We Have Ways of Making You Talk…World War II British Interrogation Tactics:
A Historical Moral Study
By Patrick Doerr, Saint Anselm College
On June 16 1948, Captain John Stuart Smith’s court – martial case came to its
conclusion. Smith, a military doctor at Britain’s prisoner of war interrogation centre Bad
Nenndorf, near Hannover, Germany, was being court – martialed on thirteen charges, including
eleven charges of general cruelty and professional neglect and, most seriously, two charges of
manslaughter for his alleged purposeful disregard of severely sick and emaciated prisoners. The
sentencing on June 16 was the culmination of weeks of back and forth accusations in the court
room between Smith’s S.S. prisoners and his defense. The prisoners accused Smith of
unspeakable cruelty and inhumane neglect, whilst his defense accused the Germans of being
savage, manipulative, and outright evil Nazi spies. The judges exonerated Smith on the two
dubious charges of manslaughter and six charges of neglect. However, “On the other five neglect
charges he was found Guilty and was sentenced to be dismissed from the service.”1 Smith’s case
was the most severe of the three court-martials that took place in the summer of 1948, which had
included accusations against Lieutenant Richard Oliver Langham, an interrogator at Bad
Nenndorf, and the camp’s Commandant, Colonel R.W.G. “Tin Eye” Stephens.
Merely a few years beforehand, Britain had lost countless men fighting in the cataclysmic
ideology-driven collision of European, American, and Pacific forces, known as World War II.
Yet, on June 16 1948, a Captain in the Royal Army and chief-doctor at a major British base had
been publically humiliated and made an example of for his participation in wartime
interrogation. The history of British interrogation during World War II and the moral debates and
the questions it posed deserve further historical investigation. Yet, because much of the
1
“Court Martial Findings,” The Times (London) June 17, 1948, column D, 2. documentation has been classified until recently, the subject of World War II interrogation,
particularly the efforts of the British, has been overlooked. One may ascertain a proper legacy for
those who participated in World War II British interrogation by establishing its significant
weight in the field of intelligence gathering during the war and its impact on the roots of modern
discussions over interrogation, as the morally ambiguous means of interrogation, shaped and
championed by the British interrogators, continue to fuel the fires of debate today.
While Britain had implemented rudimentary forms of intelligence gathering and
interrogation during World War I, the incredible strides made in technology, especially in air
power, made intelligence much more important than it had previously been. Consequently, an
interrogation prison such as “Camp 020 was an entirely novel venture… there was no manual or
rule book for this type of work.”2 The expansion and formation of intelligence agencies such as
MI5 provided the necessary groundwork to make interrogation an indispensable part of Britain’s
intelligence war effort. A useful confession could save thousands from certain death, or allow
Britain and its allies to bomb strategic enemy locations (e.g. armies and supplies). Based off of
these potential benefits, men like Camp 020’s Colonel R.W.G. Stephens took it upon themselves
to pave the way in the field of interrogation. By considering the basic outlines of the
interrogation network created in World War I, the expansion of intelligence agencies due to a
“Fifth Column,” obsession that arose with the British involvement in World War II, along with
careful consideration of the history of Britain’s interrogation camps and the techniques that they
developed and put into operation, one can obtain an understanding of the intelligence - gathering
importance of interrogation during World War II. Accounts such as Lieutenant Stephen’s A
Digest of Ham were vital to understanding how these camps worked and how the human
2
R.W.G. Stephens, Ed. Oliver Hoare, Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi Spies (Public Record Office, 2000) 17. intelligence gleaned from interrogation was useful, why the interrogator deemed his trade
morally permissible, and why the debates over interrogation’s necessity still find its way into
modern public consciousness. But this is only one part of the equation; interrogation’s rise to
prominence was most certainly not without its detractors. The other side of the moral spectrum was enraged over the techniques employed during
the British interrogations. Supported by much of the general public, humanitarians, and even (at
times) MI5’s reclusive Director of Counter-Espionage Guy Liddell, interrogation incited highly
emotional reactions. In the years following the war, Britain launched an investigation into these
camps, eventually culminating in the court-martials of the aforementioned three prominent
figures of Langham, Smith, and Stephens. The Times covered these court-martials from March
until June of 1948, providing compelling firsthand accounts of the interrogations by the prisoners
and the interrogators on trial. In a new post-war world attempting to pick up the pieces of an
exhausting, bloody, and at times utterly despicable ideological conflict, the issues of human
rights and inviolability came to the forefront. New drafts of the Geneva Convention came to
fruition, and newly created U.N. quickly established inviolable human rights laws to be followed
in a new and more united Western Europe. Despite its usefulness during the war, many
questioned the moral implications of interrogation, as the trials had clearly indicated.
In 2005, various MI5 documents became declassified and available to the general public
causing the discussion of interrogation to become prominent once again in Britain. The
Guardian, utilizing this new information, published various articles detailing the depths of the
depravity at interrogation camps such as The London Cage and Bad Nenndorf. The actions of
Stephens and his contemporaries were deemed horrific and cruel. Thus, the question had been
posed: What was the legacy of these men and British interrogation during the war? The worth of
the intelligence gathered by wartime interrogation had perhaps been great, but the cost had been
great as well. British interrogators had sunk to tremendous depths to obtain their confessions.
Nonetheless, their efforts saved countless lives and hastened the end of the war, a war in which
hundreds perished every day. It is easy to judge with hindsight, but we, as historians, cannot truly
make this judgment. As a result, we must study World War II British interrogation to establish
not only its worth from a historical standpoint due to its use in intelligence gathering, but also
from a modern standpoint through its undeniable influence on contemporary moral debate. As
the war on terror rages on, the humanitarian and moral questions raised by torture and
interrogation techniques continue to be a lightning rod of debate and discussion. Both sides of
this debate tend to be recalcitrant in their dedication to their respective sides, oftentimes ignoring
facts to either promote or denounce interrogation. It would be unbecoming of a historian to join
such a side and morally judge the legacy of the British interrogators. Stephens and his men have
carved out a distinctive place in history, galvanized by an ever-growing collection of facts and
revelations. Not only were these interrogations tremendously important to the war, but they
maintain relevance in our modern age through their controversial moral methods, as this thesis
seeks to prove.
