London Cage

by Helen Fry

  Liddell’s next diary entry concerning Witt was 11 March, the day he was transferred to Brixton prison. Liddell recorded a visit by MI5 officer Victor Caroe, who gave Witt a final opportunity to speak the truth before being handed over to the Czechs. Witt broke down and said that he had been lying and would now tell the whole truth. Caroe told Witt that he did not believe he was a German spy. Liddell then commented in his diary:

  We feel that it is now desirable to bring in some new military person to do interrogation and have obtained the services of Major Scotland. We want if possible to carry out the interrogation at the London District prisoner-of-war camp, but this will have to be subject to Home Office approval.26

  Since Witt was being detained under the royal prerogative, he could be held wherever MI5 decided. The following day, a diplomatic incident arose with the Czechs. Liddell wrote in his diary that they were

  a little crestfallen about the Otto Witt case being taken over by Major Scotland but everything has been smoothed over to their satisfaction. Scotland will commence on Monday. When we have got a statement, the Czechs will be brought in to cross-examine.27

  Two days later, on his birthday, Witt was transferred at midday to the London Cage, where he found himself before Colonel Scotland. Despite all his interrogation skills, Scotland could not induce Witt to talk.28 Witt was treated as a normal prisoner undergoing intensive interrogation; the frequency and length of his interrogations were recorded in his personal file as follows:

  Saturday 13 March:

  one hour, three hours and 35 minutes, and one hour

  Sunday 14 March:

  1 hour 50 minutes, 2 hours 35 minutes, 10 minutes, 3 hours and 10 minutes, 1 hour and 40 minutes, 1 hour and 20 minutes, 2 hours and 30 minutes and 1 hour

  Monday 15 March:

  one period of 30 minutes

  Tuesday 16 March:

  one period of 1 hour and 30 minutes

  Wednesday 17 March:

  1 hour 30 minutes, 1 hour 5 minutes, and 3 hours 5 minutes

  Thursday 18 March:

  40 minutes, and 2 hours 55 minutes

  Friday 19 March:

  one period of 35 minutes

  A separate MI5 file reveals more detail about these encounters. On 15 and 16 March, Colonel Scotland began his interrogation by announcing that Witt was an agent of some kind. He could not get Witt to confess. Guy Liddell noted in his diary: ‘The trouble is this case has been so messed about that Witt is now convinced that we have nothing on him and cannot bring him to justice. Scotland thinks that Wiesner should now return to the charge [interrogate].’29

  One of Witt’s extensive personal MI5 files summarised his treatment at the cage as ‘several days of almost uninterrupted interrogations by means of the most severe pressure, both physical and psychological’.30 Witt described his time there, when he was subjected to the kind of treatment ‘which I thought indeed to be the privilege of the Gestapo and I was told “You are here in the English Gestapo.”’31 The interrogators played him various sound recordings that had allegedly been confiscated from his room and were composed of Morse signals. During interrogation, he was forced to strip naked and stand. The interrogations took place under bright light and lasted for up to three hours without a break. For four days, the only sustenance he received was bread and water, and one midday meal. He was not allowed to wash or shave; and at night he was woken every half an hour. He was told that his secret execution was set for Wednesday at 10 o’clock, and his body would disappear without trace.

  Witt made several attempts at suicide in the cage. Because of these, he was placed on hourly watch throughout the day and night. On 17 March, he was questioned by Captain Kettler and Lieutenant Wiesner, in the presence of wireless expert Warrant Officer Maly. He was promised immunity and was ‘very hard pressed at this interrogation’.32 He was also asked to reveal his contacts in Britain, Sweden and Germany. At this point, Aitken-Sneath interrogated him strenuously from 11 p.m. until midnight. Witt denied using Morse code, having any contacts in Germany, or working as a spy for the Gestapo.

  The next interrogation was carried out at 2.30 a.m. by Wiesner and Aitken-Sneath, who offered Witt gin. Two drinks later, he became talkative and told his tormentors: ‘I didn’t come over here for the love of the English, but for the love of the German people whom I wanted to help.’ He was at pains to convince them that he was an anti-Nazi, not a spy. He had heard from Count Finckenstein, a fellow prisoner at Latchmere House, that the French used electric torture treatment on prisoners in Britain. He begged Aitken-Sneath: ‘I know torture is forbidden in England, but I’ll make you this proposal, that you can drug me or torture me with that French electric machine, and then you will see that I’m innocent.’ Witt was returned to his cell and an hourly watch kept.

