The distaste for torture and abuse of prisoners or detainees has never been shared by everyone in this country, though on the whole we’re better than those in many other countries. We have our own sadists who somehow end up in charge of others as well as those who, under pressure to provide results, overstep the mark. Document: Recruiting the Reich on Radio Four this week (Monday) uncovered some examples from the post-war period which, needless to say, were covered up. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the presenter Mike Thomson examined documents alleging abuse and even torture committed by Intelligence officers after the war, and he wondered if it had been widespread and systematic. I suspect neither but one can’t be sure.
It was certainly an interesting investigation. One Dutch soldier, a member of the Waffen SS, claimed to have been hit and kicked and forced to swallow nails and screws while being held at the wartime interrogation centre, Latchmere House in Surrey, then run by MI5 and an open prison today. Thomson heard how it was headed by a man called Colonel Robin ‘tineye’ Stephens, who was said to be ‘a hard disciplinarian’ and who ran the camp on strict military lines. The point of it was to find German spies who wanted a return to Nazism under the auspices of an extreme group called Werewolf, and in some cases to make them spy for us. Thomson read documents and the personal testimonies of those held at the camp, which was later transferred to the British sector of northern Germany. One prisoner was treated in hospital for gangrene in both feet, thrombosis in the legs and a double hernia. He was found to have swallowed a spoon handle.
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