In order to understand the context in which British interrogation operated in World War
II, one must examine its roots within World War I, Britain’s obsession with a so-called “Fifth
Column,” of spies, and the rise of Stephens and the interrogation camps such as 020 before the
war. During World War I, Britain primarily dealt with prisoners in a very simple and
straightforward structure. Instead of implementing a multi-fold and complicated hierarchy of
intelligence gathering and interrogation camps, Britain instead focused solely on extracting
information from captured high ranking officers, usually through simple coercion or bribes. If
officers could not be interrogated, then British officials moved on to wounded prisoners. Jock
Haswell’s British Military Intelligence describes the intricacies of World War I interrogation:
The British interrogation system began at a divisional level, and during a battle
the Divisional Prisoner-of-War Cage was always as near the main dressing station
as possible so that wounded prisoners could be questioned without wasting time.
But at this level the examination of prisoners was extremely brief and limited to
‘tactical’ questions about strengths and positions and enemy intentions. Further
back, at the Corps Cage there was a more exhaustive examination of prisoners
selected for more questioning at the Divisional Cage, and further back still was
the Army Cage. In addition to these cages, each of which had a small
interrogation team, there were always at least two interrogators at each Casualty
Clearing Station, following up the initial questioning at the dressing stations in the
forward areas.3
This quotation summarizes the extent of Britain’s intelligence organization during the
First World War; a fairly loose organization that was of lesser importance to military leaders.
While it had its uses for battle preparation, trickery, and basic intelligence gathering, the level of
information and organization achieved by British intelligence during World War I was minute in
comparison that of World War II. Haswell goes on to write that often “decoy prisoners” were
used for special examinations, finding success at Casualty Clearing Stations. Such a tactic would
be expanded by men such as Stephens during World War II. Eventually, these divisions,
seemingly temporary and thin in nature during the war, were compounded into Britain’s first
intelligence agencies. The prisoners Britain had captured during the war seemed to be treated
fairly well, and as The Times reported, “all medicines are issued free,” “accommodation is
provided for officers,” and “soldiers receive free rations, clothing.”4 These “accommodations,”
seemingly pleasant and good-intentioned, were a far cry from what would be witnessed a few
years later in World War II.
3
4
Jock Haswell, British Military Intelligence, (Willmer Brothers Limited, 1973), 117. “Care of German Prisoners,” The Times (London) March 16, 1915, column G, 9. After the defeat of France at the hands of an aggressive and powerful Nazi Germany in
1940, Britain’s fear of a “Fifth Column” of enemy spies and infiltrators reached a fever pitch,
increasing the demand for a stronger and more organized intelligence branch. Fear of debonair
enemy spies undermining British efforts from their own soil was not unprecedented. Often
during World War I, the public expressed fear over spies infiltrating the U.K. Picking up where
they left off, the public’s irrational fear and distrust again arose; people were certain that
Germany was sending spies into Britain at an alarming rate.5 People truly believed that “hordes
of German agents were working behind the Western lines, assisting the Wehrmacht in their rapid
advance over Europe.”6 Much of this so called “Fifth Column” was totally fabricated, a product
of public misconceptions and paranoia. MI5’s Director Guy Liddell commented on the Fifth
Column’s existence (or lack-thereof) in his diaries, musing, “While I feel it likely that there are a
few German agents here, possibly transmitting by wireless, I do not envisage anything in the
nature of large bodies of individuals going out to stab us in the back as soon as the Germans
invade this country.”7 A misinformed and unnecessarily alarming Ministry of Information leaflet
read, “There is a fifth column in Britain. Anyone who thinks that there isn’t…has simply fallen
in to the trap laid by the fifth column itself. For the first job of the fifth column is to make people
think that it does not exist.”8 British intelligence agencies, particularly MI5, grew rapidly as a
result of these fears, despite their largely erroneous nature. By May 1940, Prime Minister
Winston Churchill had commissioned the creation of the Home Defense (Security) Executive,
often referred to as the Swinton Committee, to reorganize MI5 and its sister agency, MI9
(focusing on radio intercepted intelligence, known as SIGINT, or Signal Intelligence). Churchill
5
Stephens, Hoare, ed., 11. Ibid. 7
Guy Liddell, Nigel West, ed., The Guy Liddell Diaries: Vol I, (New York: Routledge, 2005) 86. 8
Stephens, Hoare, ed., 12. 6
pushed for an expansion of intelligence, hoping that the agencies would benefit from the rapid
strides in technology, allowing for the eradication of the supposed Fifth Column and domination
of the intelligence battle of espionage against Germany.
While many of the Fifth Column fears were exaggerated, German agents did begin to
find their way into the country. Guy Liddell recalled one such case in his diaries, detailing the
exploits of a Norwegian spy called Nicolai Hansen. Hansen had parachuted into the country with
another spy, and subsequently been caught. He cooperated after his capture, but his companion
was not so wise; in an attempt at escape, he was shot and killed. Hansen eventually revealed his
intentions to set up a base of Nazi spies and led investigators to his recording equipment.9 Cases
such as Hansen’s became commonplace, and in July 1940, in an attempt to deal with the
captured enemy agents such as Hansen pouring into the country, Camp 020 was established in
London. After some bureaucratic back and forth, Camp 020 was designated an official detention
center. The creation of this camp coincided with the Battle of Britain, a desperate air struggle
between the Royal Air Force and German Lutwaffe over the English Channel and the U.K.
During this time, German prisoners and spies became commonplace. Stephens and his staff at
Camp 020 now had their opportunity to make their mark and contribute to the war effort.
Camp 020 and its interrogation tactics are inextricably linked with the formidable, larger
than life figure of Colonel Robin William George Stephens. While a fearsome, intimidating,
boisterous character during his interrogations, Stephens was thought of fondly by those who
knew him best and worked close beside him. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to see why the
prisoners he interrogated so often broke under his ceaseless harassment. Described as “Tin Eye”
because of his steely gaze behind an ever-present monocle, and “sharp and immaculate in his
9
Nigel West, ed., The Guy Liddell Diaries: Vol II, (New York: Routledge, 2005) 120. dress, Stephens’ appearance was more reminiscent of a stereotypical Gestapo officer.”10 A welltraveled man, having served in India for several years, Stephens was fluent in six languages.
