London Cage
The London Cage was an
History
The United Kingdom systematically interrogated all of its prisoners of war.[2] A "cage" for interrogation of prisoners was established in 1940 in each command area of the United Kingdom, manned by officers trained by Alexander Scotland, the head of the Prisoner of War Interrogation Section (PWIS) of the Intelligence Corps (Field Security Police). The prisoners were sent to prison camps after their interrogation at the cages. Nine cages were established from southern England to Scotland, with the London cage also being "an important transit camp".
The cages varied in facilities. The
After the war, the PWIS became known as the War Crimes Investigation Unit (WCIU), and the London Cage became the headquarters for questioning suspected war criminals.
Alexander Scotland participated in the interrogation of Gen.
SS and police leader Jakob Sporrenberg was interrogated at the Cage after the war, which helped to establish his responsibility for the deaths of 46,000 Jews in Poland toward the end of the war.[6] Sporrenberg was sentenced to death by a Polish court in Warsaw in 1950 and hanged on 6 December 1952.[7]
Other war criminals passing through the London Cage after the war included Sepp Dietrich, an SS general accused of but never prosecuted for the murder of British prisoners in 1940. Alexander Scotland participated in the investigation of the SS and Gestapo men who murdered 50 escaped prisoners from Stalag Luft III in 1944, in the aftermath of what became known as the "Great Escape".[8] The London Cage closed in 1948.[1]
Torture allegations
Alexander Scotland wrote a postwar memoir entitled London Cage, which was submitted to the
In London Cage, Scotland claimed that confessions were obtained by seizing upon discrepancies in the accounts of prisoners. "We were not so foolish as to imagine that petty violence, nor even violence of a stronger character, was likely to produce the results hoped for in dealing with some of the toughest creatures of the Hitler regime."[9]
While denying "sadism", Scotland said things were done that were "mentally just as cruel". One "cheeky and obstinate" prisoner, he said, was forced to strip naked and exercise. This "deflated him completely" and he began to talk. Prisoners were sometimes forced to stand "round the clock", and "if a prisoner wanted to pee he had to do it there and then, in his clothes. It was surprisingly effective."[10] Scotland refused to allow
In September 1940,
In 1943, allegations of mistreatment at the London Cage resulted in a formal protest by MI5 director Maxwell Knight to the Secretary of State for War.[15] The allegations were made by Otto Witt, a German anti-Nazi who was interrogated to determine if he was acting on behalf of German intelligence.[16]
At his war crimes trial, SS
Scotland said in his memoirs that Knoechlein was not interrogated at all at the London Cage because there was sufficient evidence to convict him, and he wanted "no confusing documents with the aid of which he might try to wriggle from the net." During his last nights at the cage, Scotland states, Knoechlein "began shrieking in a half-crazed fashion, so that the guards at the London Cage were at a loss to know how to control him. At one stage the local police called in to enquire why such a din was emanating from sedate Kensington Palace Gardens."[4]
At a trial in 1947 of eighteen Germans accused in the massacre of fifty Allied prisoners who escaped from Stalag Luft III, the Germans alleged starvation, sleep deprival, "third degree" interrogation methods, and torture by electric shock. Scotland describes these in his memoir as "fantastic allegations". "At more than one stage in those fifty days of courtroom wrangling, a stranger to such peculiar affairs might have suspected that the arch-criminal of them all was a British Army intelligence officer known as Colonel Alexander Scotland."[17]
Scotland denied the allegations at the trial. In London Cage he says he was "greatly troubled. . . by the constant focus on our supposed shortcomings at The Cage, for it seemed to me that these manufactured tales of cruelty toward our German prisoners were fast becoming the chief item of news, while the brutal fate of those fifty RAF officers was in danger of becoming old history."[18]
See also
- Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre
- Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre
- Camp 020
- Trent Park § Second World War - the "Cockfosters Cage"
Further reading
- Fry, Helen. 2018. The London Cage: The Secret History of Britain's World War II Interrogation Centre. Yale University Press.
References
- ^ a b c d e f Cobain, Ian (12 November 2005). "The secrets of the London Cage". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
- ^ ISBN 0-465-09120-2.
- ^ a b London Cage, p. 63.
- ^ a b c London Cage, p. 81.
- ^ London Cage, p. 86.
- ^ London Cage, p. 87-89.
- ISBN 9780253353283. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
- ^ London Cage, p. 89, 102.
- ^ London Cage, p. 154
- ISBN 978-0312325725.
- ISBN 978-0-691-11422-4.
- ISBN 978-1846031359.
- ^ ISBN 978-1841769332.
- ISBN 978-0415547987.
- ^ London Cage, p. 70.
- ^ "The National Archives Catalogue, Piece Details KV 2/471". The National Archives. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
- ^ London Cage, p. 145
- ^ London Cage, p. 153
External links
- The London Cage
- Piece details TS 50/3, Publication of book 'The London Cage' by Lt Col A P Scotland: retention of his manuscripts under the Official Secrets Act 1911; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Item details TS 50/3/1; Catalogue of The National Archives
- WO 32/16025, Film "Britain's Two Headed Spy": provision of facilities and correspondence with Colonel A P Scotland; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4294, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: notes on operation of War Crimes Interrogation Unit, work and organisation of Prisoners of War Interrogation Section (Home) and miscellaneous subjects; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4295, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: reports of atrocities in European theatre of operation; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4296, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: German concentration camps; POW interrogation reports; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4297, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: Emsland penal camps; reports; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4298, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: Emsland penal camps; statements of former prisoners and guards; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4299, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: Emsland penal camps; War Crimes Investigation Unit correspondence; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4300, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: miscellaneous papers; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Item details WO 208/4300/1; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4301, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: shooting of RAF officers at Stalag III; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 309/1813, Report on Wormhoudt case by Lt Col A P Scotland, OC War Crimes Interrogation Unit; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 309/1814, Report on Wormhoudt case by Lt Col A P Scotland, OC War Crimes Interrogation Unit: later version, with additional material; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 311/567, Review of sentences given to war criminals and correspondence between Lt Col A P Scotland and Brig H Shapcott, Army Legal Service; Catalogue of The National Archives