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

Heim wrote of Trent Park:

We often shook our heads about our people, who seemed to be committing suicide, and at times we raged over a leadership without accountability which was leading this people to annihilation, riding to the death the mad idea of their intense heroism… accordingly we saw from a distance the horrifyingly irretrievable situation, apparently with no way out. Then we would retire once more to our ‘monastic cells’, or into the ‘monastery garden’ – pious brothers who had once been warriors… We tried to understand how it had come about, where its origins and errors lay, who was responsible. One thing we saw clearly: to lose two World Wars in a lifetime seemed like a judgement of God.[58]

It is natural to ask whether the inmates of Trent Park, and at the other two centres, knew that they were being spied upon. The authenticity of the protocols might be doubted if the generals suspected that the British were actively tapping their knowledge, for it would then be plausible for them to lace their conversations with disinformation. British methods of information gathering were by no means unknown in Germany. Before his transfer abroad in October 1940, the fighter pilot Franz von Werra was for a short time at Trent Park. After his escape from Canada, he reported extensively on British interrogation methods.[59] On 11 June 1941 Ausland-Abwehr issued guidelines for the conduct of Wehrmacht personnel in British captivity, warning expressly of stool pigeons masquerading in German uniform, and hidden microphones. It was pointed out emphatically that the enemy had succeeded in obtaining valuable information by such means.[60] The British protocols show that most German prisoners disregarded these warnings very quickly, irrespective of how hard it had been drummed into them, and gossiped habitually with their colleagues about military secrets.

The conversations of NCOs contain repeated reference to the National Socialist propaganda film Kämpfer hinter Stacheldraht (‘Warriors behind Barbed Wire’)[61] aimed at preventing careless talk. Yet in the same breath they would then proceed to enlighten their colleagues on what they had deliberately withheld from the interrogation officers,[62] thus dictating their secrets directly into British microphones, so to speak. Most German PoWs gave no thought to the possibility of their being overheard, or they would not have incriminated themselves by discussing their involvement in war crimes.[63] Only in a single case is it known for certain that prisoners discovered hidden microphones.[64] Officers were no different to other ranks in this respect. Oberst Kessler said that he had withheld from the intelligence officer at an interrogation centre details of his attitude to Nazism, then told Oberst Reimann what his attitude was (Document 28). There are numerous such examples which show that even senior officers at Trent Park fell into the craftily designed CSDIC (UK) trap.

To prevent the monotony of camp life causing the flow of talk to dry up, the British supplied falsified newspapers and magazines to provoke ever-more lively debate. Trent Park intelligence officers took selected prisoners on long excursions. This method succeeded in making General Crüwell more forthcoming. He had been initially ‘singularly uncommunicative’ but after a day out sightseeing he spoke for the first time about his impressions, then on general matters and finally on military questions.[65] In the course of time he opened up to ‘one of our best interrogators’. Especially valuable were Crüwell’s conversations with Oberleutnant zur See Wolfgang Römer, commander of U-353 sunk in the North Atlantic on 16 October 1942. Roemer responded to his enquiries by describing U-boat tactics which the British found to be of inestimable value.[66] When General von Thoma was made Senior German Officer in June 1944, he made it his custom to get new arrivals to speak out on their experiences. No stool pigeon could have done it better.

Generaloberst von Arnim tried in vain to instil a greater degree of watchfulness over private discussions at Trent Park. On 9 July 1943 in his capacity as Senior German Officer (Document 12) he urged caution in what was said – Trent Park was a former interrogation centre and one had to take into account that microphones might be hidden there. For this reason alone one should not hold conversations which might be of propaganda value to the enemy. On 15 August he renewed his appeal. He suspected that Lord Aberfeldy listened-in to prisoners’ conversations from his window, and that some of the personal valets were collaborating with the British (neither true), and that one must therefore exercise the greatest caution.[67] His appeal fell on deaf ears. The prisoners would not be muzzled and chatted gaily about politics and military affairs. Generalleutnant Neuffer considered ‘the stories about eavesdropping’ to be ‘utter stupidity’[68] while Oberstleutnant Köhncke was of the opinion that the prisoners had the right ‘to talk about political things – we are, after all, not children.’ One should be grateful to find oneself amongst one’s peers, amongst people with some experience of life, with different points of view, he went on, and this was not the same kind of thing at all as gossiping with young lieutenants.[69] Thoma concluded, ‘They have such a good intelligence service that they don’t need to listen to us chatterboxes.’[70]

Further convincing evidence that the German prisoners were unaware of being eavesdropped on is contained in General Crüwell’s diaries. In captivity he had consciously avoided making notes on political and military matters. In conversation with colleagues he abandoned caution and spoke out at length on the war situation in February 1944, providing MI19 with a precise strategic analysis. If he had suspected that microphones were hidden in the walls at Trent Park he would certainly have exercised discretion as with his diary notes.[71]

After reading hundreds of protocols, one is left with the impression that the generals were holding nothing back in conversation, not even von Arnim. Those who wanted to talk did so frankly at Trent Park. In the main, tactical details of operations, absent from the generals’ conversations, were discussed by Wehrmacht other ranks while with a few exceptions the generals discussed more general matters. This was attributable to the higher degree of education, age and the higher military rank they held. It is this fact which makes the CSDIC (UK) protocols so interesting for historians, an insight into the thinking of a chosen circle of senior German officers during World War II beyond detailed military information.

To what extent Trent Park fulfilled its purpose and the British obtained a concrete military advantage from the practice of listening-in to long-term prisoners is only evident in a few cases. The information gleaned from a conversation on U-boat tactics between General Crüwell and Oberleutnant Röhmer has already been mentioned. At the end of March 1943 the War Office received definite information about the development of the V-2 rocket from a conversation between Crüwell and Thoma,[72] but otherwise it was only officers captured on the Channel coast who spoke extensively about military tactics. From the latter the Allies may have learned that Cherbourg was not sown with long-term mines.[73]