Eventually, Stephens was appointed the rank of Captain in the newly expanded Security Service.
Stephens entered into the world of MI5 (A separate intelligence agency) through his connections,
and he quickly ascended to the position of the Commandant of the newly created Camp 020.
Stephens was more than equipped to take on the problem of interrogation; he embraced his role,
and as Hoare notes, “Stephens’ abhorrence of the enemy was above the norm and tended to
verge on the obsessive.”11 Camp 020 was now solidly established, possessing a capable and
dynamic leader in Stephens. British interrogation and its tactics were about to undergo a
revolution and prove their war-time worth.
Forging the path of interrogation, men such as Stephens essentially “wrote the book” on
the subject. Hoare writes, “The main aim of Stephens and his staff was initially to establish the
guilt of those unfortunate inmates who found themselves at 020; and secondly, to obtain as much
valuable information about the enemy’s intentions as possible.”12 The tactics refined by the
British interrogators would prove crucial to obtaining the type of information that could save
lives and inflict crippling blows upon the enemy. Perfecting their art at a time of great revolution
in the ways of technology, the job of interrogators became that much more important. The new
airplane technology and mass production was a tremendous power indeed, and a vital piece of
intelligence obtained from a confession could either save the lives of many British men, destroy
enemy troops, or cut off supplies and create a logistical nightmare for the enemy. Through years
of trial and error, Stephens and his men developed effective tactics and methods, and perfected
10
Stephens, Hoare, ed., 6. Ibid. 12
Ibid, 17. 11
their implementation. The secrets to Stephens and his men’s successes can be found throughout
Stephens’ comprehensive work, A Digest of Ham.
For Stephens, the crux of interrogation came down to one thing: obtaining a confession,
as quickly and efficiently as possible. The confession was the reward for an interrogator’s
constant prodding and perseverance. A confession was the thing that could save lives and destroy
the enemy. The interrogators of Camp 020 pursued a doctrine of “Truth in the shortest possible
time.”13 In Stephens’ words, “The stake is high. It is the life of the spy against the security of a
country.”14 Stephens saw two kinds of interrogators: the cunning and subtle investigator and the
raucous and intimidating breaker. A breaker is to “overwhelm and disintegrate all opposition,”
and an investigator to “deal with the minutiae, check and counter-check, analyze, collate and
report.”15 These two worked in tandem with one another, the breaker living up to his namesake
and the investigator picking up the pieces. Stephens, known as a thoroughly intimidating man
himself, remarked that “It is customary to say a breaker is born and not made.” He fancied
himself to be a born breaker, and he let his prisoners know it throughout the war. Stephens built
his entire interrogation theory around the breaker and investigator. He knew what he was looking
for in these breakers and investigators, and he set out to find it.
Stephens looked for certain traits within his recruits in order to properly outfit them with
effective interrogator training and deem them a breaker or investigator. He was looking for a
very certain type of man for the job, and he was not willing to concede any of his requirements.
The interrogators at Camp 020, according to Stephens’ standards, were the “best of the best” in
their respective field. For starters, he was seeking “enthusiasm,” and “experience,” the latter
13
Ibid, 109. Ibid, 105. 15
Ibid, 107. 14
which was difficult to find. Another essential was “an implacable hated of the enemy,” because
“from that is derived a certain aggressive approach.”16 Indeed, such hatred was not difficult to
locate at the time, and many of the interrogators possessed a predisposition against the Germans
much like Stephens. Richard Overy writes, “Their [Germany’s] popular reputation for blind
fanaticism and sordid brutality predisposed many of those who came into contact with them to
assume the worst.”17 An interrogator needed to possess a “disinclination to believe without
independent corroboration, and above all relentless determination to break down the spy,
however hopeless the odds, however many the difficulties, however long the process may
take.”18 Stephens also wrote that “Rich is the advantage of a man who can claim to be bilingual,”
but that knowledge of foreign languages does not an interrogator make, for they must possess the
killer instinct to break a man’s will, not “the scholarly approach.”19 Stephens concluded his
interrogators “requirements” by saying, “What else can be said? Obviously a man of experience
is required, essentially a man of common sense. If he has travelled, so much the better. If too he
has seen war, lost much, that is an advantage. The wider range of his interests the better.”20
These quotations suggest that Stephens looked for men that possessed not only a palpable enmity
towards their enemy but also the quality of worldliness and experience. Stephens needed his men
to be able to converse with their detainees on any and all subjects; an unseasoned rookie would
not do. Should they possess a hatred of their enemies and their ideologies, all the better, for it
would no doubt result in more assertive and aggressive interrogations. Stephens’ words on this
subject are particularly interesting because he avoids any sort of morality; in fact, he was looking
for a blatant hatred of the enemy. Thus, Camp 020 had its breakers and investigators, well
16
Ibid. Interrogations: Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945, Richard Overy, (New York: Penguin, 2001), 61. 18
Stephens, Hoare, ed., 108. 19
Ibid. 20
Ibid. 17
traveled, Nazi – Hating men, who would stop at nothing to obtain their goal of confession.
Stephens now had his men and the moment of truth awaited them in the interrogation rooms.
The best way to obtain a confession was in the initial meeting with a prisoner; there was
no more vital moment than the opening interview. It was in this timeframe that Stephens’ men, in
all of their German-hating glory, came at a subject with full force. Here, in this moment, the
subject revealed his fortitude; either he would break in this instant, or longer, protracted and
more measured work would be levied upon him. As Stephens put it, “It is the attack in maximum
force at the critical moment that is decisive.”21 The aim of this initial meeting was to attempt to
bombard the unsuspecting prisoner to obtain a quick and fruitful confession. They would be
presented to a panel of officers, often headed by Stephens himself, which would assail the
subject with unanswerable questions until they broke. During this time, a stenographer would
record everything in order to investigate it for further clues afterwards.22 Stephens portrayed the
first interview as possessing “The atmosphere…of a general court martial.” He continued
describing the scene, writing that, “One officer interrogates,” and that “In urgent cases two
officers alternately take summaries.” He also noted that, “The interpreter sits next to the
interrogator. Unless other faculties exist a stenographer is present and is relieved unobtrusively
every half hour.” In regards to the treatment of the prisoner, Stephens wrote, “The prisoner is
marched in and remains standing to attention throughout the proceedings. No liberties, no
interruptions, no gesticulations. He speaks when he is spoken to. He answers the questions; no
more, no less.” For Stephens, “A spy in war should be at the point of a bayonet.”23 In the initial
meetings, there were no attempts at diplomacy. The offering of a cigarette and personal questions
21
Ibid, 117. Ibid, 19. 23
Ibid, 117. 22
were strictly prohibited. The prisoners were assailed with questions and indictments, and if they
survived the fury unleashed upon them, as more seasoned and stalwart detainees often did,
different techniques would be employed to obtain the confession investigators were seeking.