  During this period, Witt was also seen in the cage by MI5 interrogator Buster Milmo, who told him it was the British government’s belief that it was better for nine innocent men to be executed than for one guilty man to escape. The statement was clearly aimed at frightening him, but it did not bring Milmo any closer to the truth. Witt’s MI5 file finally noted that ‘the interrogation [at the London Cage] was vigorous and that the methods used at times tended to exceed the bounds of legitimate interrogation’.33

  Witt wrote letters to his wife from captivity which were checked by the Scientific Section of MI5 for secret writing. He was issued with special paper to prevent him from using invisible ink, and his letters were tested for pyramidon, aspirin and alum.34

  Witt held out at the London Cage for a week. During this time, he was seen by army psychiatrist Lieutenant Colonel Henry Dicks, a consultant psychiatrist to MI19, based at its headquarters at Latimer House, near Chesham in Buckinghamshire. Throughout the war, Dicks provided psychological analyses of prisoners for MI19, and on several occasions was asked to visit Rudolf Hess and make a psychiatric assessment.35 Reports written by Dicks about Witt are not in Witt’s personal MI5 files, and so it is not possible to ascertain his views on him.

  Frustrated by Witt’s failure to cooperate, MI5 decided to liquidate the case, and on 30 March 1943 transferred him to Dartmoor prison, where he was held in a special wing. Liddell concluded:

  There is no doubt that he is a confirmed liar, but it seems quite impossible to extract from him the real reason for his visit to this country. I am inclined to think that he is a man who has at one time or another worked for the Gestapo, that they have not got a very high regard for his ability, but that he in his conceit succeeded in persuading them to let him go and try his hand in England by investigating in political refugee circles.36

  That was not the end of the matter. In May 1943, Witt issued a formal petition from Dartmoor prison about his treatment at the London Cage. The list was serious: starvation, sleep deprivation, drugs, threats against his wife and family, and hints of torture and secret murder. He gave details of how he had been threatened with execution. He maintained that no one knew where he was, that agents disappeared, and that he was told ‘we hang people who aren’t any use to us’.37 Scotland described these accusations as ‘a parcel of lies and pure invention’.38 In a diary entry for 26 June 1943, Guy Liddell noted:

  Sir Alexander Maxwell has written a letter intended for the Secretary of State for War in which the Home Secretary expresses his grave displeasure and concern at the treatment of Witt at the London District Cage. Witt has made a number of allegations about ill-treatment which have been denied. The only admission is that Wiesner slapped his face. If the denials are accepted it seems an incredible thing that two Secretaries of State should be drawn into a matter which involves a lying little Nazi having had his face slapped by a Czech. It seems to me that the whole case has got totally out of perspective … If the Home Office think they can handle spies with kid-gloves on, it is about time someone disillusioned them.

  MI5 offered a formal response to the Home Office, referring to Witt’s complaints as ‘a gross distortion and exaggeration of the facts’,39 and added that
he had been consistently arrogant and insolent. Then came the admission that on two occasions, and only two occasions, Witt had been slapped across the side of the face with the back of the hand. This was ‘not intended to hurt him, but humiliate him and induce a proper sense of respect’.40

  In June 1944, Witt was transferred to an internment camp on the Isle of Man, and finally, in June 1945, moved to the civilian internment camp at Staumühle, near Paderborn in Germany, after which he was repatriated. MI5 officer Buster Milmo never believed that Witt was a spy. He wrote to Colonel Scotland on 20 March 1945, in a letter that provides a glimpse of Scotland’s reputation in interrogation, ‘For my part, I feel convinced that had this man been a German agent of any sort he would never have survived your interrogation.’41

  There is no doubt that there were times when Colonel Scotland resorted to rough treatment of prisoners in the cage that extended to physical assault, punching a prisoner, psychological innuendoes during interrogation, and giving prisoners humiliating chores. At the end of the war, as the London Cage began to receive Nazi war criminals, it exhibited an even darker side to its interrogations.

  6

  PRISON QUARTERS

  By the time Scotland took over the premises, any trace of the former glory of Lord Duveen’s stately home had vanished from Nos. 8 and 8a Kensington Palace Gardens. Duveen’s salons and drawing rooms gave way little by little to the intelligence services as they dismantled the last remnants of luxury. Eventually even the beautiful wood panelling on the ground floor would vanish, used as firewood during the bitterly cold winter of 1946.1

  Colonel Scotland ran a tight ship, with a team of resilient guards who ensured that the prisoners obeyed cage rules. His intelligence officers worked in sparsely furnished rooms; Scotland’s own office, in No. 7 Kensington Palace Gardens, was a degree more comfortable – but not by much, its pastel blue walls being all that remained of its pre-war décor and glory. Furnished with a desk, several chairs and with maps on the wall, it was here that German prisoners had their first encounter with Scotland, and where he made his first assessment of them. Uncooperative prisoners were summoned here, too, for a dressing-down. On arrival at the London Cage, a prisoner faced Scotland himself, who psychologically disarmed him by handing him a pad of paper and a pencil and asking him to write down his story. The prisoner often displayed complete bafflement at Scotland’s approach – this half-mad British officer in his sixties. But Scotland was smart. He knew that by giving the prisoner a chance to write down his version of events and signing it, he would be in possession of a legal testimony that could be used in court, if needed.

