The Walls Have Ears

by Helen Fry

  As Allied armies had swept through Western Europe after D-Day, the intelligence services were already preparing for the occupation of Germany and that included plans to set up a bugging operation in Germany.7 The site opened as No.74 CSDIC in July 1945 at Bad Nenndorf, 25 kilometres west of Hanover. It was commanded by Colonel Robin ‘Tin-eye’ Stephens, who had run MI5’s interrogation centre at Latchmere House, Ham (as Camp 020) during the war. Stephens was tough and had dealt with the captured German spies who had landed on Britain’s shores, a number of whom he successfully turned as double agents as part of the Double Cross System.8 In a different uniform, the monocled colonel could have passed as a Nazi – and he was ideal for instilling fear into captured German spies. Questions were later raised about Stephens’s handling of prisoners amidst allegations of brutality, and even torture.9 Although he was acquitted at a court martial, rumours of a cover-up still circulate decades later.10

  The task of No.74 CSDIC was to interrogate and listen into the conversations of German internees, often civilians and political dissidents, and suspected Nazi war criminals. There was concern by the Allies that die-hard Nazi resistance movements which had gone underground would rise up again. The secret listeners at Bad Nenndorf were taken from the pool of wartime listeners.11

  The administrative work and some of the interrogations were carried out by women from the wartime CSDIC sites and a small number who had transferred from Bletchley Park.12 It was not all about interrogation and listening; former secret listener Frank Falk was given piles of documents to translate that had been seized by the Allies from the Reichs-Chancellery and German Foreign Office,13 many of which bore Hitler’s signature. One particular document stood out for him – a letter from Hitler to Admiral Horthy (the Hungarian Regent), instructing him to deport Hungary’s Jews from the country to the death camps.14

  TRENT PARK

  Trent Park continued to hold high-ranking German officers until December 1945.15 Among them was Lieutenant General Walter Dornberger, who had overseen the general supervision of Germany’s rocket development programme since 1937 and been responsible for developing the site at Peenemünde. He had been promoted to the position of Chief Advisor to the Department for Development and Testing of Weapons.16 It was noted that he persuaded the German Army Ordnance Branch ‘to take up liquid-fuel rocket propulsion, as a result of which Peenemünde experimental site came into being.’17 Captured on 2 May 1945 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a Bavarian ski resort, he was brought to Latimer House on 5 August, then moved to Trent Park the following day.18

  Dornberger spoke quite freely with Bassenge. He revealed to him that the Russians had attempted to make a secret deal with him and double whatever offer the Americans had made for him to work for them. He also said that the Russians had attempted to kidnap the German engin-eer Wernher von Braun: ‘They [Russians] appeared at night time in English uniform; they didn’t realise it was the American zone. They came to us and wanted to come in. They had a proper pass, but the Americans were quick to realise it and wouldn’t let them in. Real kidnapping; they don’t stick to the boundaries at all.’19

  There was clearly concern over the fate of Germany’s scientists because, during his time at Trent Park, Dornberger talked with General Fink (German air force) about Hitler’s plans for them. The intelligence summary of their conversation stated: ‘Himmler had been ordered by the Führer not to let Braun, Dornberger and the 450 scientists and technicians at Peenemünde fall into Anglo-American hands but to liquidate them all beforehand.’20 Dornberger also provided confirmation that as many as 720 people had been killed in the first raid on Peenemünde in August 1943.

  On 8 August 1945, Field Marshal von Rundstedt and his son were transferred together to Trent Park. On VJ Day, 2 September 1945, the Field Marshal sought out the British army officers to offer his ‘congratulations on a great victory’.21

  Arriving at Trent Park at the same time as von Rundstedt and his son were Generals Halder, Student, von Manteuffel, von Falkenhausen, Blumentritt, Careis, Kruse and Müller-Hillebrand (Chief of Staff to the 3rd Panzer Army).22 General Günther Blumentritt had been captured at Hohenaspe on 2 May, just days before Germany’s unconditional surrender. His personal file contains little comment, except that he was ‘a regular, friendly Bavarian infantry officer’ and cooperated with Allied forces after capitulation.23 He arrived at Wilton Park on 1 June 1945 and then transferred to Trent Park on 8 August. Before promotion to the rank of general, he had served as Chief of Staff to Field Marshal von Rundstedt and then General von Kluge. During the Nuremberg Trials, Blumentritt was held as a key witness at the same time as von Rundstedt.