These excerpts from Ham clearly convey Stephens’ unique brand of interrogation: Prisoners
were simply to be broken down systematically, anything other simple comfort given to them was
counterproductive. If the subjects somehow withstood the rigors of the initial interview,
interrogators were prepared to outlast them. Stephens wrote, “If the interrogator fails during the
first vital hours, trouble untold is in store.”24
This “trouble untold” could be found in the multiple techniques utilized against the
hapless prisoners of camps such as Bad Nenndorf and 020. Called “Special Devices,” Stephens
described several of these techniques in A Digest of Ham, including ‘M’ and indirect
interrogation, “The Stool Pigeon,” the “Cross – Ruff’, “Confrontation”, “Assessors”, “The
Legend of Cell-Fourteen”, “Blow Hot – Blow Cold”, “The Cover Story”, “Sympathy Men”,
“Faking of Newspapers”, ‘Exploitation of Rank – Consciousness”, and even drugging. Stephens
first referred to “M” (meaning microphone recording of interrogations), recordings of carefully
constructed interrogations that were subsequently investigated as to make sure that the prisoner
was telling the truth or had indirectly revealed something else. Intelligence officers focusing
primarily on psychological studies on the voices ability to portray truth, lies, or the withholding
of truth put their input into these recordings. While often they “possessed knowledge about
subjects on which the IO [interrogating officer] would never have dreamt of interrogating
them,”25 the logistical nightmare of recruiting and training enough reliable “M’s” to keep up with
24
25
Ibid, 119. Ibid, 121. the perpetual flow of prisoners was too daunting. While “M” was utilized, sometimes to great
effect, it was not one of the most prominent techniques.
Another volatile technique was the “Stool-Pigeon,” or informer technique. The informant
was a broken prisoner, who, in return for more humane treatment, worked for the interrogators.
While it possessed tremendous potential, often its detriments outweighed its possible benefits.
Stephens wrote, “Then when the stool pigeon fails, as it almost invariably does fail, the
interrogator earns the contempt of the spy, the investigation is irretrievably lost, the man himself
is blown to the rest of the prison, and an overall reticence may well affect other cases under
inquiry.”26 An effective informant could walk upon the fine line and never reveal himself, subtly
extracting important information from his supposed prisoner brethren and stealthily presenting it
to his “benefactors.” However, the prisoners in places such as 020 were already well aware of the
existence of such men, and, if they had not broken in their initial interview, they were usually
much too cautious and distant to reveal anything of substance to an informant. When these
informants were found out, and they often were as Stephens pointed out, they became useless.
The other “cases under inquiry” that he mentions were also under jeopardy due to the use of a
Stool Pigeon, for it could cause a general defiance and utter distrust that could undermine
investigators efforts. One of the main goals of Stephens and his men was to “turn” broken
prisoners into spies of their own, often released as double agents. While the “Stool – Pigeon”
was one such use for a broken prisoner, there were better ways to use them and better ways to
glean information.
An additional technique used by British interrogators was that of the “Cross-Ruff,”
which was essentially playing captives against one another in the hopes of obtaining a break and
26
Ibid, 122. information. Utilized in situations in which prisoners who had worked with one another were
captured together, the Cross-Ruff technique focused on isolating the prisoners from one another,
choosing the weakest of the pack, and heavily interrogating them. Once they had revealed a
sufficient amount, interrogators often played the prisoners’ distrust of one another, accusing their
comrades of betrayal. They also bombarded the less talkative of the bunch (known as the
principal) with unknowable details of their mission, obtained from the confessions of his
comrades. Stephens wrote, “Usually he [the principal] is intelligent enough to appreciate the
hopelessness of the position and surrender.”27 Stephens presented an example of Cross-Ruff
working to its potential in the case of Nazi-corroborating Icelanders Fresenius, Bjornsson, and
Juliusson. After obtaining limited breaks from both Bjornsson and Juliusson, the team had
acquired enough background to convince their leader Fresenius of the hopelessness of his
situation and obtain his confession. The confessions yielded excellent intelligence for 020, as
they obtained the prisoners’ hidden recording equipment and learned their missions. Always
seeking truth as quickly as possible, Stephens was particularly pleased with the swiftness of the
outcome: “The outstanding feature of this very important operational case at the time of “D” Day
is that the bulk of the information was obtained within 48 hours.”28 Using misdirection, distrust,
and fear, the Cross-Ruff was an excellent way in which to gain human intelligence from
interrogation.
Confrontation was a simple and unpredictable technique that was also applied,
particularly to suspected spies and Fifth Column members. Interrogators, sensing the moment of
truth at hand, would reveal their hand by accusing a cornered prisoner with their Nazi
involvement, backing it up with whatever facts and details they had stumbled upon in the
27
28
Ibid, 124. Ibid. investigation. Quite often, however, prisoners saw through the rouse and denied all. Having lost
the leverage over the prisoner, the interrogation had failed. The technique of “Assessors” was a
unique tactic in which various prisoners, most of whom had previously been broken and had
nothing to lose, were assembled together and used against a particularly defiant prisoner.
