Tapping Hitler's Generals

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]

Following the German capitulation the work of CSDIC (UK) turned to obtaining information on German war crimes. On 19 November 1945 the interrogation centre in England was closed, its work being transferred gradually since summer 1945 to the new CSDIC in Germany.[29] A month before, when Trent Park closed its doors, the remaining prisoners were sent to other camps and no longer monitored.[30]

In general, all German prisoners of senior rank were brought to England for interrogation irrespective of which Allied forces had captured them. A few were shipped to the United States after brief questioning, so that many Trent Park generals did not spend the whole war in England. 31 went in several batches to the enemy generals’ camp at Clinton, Mississippi, providing the United States in the spring of 1945 with the opportunity to obtain information from an approximately equal-sized number of senior German military officers as the British had.[31] There does not seem to have been any special guidelines for selection for transfer to the USA: almost all ranks and political standpoints were represented. The British clearly liked a broad sweep of characters and opinions in their camps to keep the conversations flowing.

The expense incurred in maintaining the three eavesdropping units at Trent Park, Latimer House and Wilton Park was enormous: at the beginning of 1943, 994 persons staffed the units and evaluated the monitored conversations, 258 of these being from the intelligence services.[32] From September 1939 to October 1945, 10,191 German and 567 Italian prisoners passed through these centres; between 1941 and 1945 64,427 conversations were recorded on gramophone discs. CSDIC prepared 16,960 protocols from German, and 18,903 from Italian prisoners,[33] varying in length from half a page to 22 pages.

From May 1943, special reports were introduced on German Staff officers: 1,302 protocols coded ‘SRGG’[34] and 326 comprehensive reports of a general nature coded ‘GRGG’.[35] The latter documented all pertinent information over two- to five-day periods. A synopsis of monitored and recorded conversations was included with any other data which the British intelligence officer beyond the range of the microphones had picked up through listening to discussions or from his own talks with prisoners. To these must be added the recorded conversations coded ‘SRM’ between von Thoma and Crüwell prior to May 1943 filed amongst the Army protocols[36] together with protocols coded ‘SRX’[37] of their conversations with Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine officers. The generals’ protocols run to about 10,000 pages, approximately 20 per cent of the total inventory of the monitored protocols of German prisoners.[38]

Eavesdropping Strategies