  Franz Halder, chief of the German General Staff in 1938–42 and later a witness at the Nuremberg Trials, was also captured just days before the German surrender in May 1945 and eventually escorted to England. At Trent Park, his fellow officers described the 61-year-old general as ‘the most capable General Staff Officer produced by the post-1919 German Army.’24 Halder gave the impression of ‘a mild, inoffensive and exact civil servant . . . an exceptionally lucid brain and great hidden reserves of strength.’25

  Fifty-four-year-old General Karl Bodenschatz, formerly head of the Personal Ministry of the Supreme Command of the Luftwaffe and Chief of Staff to Hermann Goering, had acted as liaison officer between Goering and Hitler’s headquarters.26 With a reputation for being a convinced Nazi, his high-level contact with Nazi leaders made him unpopular amongst officers in the German air force.27 Bodenschatz had sustained serious injuries during the assassination attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944.

  Another particularly important ‘guest’ was Infantry General Alexander von Falkenhausen, who finally arrived at Trent Park in August, after a month at Wilton Park. Von Falkenhausen had been military governor of Belgium and Northern France, captured on 5 May at Pragser Wildsee (South Tyrol). He was respected by the other senior officers at Trent Park for ‘his sense of fairness, uprightness and moderation’.28 He was even seen as a possible negotiator in post-war Germany or even an acceptable Prime Minister for the new Germany.29 It is not possible to provide a complete list of all senior German officers at Trent Park in this period, and their colourful conversations and daily lives – all captured by the secret listeners in the M Room. That would take another book. What is clear is that British intelligence believed they still had vital military and strategic information to offer the Allies.

  The generals were fooled until the very end. In September 1945 they presented a gift (unknown item) and certificate to the camp interpreter Captain Hamley on his leaving the camp and in appreciation of his kindness towards them. From Trent Park, Field Marshal von Rundstedt wrote a personal letter on behalf of the senior German officers and told him:

  We all regret your departure very much! You have never seen in us the ‘victims’ of a mis-directed policy, the ‘enemy’, but always the ‘human beings’ . . . [you] lighten the heavy burden of captivity for every one of us . . . our sincerest wishes for your further welfare and assure you that we shall always preserve a true and grateful memory of you.30

  The last of the German generals and senior officers were transferred to Camp 11 at Bridgend in Wales, and a few sent to Grizedale Hall in the Lake District.31 Others had gradually been transferred to America where they underwent a programme of re-education.32

  In December 1945, Trent Park finally closed as ‘special quarters’ and there ended a chapter of its secret history that would remain unknown until the declassification of its files sixty-five years later. By 1948, the generals were all repatriated to Germany. General von Arnim, for example, found that his home was now behind the Iron Curtain and confiscated by the Russians. He made a new life, quietly, in West Germany and died on 1 September 1962 at Bad Wildingen. The generals were keen to keep their heads down and fade into the background, lest they should be noticed and cases of war crimes suddenly brought against them. However, none of them ever faced justice for their crimes.

  Ian Thomson Munro – Tre
nt Park’s fake aristocrat – was promoted to the rank of major in 1945. After the war, he worked for MI6, as confirmed on his army record, and was ‘specially employed not remunerated from army funds, MI6’. In 1950, his name appeared on a passenger list for the Far East where he was on his way to a posting in Japan. He was tragically lost at sea on that voyage. Probate listed his occupation as diplomat, with no relatives.