Interrogators would then instruct the “Assessors” to calm the aforementioned defiant prisoner
after a particularly brutal line of questioning, and then alternatively side against him. After many
rounds of this contradictory treatment from his supposed “friends,” a prisoner would often break
down with confusion and annoyance. Playing upon the understandably disturbed psychological
state of prisoners, the interrogators of Camp 020 created “the Legend of Cell Fourteen.” By
weaving various tall tales about the cell including stories of maniacs, suicide, and the
supernatural, placing men in Cell Fourteen was yet another way to break them down. A padded
and thoroughly claustrophobic cell, Cell Fourteen served as an effective way to throw prisoners
further off kilter and obtain a confession. Often, however, the cell itself was not enough, and the
interrogators had to prove their worth. Stephens wrote, “Much depended upon delivery,
atmosphere, timing – last but not least upon the personality of the interrogator.”29 Yet another
technique used was “Blow-hot, Blow-cold,” in which, as the title suggests, interrogators would
attempt to confused and break a subject through intense and cruel interrogation intermixed with
interaction with a friendly “snake in the grass interrogator.” In the aftermath of a fiery and
aggressive interrogation, the “English Gentleman,” would ingratiate himself with the dejected
prisoner, gaining his trust and extracting key information from his “friend.”30 In conjunction with
other forms of trickery and psychological trauma such as cover stories, “Sympathy men,” and
29
30
Ibid, 127. Ibid, 128. faked newspapers, British interrogators had formed an impressive base of ideas and
implementation of techniques in the field of World War II interrogation.
A culmination of these many tactics coinciding with one another is the case study of
“Copier” provided by Stephens. In the case, Stephens related the tale of the aforementioned
Copier, a “German…fanatic,” that injured himself in a plane jump into British territory.31
Stephens described the interrogation of Copier, saying that he “put up a good fight,” “denied his
companion,” (who died in the parachuting mission) “refused to give the names of his masters in
the German S. S.,” and “withheld information.”32 However, as Stephens had made clear, the job
of an interrogator is to persevere no matter what kind of defense a prisoner takes up. Truth, as
quickly as possible, at all costs. Despite Copier’s resistance, “little by little he found it was of no
use,” for “day after day evidence bore upon him that the Nazis, through their incompetence, had
betrayed him.” After much resistance, Stephens declared, “To-day, the man is disillusioned, and
his confession is almost complete.”33 Despite his attempts to defy his interrogators Copier
eventually yielded and revealed the identities of his superiors. This excerpt is an example of the
core of the ideals of British interrogation: break down a man’s will through intimidation,
misdirection, and constant attacks on his own ideals and trusts. Stephens and his men had
eventually broken down Copier, a defiant prisoner, with untrue claims against his brethren. After
weeks of intense interrogation, little sleep, and meager food, Copier was inclined to believe that
he had been abandoned. The themes of this case are consistent with Camp 020’s many
interrogations. It is of note that, according to Stephens, these men were almost never directly
physically harmed. Quickly, the interrogators found that the threat of physical violence and the
31
Ibid, 110. Ibid. 33
Ibid. 32
barbaric types of questioning that had dominated in the past were, under psychological
examination, largely ineffective. A man facing debilitating pain was likely to say anything to
avoid it. For Stephens, this was useless. He needed the truth, in its fullest and most
comprehensive sense, and if physical pain would not achieve this end, there were other means to
be had. Hoare writes, “The first and foremost unbreakable rule to be instituted was that physical
violence was not to be used under any circumstance. But this non-violent approach was not
derived from a sense of rectitude.”34 Stephens saw violence as taboo, but not because he truly
had any moral scruples about it. It was simply bad for the interrogation “business,” a business
that Stephens had galvanized into a fully functioning and important part of the intelligence
community.
While the work of men in ULTRA (MI9’s main signal intelligence organization,
responsible for code-breaking at Bletchley Park and the capture of the German Enigma device)
has been praised for its indispensable intelligence contributions, the interrogations in Camp 020
had provided an effective supplement, making sense of much of the data collected by the signal
and code collecting of ULTRA through human intelligence obtained from confession. It had
proven its value in other ways as well, as human intelligence had provided the basis of many of
the war-propaganda leaflets being used to boost morale at home or crush enemy morale abroad.
Daniel Lerner’s Psychological Warfare Against Nazi Germany touched upon this benefit of
human intelligence: “Interrogation of P.O.W.’s provided, for example, the basis for the five
successive revisions of the Passierschein leaflet, which eventually turned out to be the most
successful leaflet produced by Sykewar [Psychological warfare].”35 Hoare relates the point of
MI5 historian Jack Curry, who stated, “…the interrogation of known agents at Camp 020 or the
34
35
Ibid, 19. Daniel Lerner, Psychological Warfare Against Nazi German, (Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, 1971) 291. LRC and the work of B.1.A in dealing with the traffic of agents who were turned around, all
combined to furnish complementary pieces of evidence without which the ISOS material by
itself could not be fully understood or explained, and had a very limited practical value.”36 In
other words, while the signal intelligence that was captured during World War II had been of
paramount importance in at least its sheer volume, the human intelligence extracted by the
techniques developed by the British interrogators at Camp 020 and many others had been
integral in making sense of and confirming the signal intelligence. Stephens, never one to
understate his cause, proclaimed that, “Ham [The information obtained by 020 and its
interrogations] became known as one of the two most important sources of information in the
war, comparable in accuracy indeed to the other which was ISOS itself.”37 At a dinner to
commemorate MI5 Director, Stephens gave a speech poking fun at the “hands-off” focus of most
intelligence officers in comparison to his aggressive and militant interrogators. Liddell recalled,
“Tin – Eye Stephens…struck a rather dangerous note in his speech by referring to people who, in
contrast to myself, went about in red tabs but were not really soldiers.”38
There was a grain of truth in Stephens’ bravado. 020 had proven it a useful intelligence
gathering base during the war, as the interrogation techniques developed by the investigators at
020 had accounted for countless confessions that had confirmed the intelligence gathered by
others, saved lives and undermined the enemy. Quite clearly, the development of British
interrogation, spearheaded by men like Stephens, had been a significant development in the
intelligence world and towards the war effort. This evidence proves that there is little merit in
denying its impact on intelligence and the quickening of the war’s end. However, Stephens and
36
Stephens, Hoare, ed., 27. Ibid, 58. 38
Nigel West, ed., The Guy Liddell Diaries: Vol II, (New York: Routledge, 2005) 175. 37
his crew had instituted various controversial techniques to obtain confessions. From the
utilitarian standpoint of Stephens and his men, these techniques, while harsh, were a means to an
end. They truly believed that their actions were helping win the war; this was their mission, and
it had to be completed by whatever means necessary. In a post-war Europe built off of morality
and close cooperation, however, the legacy of Stephens and Britain’s World War II interrogators
would be questioned.
