Aside from this reservation, the CSDIC (UK) assessment is important for being of a neutral character based on week- or month-long observations of a personality at Trent Park who for most of the time was off his guard.

2. Secret Monitoring of Prisoners of War in Great Britain and Trent Park PoW Centre

During World War II probably all the belligerents listened-in secretly to their prisoners. The general rule seems to have been that the interrogation of selected prisoners was documented, but not the private conversations. Richard Overy has published the protocols of National Socialist leaders under interrogation in 1945–46.[16] Other trials were run by the United States, Great Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union.[17] As far as is known, it was the British who perfected eavesdropping as a method of intelligence gathering. At Farm Hall in Cambridgeshire, the conversations of the interned German nuclear physicists were secretly recorded in the attempt to discover how far Germany had advanced towards building an atomic bomb,[18] but the British did not disclose their practice of having listened-in systematically to selected prisoners of war for several years before that.

The British intelligence service began planning to use the method from the beginning of the war. On 26 October 1939, orders were given to set up the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre. Initially under MI9, from December 1941 it fell within the ambit of the British Army’s newly formed MI19 Department at the War Office under Lt-Colonel A. R. Rawlinson. All reports originating at CSDIC were to be distributed to the three arms of service for collation with other information, e.g. signals intercepts and air reconnaissance photographs, to compose a specific intelligence picture.[19] The CSDIC organisation in England was complemented later by a centre in North Africa (CSDIC Middle East) and from the autumn of 1944 another in France/Germany run by the US Army (CSDIC West).

The UK interrogation centre had modest beginnings: in September 1939, only six officers (three Army, two RAF and one RN) had been appointed to question German prisoners at the Tower of London. In December that year the centre was relocated to Trent Park, a large mansion with extensive grounds near Cockfosters, north of London. German prisoners of war – in the early years a manageable number of Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine men – together with Italian prisoners were ‘pre-sorted’ in transit camps by the PoW Department and those believed to have important knowledge were sent to Trent Park for comprehensive questioning and the secret monitoring of their conversations.

CSDIC (UK) used a variety of refined tricks to tap the required knowledge. ‘Cooperative’ prisoners and German exiles were used as stool pigeons to get conversations moving along the desired track[20] while prisoners of equal rank but from different units or arms of service would be bunched together. This method paid off: U-boat men would air their experiences at length, airmen would explain the technology of their aircraft and combat tactics in great detail to naval comrades. Army men arrived at Trent Park relatively quickly after capture – from a few days to a couple of weeks. They would often still be suffering the dramatic effects of their capture, perhaps having narrowly escaped death – and would be anxious to talk about their experiences.

On 5 October 1940 it was decided to increase CSDIC (UK) staffing levels to enable two camps to be run simultaneously. Trent Park could house only a limited number of prisoners and space for the constantly growing number of assessors was inadequate. It was also considered prudent to have two centres in order to reduce the risk of losing everything in a Luftwaffe air raid.

On 15 July 1942 CSDIC (UK) moved with its entire staff into the new interrogation centre at Latimer House at Chesham, Buckinghamshire (No. 1 Distribution Centre) with a maximum capacity of 204 prisoners. On 13 December a second new centre ten miles away at Wilton Park, Beaconsfield (No. 2 Distribution Centre) was opened with room for 142 prisoners, mainly Italians.[21]

The opening of the two new institutions allowed Trent Park to be converted into a long-term centre for German Staff officers. In the relaxed atmosphere it was hoped that its high-ranking population would reveal secrets in their private discussions.[22] The first new prisoner was General Ludwig Crüwell. He had been captured in North Africa on 29 May 1942 and arrived at Trent Park on 26 August after a long sea voyage. He was joined on 20 November 1942 by General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, a prisoner of the British for the previous two weeks.

For the sake of variation and to initiate fresh themes in conversation, from time to time selected prisoners were transferred to Trent Park. These included Kapitänleutnant Hans-Dietrich Tiesenhausen[23] and Major Burckhardt, von Thoma’s former adjutant during the Spanish Civil War. They remained only a few weeks before being shipped out to Canada.[24] Following the capitulation of Army-Group Afrika in May 1943, 18 senior officers ranging from the rank of Oberst to Generaloberst came to Trent Park. From the end of June 1944 there followed permanent prisoners picked up by the Allies during their push through France, Belgium and into Germany,[25] and by April 1945 the number of generals at Trent Park exceeded the capacity. The overflow went to other camps including Latimer House and Grizedale Hall at Hawkshead, Lancashire (No. 1 Camp). From August 1942 to its closure on 19 October 1945, 84 German generals made stays at Trent Park. To these must be added at least 22 officers of the rank of Oberst and an unknown number of other ranks, mostly adjutants and valets.[26] The total number of generals held until October 1945 temporarily in British interrogation centres was 302 of whom 82 per cent (248) arrived in England after April 1945.

After the Normandy landings in 1944, interrogation camps at Kempton Park (Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex: British Army) and Devizes, Wiltshire (US Army) were opened to receive German prisoners captured in France, while at Kensington the ‘London District Cage’ was set up for prisoners suspected by the British to be implicated in, or to have guilty knowledge of, war crimes.[27] At the latter the incumbents were subjected to psychological torture.[28]