  Between January 1946 and the summer of that year, a team of engineers quietly dismantled any trace of the wartime bugging operation at Trent Park. If the files had not been declassified in the late 1990s, its wartime role would have remained a closely guarded secret. From autumn 1946, Trent Park became an emergency teacher training college, under a new requisition order by the Ministry of Education. By 1952, it became the subject of a compulsory purchase order for use as Barnet Teacher Training College, that also included the use of nearby Ludgrove Hall. It then became Middlesex Polytechnic, and Middlesex University before the site was vacated in 2013 and sold to a Malaysian education company whose operations and offices, however, did not materialise. The estate was purchased in 2015 by Berkeley Homes to create residential homes on site while preserving spaces and historic rooms across the ground floor and basement of the mansion as a museum to the secret listeners.33

  LATIMER HOUSE

  After May 1945, senior German officers continued to be brought via Latimer House before their transfer to Trent Park. The Naval Intelligence section now had vital work in post-war Germany. Commander Cope, as Staff Officer (Intelligence), was dispatched to Germany with Naval Party 1735 that left from HMS Cockfosters.34 In the early part of the war, HMS Cockfosters was a land naval base located at Trent Park for the interrogation of prisoners and initially located in an Italian-style villa called the White House, once part of the wider Trent Park estate.35 In 1944–45, HMS Cockfosters was located in ‘Parkfield’ and ‘Corbar’, two houses in Beech Hill, Hadley Wood (an area adjacent to Cockfosters).36 This was one of a number of Naval Party units dispatched from HMS Cockfosters to impound German naval equipment and documents throughout Germany, work which was similar to Ian Fleming’s 30 Assault Unit.37

  Colin McFadyean, who was working out of the Admiralty (NID 1/PW), was present at the arrest of Admiral Doenitz (Hitler’s successor) on 23 May 1945 at Flensburg on the Danish–German border.38 Ralph Izzard, Charles Wheeler and George Blake became part of the Naval Intelligence’s special Forward Interrogation Unit (FIU).39 FIU was tasked with capturing vital technologists, interrogating U-boat crews and seizing documents and German naval equipment and new technology.40 In 1946, Blake took over from Wheeler in Hamburg as head of the Naval Intelligence team there;41 subsequently he was attached to SIS in the Netherlands. It later transpired that he was passing secrets to the Soviets and he was eventually prosecuted and imprisoned for betraying British agents to their deaths.42 He escaped from prison, defected to Russia and became one of the infamous traitors of the Cold War, alongside Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and Donald Maclean.43

  In terms of prisoners, the operation at Latimer House as a joint ser-vices interrogation centre was winding down.44 Since March 1945, a special aircraft had flown into Britain twice a week, sometimes more frequently, for the sole purpose of bringing special prisoners to ADI(K) headquarters at Latimer – the Air Intelligence section under Denys Felkin.45 Impounded documents were being brought to ADI(K) from Germany by the crateful – in sacks, crates and boxes – such that Felkin’s team could not cope with the sheer volume. It all needed to be translated and sifted for intelligence. Felkin’s section had to take on an extra thirty-six German-speaking ex-refugees to help with the workload. The material was microfilmed and distributed to the relevant authorities for their intelligence.

  The office space at Latimer was totally inadequate for the volume of work, and in April 1945, new accommodation was taken up in the Air Ministry building in Monck Street,46 yet the crates of documents continued to arrive. The following month, the volume was too much again, and a new combined Anglo-American centre was set up in a block of flats at 55 Weymouth Street, London. Staff increased to between four hundred and five hundred, thirty of whom came from ADI(K). It became known as the Air Documents Research Centre (ADRC). In November 1945, it moved out of Weymouth Street to 12a Stanhope Gate, London.47

  After the German surrender in May 1945, most members of the German air force high command had gone into hiding. They were rounded up by the British and Americans and taken to a camp near Berchtesgaden for interrogation, until their fate was decided.48 In August 1945, it was agreed that they should be brought over to England and held temporarily at Latimer House.49 The highest Luftwaffe officers, such as Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, Karl Koller (Chief of the General Staff) and General Adolf Galland, were captured and brought there, together with many of the civilian technicians holding the most interesting information.50 It was rumoured that Hermann Goering was briefly brought to Latimer and interrogated by Felkin, although this has not been officially verified.51 Latimer became No.2 Personnel Holding Unit: a centre capable of holding up to 300 German air force personnel.52 For the next three months, this air force section came under the command of Squadron Leader A. Macleod, aided by Flight Lieutenant A.A.D. Maconochie as station administration officer.53

  The unit received its first quota of German air force officers on 1 September, flown into nearby RAF Bovingdon. It consisted of 150 officers, 86 NCOs and 33 female staff.54 That same day, an intelligence element of ADI(K) arrived under F/Lt L. Taylor.