The other means by which WWII British interrogation warrants in depth study is its place
in the moral debate about torture and interrogation that has raged throughout history and
continues on in the present day. As was previously mentioned, Stephens claimed to be against
the use of physical violence in his interrogations, not because of the moral implications, but
because of its counter-productive outcome. This disregard for morality in interrogation became a
huge point of contention in post-war Western Europe. By the war’s end the globe was weary of
atrocities, death, mistreatment, and intolerant divisions. In the free and Western world, a stark
contrast to the Communist one of the east, West Europe (rebuilding itself on American aid),
entered into a coalition and eventually achieved unprecedented economic success. A time of
solidarity and hope emerged from the hell of the previous years. There was no place for a
xenophobic and militant man like Stephens in this new world. In Western Europe, new drafts of
the Geneva accords were put into place, and the newly formed United Nations instituted human
rights doctrines. Britain followed suite, and chief interrogators that had previously been
responsible for obtaining confessions from hated Nazis in hopes of winning the war and saving
lives were put on trials for crimes against humanity. While it had avoided public scrutiny during
the war, these new developments brought interrogation and its means to the forefront. The
British interrogation trials of 1948, disagreements in the intelligence community, and modern
points of view from The Guardian all provide the necessary evidence to prove the moral
importance of British interrogation during the war and beyond.
To fully appreciate the opposed moral side against those in favor of interrogation, one
must first examine the trials of 1948 (which spanned from March until June) as reported by The
Times. While they had encompassed a relatively short time, the impact of the trials was
extremely important. On March 3, The Times reported that Lieutenant Richard Oliver Langham
was indicted on the charges of disgraceful conduct. These charges stemmed from his S.S.
prisoner Horst Mahnke at Bad Nenndorf camp. A far cry from a doctrine of no physical violence,
Mahnke accused Langham of various heinous acts, saying “that lighted cigarettes were placed
against his naked body,” “he was told his family had been arrested,” and that “if he did not
confess pressure would be applied to his wife.”39 Mahnke also said that “he was stripped naked
and forced to run up and down a corridor while being punched and kicked,” “he was held under a
cold shower for 15 minutes and punched when he tried to get away from the water,” and that “he
was struck in different parts of the body.”40 Another prisoner, former S.S. colonel Rudolf
Roeder, “described similar tortures, including being “plunged under a cold shower and
compelled to run round the cell naked.”41 The article said that “Dr. Heinz Buettner, a German
hospital doctor, gave evidence that Roeder was in a ‘dangerous condition’ for a week.” The
defense played on the fact that the accusers were Nazis and S.S. members, men that had been
spearheading the annihilation of an entire race and killing British soldiers just 3 years before.
They claimed that Roeder and Mahnke were greatly exaggerating their ailments for sympathy.
39
“Evidence At Hanover,” The Times (London) March 4, 1948, column C, 3. Ibid. 41
“Alleged Torture of Germans, The Times (London) March 5, 1948, column A, 5. 40
One of the interrogators admitted that Mahnke “annoyed me” because he was “insolent,” but
admitted violence only by saying that “They were just pushed around for a few minutes.”42
Eventually, Langham was acquitted on the charges, as the defense, in their final speech, asked
the court if they were going to accept the story of “these two charmers, trained liars, deceivers;
these two Nazis.”43
The next interrogation trial was that of the aforementioned Captain John Stuart Smith, an
officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps facing several charges, including two of manslaughter
and eleven of professional neglect. Smith was also stationed at the notorious Bad Nenndorf
camp. Essentially, Smith, who was “responsible for the medical care of the whole camp,”
purposely neglected his duties to make prisoners suffer, resulting in two prisoners dying under
his watch.44 Almost immediately, Smith’s situation seemed to be considerably more precarious
than that of Langham. Not even an official interrogator, Smith failed in a basic humanitarian
duty through his blatant abandonment of sick and suffering prisoners. One prisoner described
having to go to a “‘Cold’ punishment cell, having first been required to give up his blankets,
boots, washing kit, and jacket.”45 Eventually, he developed severe frostbite and infection of his
feet, but, according to Smith’s diagnosis, the man was under no danger of infection. Smith knew
that the prisoner was suffering, but he turned a blind eye, for he believed that this suffering
would aid in further interrogations. Unlike Langham, the courts found no sympathy with Smith.
His punishment of the Germans was perverse and counterproductive, and while cleared on
manslaughter, he was convicted on his charges of neglect and dishonorably discharged. It is
certainly worth consideration that Smith was not an interrogator. He was a high – ranking
42
“Trial of British Officer,” The Times (London) March 12, 1948, column C, 3. “Lieut. R. O. Langham Acquitted,” The Times (London) April 1, 1948, column C, 2. 44
“Charges Against R.A.M.C Officer,” The Times (London) April 8, 1948, column E, 3. 45
“Cold Punishment Cell,” The Times (London) April 12, 1948, column E, 3. 43
medical officer, and it is more than likely that he received the harshest sentence because of his
negligence of basic humanitarian duties. Nonetheless, Smith has participated in such behavior in
order to help his interrogator colleagues to gain confessions. Was he more at fault for this? The
line is certainly hazy.
Last, and perhaps most importantly, Stephens himself was brought up on charges of
disgraceful conduct and ill-treatment of prisoners, as he had also been the Commandant of Bad
Nendorff after his time at 020. Stephens was accused of ordering “the handcuffing in an empty
cell of a prisoner,” “causing a prisoner on two dates…to be confined in an empty and unheated
cell,” and that he had “failed in his duty as supervisor of the prison section of the camp.”46
Unlike the unfortunate Smith, none of Stephens’ charges stuck, with the two charges of
disgraceful and cruel conduct being immediately withdrawn. As Hoare writes, “Stephens was in
fact cleared of all charges, some of which were struck from the charge sheet on the first day of
the proceedings.”47 Later, Stephens remarked on the nature of his accusers, delicately putting it
in his typical manner, “Their motives are invariably foul, most of them are degenerates, most of
them come diseased from V.D., many are chronic medical cases…they are pathological liars and
the value of their Christian oath is therefore doubtful.”48 Stephens, unrepentant, had no remorse
for the treatment of the prisoners. His moral view and total backing of interrogation and all of its
techniques was unmoved, despite the fact that he had come close to being disgraced and possibly
imprisoned. Stephens was deeply entrenched in his beliefs; interrogation was going to tread on
sensitive moral grounds, but the potential benefits would always outweigh the costs.
