Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre
Allegations of mistreatment of detainees by British troops resulted in a police investigation, a public controversy in both Britain and Germany, and the eventual closure of the interrogation centre.
He told the House of Commons that,[This quote needs a citation] in cross-examining some of these [prisoners] it may be necessary to indulge in forms of verbal persecution which we do not like, but there is no physical torture, starvation or ill-treatment of that kind.However, he criticised the poor conditions at the interrogation centre.
The 65 men and 4 women being held there were mostly in solitary confinement, in unheated cells at temperatures of −10 °C (14 °F); the interrogation centre had no coal for heating, so the prisoners had instead been given seven blankets each.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Frank Pakenham, noted that,[This quote needs a citation] we are alleged to have treated internees in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps.The junior Foreign Office minister, Hector McNeil, told Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin:[1] I doubt if I can put too strongly the parliamentary consequences of publicity.
Whenever we have any allegations to make about the political police methods in Eastern European states, it will be enough to call out in the House 'Bad Nenndorf', and no reply is left to us.The interrogation centre's highly secret nature was another complicating factor.
[8] Stephens, Langham and Smith were ordered for trial by courts martial in three separate proceedings held in Britain and Hamburg between March and July 1948.
He was accused of having mistreated two former members of the Schutzstaffel (SS): Horst Mahnke [de] and Rudolf Oebser-Roeder, who were suspected of helping to organise acts of terrorism.
Langham denied the claims, and cited medical records that showed that Roeder had not made any mention of his alleged mistreatment to the German doctor at the interrogation centre.
[10] Sergeant Edmund Sore told the court martial that he had been given orders by Mathers to "drive [Roeder] round the cell for about two hours", and Lance corporal A. R. S. Hunt testified that the reason given for the treatment was that the two Germans were "part of an organisation which was to start a rising on Hitler's birthday".
[12] The court martial of Captain John Stuart Smith of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) opened on 7 April 1948 in Hamburg, West Germany.
He was accused of having abused nine German detainees during the exceptionally harsh winter of 1946–47, allowing prisoners to be subjected to cruel treatment, including having cold water thrown over them, depriving them of boots, and making them continually scrub the cell floors.
[14] For his part, Smith denied any responsibility for the abuse, and described the camp as a "bestial hole" which was "full of people who, unknown to him, were being brutally treated".
[8] Stephens was uncompromisingly blunt about the prisoners who had made accusations, declaring that,[full citation needed] 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.He told the court martial that he had instituted the same basic regime as had operated at Camp 020, a CSDIC facility in London which he had previously commanded with great success during the war.
No cigarettes ... Figuratively, a spy in war should be at the point of a bayonet.However, physical coercion was forbidden under any circumstances, as it was seen as ineffective:[18] Violence is taboo, for not only does it produce answers to please, but it lowers the standard of information.Most of the case was heard behind closed doors due to security concerns.
[1] According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, the failings exposed at Bad Nenndorf resulted in the conditions of prisoners elsewhere in Germany being improved to the point that they were better treated than the civilian population.
[20][21] In its 3 April 2006 issue, the Guardian published pictures of the emaciated German prisoners held in Bad Nenndorf, calling it a "cold war torture camp".
[22][23] The reports caused a brief political controversy in both Britain and Germany, with some commentators drawing explicit parallels with the more recent allegations of mistreatment of prisoners in the Iraq conflict and the war on terror.
A coalition of opponents organised a rally in protest, among them the local chapter of the German Trade Union Confederation (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund; DGB).