  The following day saw the arrival of seventy more German air force officers, thirteen other ranks and eleven German women. German air force personnel continued to arrive on a daily basis throughout September 1945. The majority remained on site until December 1945, when they were taken under American military escort to the port of Dover for return to Germany.

  Denys Felkin was awarded an OBE and an MBE for his services during the war, as well as the Belgian Order of Chevalier with Swords (1945) and American Legion of Merit. His work did not cease with the closure of Latimer House. He headed ADI(K) which undertook the interrogation of German air force prisoners, civilian scientists and technicians being held at a clandestine site known as ‘Inkpot’ in Wimbledon, South London.55

  The CSDIC side of Latimer House under Kendrick formally closed on 7 November 1945. One of his last tasks was to collate copies of the personal files of all the German generals and senior officers held by MI19. The thick file of profiles of 98 officers was sent by his colleague Norman Crockatt to the head of MI6, with a covering letter:

  Dear C,

  The enclosed notes on Senior German Officer prisoners of war who passed through our hands at Cockfosters were compiled for DMI [Director of Military Intelligence]. The latter has now gone on leave pending handing over and has returned his folder to me. It occurs to me, however, that either you or he (in his future appointment) might find some use for these jottings, and I am, therefore, sending them to you.56

  Lord Chesham never occupied his home again: it was the subject of a compulsory purchase order. From 1947, Latimer House became a site for the Joint Services Staff College, with new buildings constructed within the estate, and later became the National Defence College. Today, it is a luxury hotel and conference centre.

  Wilton Park became No.300 POW Camp, where thousands of German POWs underwent a vital re-education and denazification programme in readiness for their repatriation to Germany. Afterwards, it continued to have military links and by the 1980s had become an army languages centre. It has since been sold to a developer for several thousand houses to be built on site. All traces of its wartime heritage have disappeared.

  THE SECRET LISTENERS

  What happened to the secret listeners? They finally witnessed the end of the regime which had destroyed their lives in Germany, and persecuted and murdered members of their family and friends. It was the end of a regime which had systematically annihilated six million European Jews, and five million others. For the secret listeners there c
ould be no going back to Germany to reclaim what was lost or rebuild their lives there permanently. Britain was now their home. After being demobilised around 1947–48, they received British nationality and the majority made their homes in Britain.

  In post-war civilian life, they settled down, perhaps to marriage and a family, and went on to make a valuable contribution to business, education and academic life, politics, economics and the arts. Peter Ganz, for example, had a distinguished career in academia as a Germanist and medievalist.57

  Fritz Lustig lost contact with George Pulay after the war but, in 2012, in a twist of fate, he met up with George’s daughter Jessica Pulay, and George’s nephew, the late Roger Lloyd-Pack, an actor. Roger had no idea of his uncle’s wartime work until a chance discovery during the research for this book. The late Peter Hart, who was immensely proud of his role as a secret listener, reflected in his memoirs: ‘It is the duty of the older generation to leave an authentic record of their experiences during the Second World War for the benefit of posterity. Without it, history would simply be hearsay.’58

  COLONEL THOMAS JOSEPH KENDRICK, OBE

  After Latimer House closed, Kendrick was assigned to ‘special duties’ with MI6, although the precise nature of the work was not revealed. His personal army file noted: ‘To be specially employed (and not remunerated from army funds), MI6.’ For his services to American intelligence, Kendrick was honoured with the Legion of Merit. His citation, signed personally by Harry S. Truman, read:

  Colonel Thomas Joseph Kendrick, British Army,

  rendered exceptionally valuable services as commanding officer

  of a special center for interrogation of enemy prisoners of war

  for the British War Office from June 1942 to May 1945.

  He willingly made available to the United States intelligence

  units all facilities at his command, and contributed greatly