46
“Court‐Martial of Colonel,” The Times (London) June 9, 1948, column D, 3. Stephens, Hoare, ed., 8. 48
Ibid. 47
A particularly interesting take on the moral debate of interrogation can be found in the
diaries of Guy Liddell on the previously mentioned case of the detained Fifth Column spy
Nicolai Hansen. Liddell favored signal intelligence heavily over the tactics of Stephens and his
human intelligence gained from interrogation. Nonetheless, as the Director of MI5, he saw the
use of interrogation and tolerated it. Neither a moral crusader nor a total proponent of
interrogation, Liddell provides a compelling study not only through his close proximity to the
interrogation and intelligence revolution, but also through his levelheaded and mostly neutral
stances. As a part of typical protocol, Hansen was sent to Camp 020 to be debriefed. A day later,
Liddell wrote, “Nicolai Hansen has arrived and a statement has been taken from him by Edward
Hinchley – Cooke [A top MI5 official]. He came absolutely clean and there is no question of
prosecution.”49 Seemingly, the case was closed. Stephens, however, begged to differ. Holes in
Hansen’s case began to surface. Liddell detailed, “He was asked whether had brought any secret
ink. He said that he had, but that he could not remember where it was. Finally, he said that it was
concealed in one of his teeth.”50 When questioned about whether or not he was supposed to
contact a certain address with said ink, Hansen denied any knowledge until he again caved and
revealed Stockholm as the destination. “His excuse for not giving this information before was
that he was afraid we should make a mess of things and that his wife would get into trouble.”51 A
subsequent diary entry said, “Edward Hinchley – Cooke’s bloodlust has been aroused by the
Nicolai Hansen case. He [Hinchley – Cooke] thinks that we should prosecute and wants to
interview certain of the officers at Camp 020. Colonel Stephens is breathing fire. We have
however tactfully persuaded Hinchley – Cooke that before he does so the question of principle
49
Guy Liddell, Nigel West, ed., The Guy Liddell Diaries: Vol II, (New York: Routledge, 2005) 120. Liddell, West, ed., 120. 51
Ibid. 50
must be decided.”52 Hinchley – Cooke, having declared Hansen clear of all charges, was clearly
perturbed by Stephens’ insistent investigation and continual prodding into Hansen. This
undermined his authority and was an embarrassment, as he had exonerated Hansen. In this case,
Liddell seemed to be suspicious of the Norwegian as well, delicately backing Stephens’
investigations and keeping Hinchley – Cooke at bay. Thus, despite the moral implications of
further interrogation of a man formerly declared innocent, Liddell backed Stephens. At times,
moral lines had to be crossed. Interrogation’s moral standing was indeed complex, as the case of
Hansen and Liddell’s viewpoints indicate. Despite its general toleration in the intelligence
community, interrogation remained a debated topic.
While the trials of 1948 went by as uneventful faire in the grand scheme of things in the
world, their impact was undisputable. Three prominent men involved in the field of World War
II British interrogation had been charged with heinous crimes, and one of them was convicted on
several charges. The men accusing these interrogators were not British prisoners, nor were they
British traitors. They were, in fact, members of the S. S. and Nazi party, the same Nazis that
Britain had toiled through desperate years of struggle against at the cost of countless thousands
and their standing as a major world power. Discussing the necessity for brutal tactics, Rab
Bennet writes, “At times it was not possible to disavow the use of evil means without
capitulating to a ruthless foe who had no such moral qualms.”53 Despite the decidedly wicked
actions of the Germans, Britain fascinatingly chose to indict its own men on charges of cruelty
against the Nazis they had sacrificed so much fighting against. In this case, according the much
of Britain’s people and top officials, morality and humanity brought into question and sometimes
outweighed the possible benefits of interrogation. As historians, we cannot come to a solid and
52
53
Liddell, West, ed., Vol II, 124. Rab Bennett, Under the Shadow of the Swastika, (NYU Press, 1999) 286. fair conclusion upon which side it truly in the right. The potential benefits of interrogation and
human intelligence are, as Hoare notes, “still relatively undetermined.”54 If one was to ask
Stephens, he would undoubtedly boast about the indispensable worth of human intelligence and
that many of the interrogations extracted at 020 had helped win the war. One would be hard –
pressed to argue with him. Conversely, one would also find it difficult to disagree with the moral
necessity of the trials of 1948. The interrogators had treated these prisoners cruelly by any
standards, and the trials against these men were legitimate. These trials were yet another reason
by which British interrogation has proven itself a dynamic historical topic.
The release of further documents in 2005 about MI5, its interrogation camps, their
methods, and the living conditions of their prisoners has renewed interest and scrutiny over the
topic. Once again, the public is wrestling with the moral questions concerning interrogation.
Coinciding with the modern conflict on the necessity of torture in the war on terror, interrogation
has again found itself as a passionately debated topic. Modern investigations into interrogation
camps such as Bad Nenndorf and the London Cage, detailed in articles published in 2005 by The
Guardian provide an interesting moral perspective on the case. The paper described several
gruesome scenes of extreme depravation and neglect. There were prisoners “severely starved,
frostbitten, and caked in dirt. Some had been beaten and whipped.”55 Malnutrition caused several
deaths, and many were described as “a living skeletons.”56 According to the article, “Many of
Bad Nenndorf’s inmates were there for no reason at all. One, a former diplomat, remained locked
54
55
Stephens, Hoare, ed., 26. Ian Cobain, “Britain’s Secret Torture Centre,” The Guardian, December 17, 2005, 2 (Accessed December 2009). 56
Ibid. up because he had “learned too much about our interrogation methods.”57 The Guardian also
covered the “London Cage,” a secret P.O.W camp in Kensington, kept secret from the Red
Cross. Now home to one of the most posh district in London, Kensington Palace Gardens was,
for many years during and after the war, a brutal interrogation camp.58 When S.S. Captain Fritz
Knoechlein was unable to make the desired confession, he was “stripped only a pair of pajama
trousers, deprived of sleep for four days and nights, and starved,” as his interrogators “boasted
that they were ‘much better than the Gestapo in Alexanderplatz.’”59 The article ends with this
rather bold excerpt: “In one complaint lodged at the National Archives, a 27 – year – old German
journalist being held at this camp said he had spent two years a prisoner of the Gestapo. And not
once, he said, did they treat him as badly as the British.”60 Certainly, much of the violence at Bad
Nenndorf and the London Cage seemed needless, though it is unclear how much of it was
condoned by Stephens and other leaders. These articles are essential to establishing the
importance of British interrogation in the on-going moral debate, as they prove that the dynamic
questions associated with its usefulness in conjunction with its immorality are still relevant
today. Again, based off of these terrible details, we must wonder: what kind of place in history
do these interrogators hold?
