<roneal@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message news:47094732-fa65-
tell us then why Nazi SS members admitted the gassing of
inmates. >>
This is how the confessions made by German officers were obtained:
Britain's secret torture centre
The interrogation camp that turned prisoners into living skeletons
--------------------------------
Initially, most of the detainees were Nazi party members or former members
of the SS,...
Of the 20 interrogators ordered to break the inmates of Bad Nenndorf, 12
were British, a combination of officers from the three services and
civilian
linguists. The remaining eight included a Pole and a Dutchman, but were
mostly German Jewish refugees who had enlisted on the outbreak of war, and
who, Inspector Hayward suggested, "might not be expected to be wholly
impartial".
The Foreign Office briefed Clement Attlee, the prime minister, that "the
guards had apparently been instructed to carry out physical assaults on
certain prisoners with the object of reducing them to a state of physical
collapse and of making them more amenable to interrogation".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1669544,00.html
Britain's secret torture centre
The interrogation camp that turned prisoners into living skeletons
German spa became a forbidden village where Gestapo-like techniques
were used
Ian Cobain
Saturday December 17, 2005
The Guardian
Despite the six years of bitter fighting which lay behind him, James
Morgan-Jones, a major in the Royal Artillery, could not have been more
specific about the spectacle in front of him. "It was," he re****ted,
"one of the most disgusting sights of my life."
Curled up on a bed in a hospital in Rotenburg, near Bremen, was a
cadaverous shadow of a human being. "The man literally had no flesh on
him,
his state of emaciation was incredible," wrote Morgan-Jones. This man had
weighed a little over six stones (38kg) on admission five
weeks earlier, and "was still a figure which may well have been one of
the Belsen inmates". At the base of his spine "was a huge festering
sore", and he was clearly terrified of returning to the prison where
he had been brought so close to death. "If ever a man showed fear - he
did," Morgan-Jones declared.
Prisoners complained thumbscrews and "****n screws" were employed at the
prison and Dr Jordan's re****t highlighted the small, round scars
that he had seen on the legs of two men, "which were said to be the
result of the use of some instrument to facilitate questioning". One
of these men was Hans Habermann, a 43-year-old disabled German Jew whohad
survived three years in Buchenwald concentration camp.
As horrific as conditions were at the London Cage, Bad Nenndorf was
far worse. Last week, Foreign Office files which have remained closed
for almost 60 years were opened after a request by the Guardian under
the Freedom of Information Act. These papers, and others declassified
earlier, lay bare the appalling suffering of many of the 372 men and
44 women who passed through the centre during the 22 months it
operated before its closure in July 1947.
Initially, most of the detainees were Nazi party members or former members
of the SS, rounded up in an attempt to thwart any Nazi insurgency. A
significant number, however, were industrialists, tobacco im****ters, oil
company bosses or forestry owners who had flourished under Hitler.
By late 1946, the papers show, an increasing number were suspected Soviet
agents. Some were NKVD officers - Russians, Czechs and Hungarians - but
many
were simply German leftists. Others were Germans living in the Russian
zone
who had crossed the line, offered to spy on the Russians, and were
tortured
to establish whether they were genuine defectors.
Of the 20 interrogators ordered to break the inmates of Bad Nenndorf, 12
were British, a combination of officers from the three services and
civilian
linguists. The remaining eight included a Pole and a Dutchman, but were
mostly German Jewish refugees who had enlisted on the outbreak of war, and
who, Inspector Hayward suggested, "might not be expected to be wholly
impartial".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1669544,00.html
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