British interrogation, as under-studied topic as there is in relation to World War II, has
proven itself worthy of our attention as historians. Often, interrogation and human intelligence is
overshadowed by the more well-known accomplishments of signal intelligence branches such as
ULTRA. Nonetheless, the human intelligence gleaned from British interrogators was of
57
58
Ibid., 4 Ian Cobain, “Secret of the London Cage,” The Guardian, November 12, 2005, 2(Accessed December 2009). 59
Ibid, 3. 60
Ibid, 5. paramount importance to the war, and as Stephens suggested in A Digest of Ham, the human
intelligence collected from the interrogators at British camps was extremely important in that it
provided a compliment to the wealth of signal intelligence information, oftentimes confirming
information and adding new angles and perspectives with which to view it. Even more
impressive was the fact that British interrogators were at the forefront of their respective field.
There was virtually no basis by which they had to develop their techniques and tactics.
Intelligence was playing a prominent part in war as it never had before, galvanized by the swift
rise of technology and the ability to use air power to one’s advantage. Dedicated and ambitious
men like Stephens, unruly, xenophobic, and arrogant as he no doubt was, created British
interrogation into the efficient and expansive machine that it had become by the end of the war.
The modus operandi developed by Stephens and his contemporaries influenced American
interrogation and the future of the art; much of their tactics have been refined and are still in use
today. British interrogation had most certainly proven itself a useful asset during the War, and it
provided an extremely useful supplement to the information gathered by signal intelligence.
However, the very men that had developed the art had often walked upon very fragile moral
grounds to obtain their confessions, and they would be answerable to their actions in the coming
years.
While there was little use in refuting interrogation’s usefulness in intelligence gathering,
British higher-ups after the war found it quite pertinent to question the moral implications of its
means. After the war, as the victorious Allied powers surveyed the splintered European
landscape, there was a conscious effort to promote solidarity and morality in order to avoid
future catastrophic conflicts. In time, the U.N. put various human rights drafts into effect, and
Western Europe became intertwined through these ideals. Britain followed suite, and the stigma
and public relations debacles associated with the blatant violations of human rights during these
interrogations became unacceptable. Even MI5 Director Guy Liddell often disagreed with
Stephens’ tactics. In a new world order forged on democracy and human rights, the actions of the
interrogators at Camp 020, Bad Nenndorf, and the London Cage could not be conveniently swept
aside. Someone had to be made an example of. The trials of 1948 fit this bill, as Langham,
Smith, and Stephens all became accountable for their actions. Of the three, only Smith was truly
punished. However, the British had made their collective stance on interrogation clear; civilized
British men should not sink to Gestapo like tactics, even on hated S. S. officers. Interrogation
definitely had its place alongside signal intelligence, but its use to the war was not so important
that it operated above the law.
After the documents were released by the National Archives in 2005, British
interrogation once again found itself thrust into the limelight. As always, the court of public
opinion judged the actions of the interrogators strongly, deeming the work of Stephens and his
colleagues as exceedingly cruel, and perhaps rightfully so. However, it is easy for one to judge
with history at his or her back. For the men operating at Britain’s interrogation camps, there was
no clear end in sight during World War II. Their friends and family were perishing at the hands
of the very men they were interrogating, and by developing and implementing new and
aggressive techniques, they were doing their part to contribute to the war effort in the hopes of
quickening the war’s end. Because of their morally ambiguous actions, the legacy of Stephens
and the British interrogators remains shrouded in controversy even to this day, as The Guardian
articles indicate. Clearly, the development of wartime interrogation, due to Stephens’ and his
men’s efforts, provided an extremely useful addition to the intelligence community. Nonetheless,
the moral implications of these interrogations could not be avoided. Questioned by the trials of
1948, the often amoral actions of the interrogators have found itself into popular debate once
again.
Indeed, while the war on terror persists, Britain’s military and intelligence community
has found itself at odds with human rights groups over their interrogation methods, just as they
had sixty years beforehand in the years following the war. A 2008 Guardian article reported that
during MI5’s investigation into terrorist suspects, “One man from Manchester says that in 2006
he was beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and had three fingernails slowly extracted by ISI
agents at the Rawalpindi centre before being interrogated by two MI5 officers.”61 Another
Guardian article from 2010 touched upon the repercussions of such controversial tactics, writing,
“United Nations human rights investigators have concluded that the British government has been
complicit in the mistreatment and possible torture of several of its own citizens during the ‘war
on terror’.”62 As the intense on-going dialogue between interrogation’s proponents and its
detractors continues on, the topic of British interrogation during World War II has confirmed
itself as a fascinating and relevant study. This is truly British interrogation’s legacy; not only is it
an overlooked but nonetheless integral part of the intelligence scene, but it is also of supreme
historical importance because it plays a prominent part in a moral debate that still endures in our
present day. For these reasons, British interrogation has earned its place alongside other
prominent World War II studies, and as more documents surface, its unique place in history will
continue to grow.
61
Ian Cobain, The Guardian, “MI5 Accused of Colluding In Torture of Terrorist Subjects,” April 29, 2008 (Accessed April 2010). 62
Ian Cobain, The Guardian, “Britain ‘Complicit In Mistreatment and Possible Torture’ Says U.N.,” January 27, 2010 (Accessed April 2010). Bibliography
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