  Life upstairs was run on strict discipline, enforced by soldiers from the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, Welsh Guards and Irish Guard Division. Many were from headquarters at Pirbright and had seen service in royal palaces. A Grenadier Guard, Captain Edward ‘Ted’ Albert Lessing, acted as liaison officer at the cage. Fluent in Russian, he had been military attaché in Saint Petersburg in 1917 and had served as Liberal MP for Abingdon in the 1920s.

  The only clue that this cage might not have been like the others came on those occasions when a prisoner was handed over to a guard to be escorted back to his cell and the interrogator would say: ‘I don’t like this man. Make sure I like him tomorrow.’ This was coded language for the guards to rough the prisoner up to ensure that he cooperated in interrogation the following day.2 The first sergeant of the guard was Sergeant Lewis of the Welsh Guards. Over 6 feet tall, he was firm, commanding, but with a calm disposition. Later, when the site became the War Crimes Investigation Unit and handled die-hard SS and Gestapo prisoners, his successor, Sergeant Prion, appeared equally determined to instil discipline among the prisoners. Both men were tough and effective. Of Sergeant Prion, Colonel Scotland wrote: ‘Prion could cow these brutes [the SS] into complete obedience to cage rules.’ Prion served in the Grenadier Guards, a regular guard unit.

  A cooperative prisoner had nothing to fear. He could expect a reward from the special fund provided by the intelligence services for cigarettes and toiletries. The London Cage drew £8 a month from the fund, equivalent to around £320 today. The official files show the personal ration quotas: 2oz of meat per prisoner every two to three days, or no more than 2oz of offal or 2oz of preserved meat. Staff received the same daily rations. The prisoners were given 2d as a cash allowance, according to the provision made by the Geneva Convention.

  The Geneva Convention allowed for chores to be undertaken by prisoners in a transit camp. However, as was mentioned earlier, it was a moot point whether the London Cage should be considered a transit camp or a prisoner-of-war camp. At the London Cage, chores were primarily used as a method of discipline, which was against the Geneva Convention. And yet a mixed picture emerges of life inside the cage. When Nazi war criminal Colonel von der Heydte was held there after the war, he refused to carry out fatigue duties. He was escorted to the guardroom and offered a drink. Later that same week, Sergeant Major White entered his cell and offered him whisky. The two of them sat down together and shared the entire bottle.

  Doug Richards of the Welsh Guards arrived at the London Cage in 1945. He was called before Colonel Scotland for a briefing and asked to sign the Official Secrets Act. His duties consisted of internal security, conveying prisoners between locations, and sitting in on interrogations, ready to escort a prisoner back to his cell.3 Often he was required to carry secret papers to MI9 or the Americans:

  The papers were strapped under my shirt. I personally made the journey from the cage to a building in Bond Street, a distance of some 4 to 5 miles, as well as SHAEF Headquarters in Grosvenor Square, again about 4 miles. I was not allowed to use public transport under any circumstances and had to walk each time.4

  The guards referred to Colonel Scotland as ‘the Boss’. Richards recalled:

  He was always quiet-mannered but when a prisoner tried to make a fool of him, he really exploded. We had some very nasty people amongst the prisoners and they were treated accordingly. No one was above reproach and the prisoners knew that once they were sent for, the end was near.5

  Room 22

  When a new batch of prisoners arrived, there was nothing more effective in the first few hours of arrival than to place them in a room with other prisoners, where their conversations could be secretly bugged for information. Most of the early interrogations took place in Room 22, a large and airy room on the ground floor, formerly the library at No. 8a, but now with bare wooden floors and just two tables. On the wall was a board that listed all the prisoners being held in the cage, together with their room number and whether they were to be interrogated.

  On one occasion, two teams of newly trained interrogators were tasked with the interrogation of seven U-boat men who were determined to remain silent. After forty-eight hours, the interrogators had made no progress. Colonel Scotland decided to intervene. He asked the guards to bring in the toughest of the U-boat men, and a big, sullen man was brought before him. In a surprising move, Scotland asked him about his work in civilian life. The man replied that he had been a wagonsmith. Scotland then asked technical questions about how to make a wheel, and soon established that the prisoner knew nothing about wheels. He was escorted back to his cell.

  After fifteen or twenty minutes, the next tough U-boat man was brought before Scotland. That interval had allowed the previous prisoner to discuss matters with his cellmates. Scotland asked the second U-boat officer about his civilian work. This prisoner knew more about wheels than the previous one, leading Scotland to conclude that he was partly trained in making them. In a clever move, Scotland sent the officer back to his cell and gave him time to discuss the interrogation with his cellmates before the next prisoner was hauled out for the same questioning. Eventually, all seven crew members were talking among themselves about their civilian skills and work. In this sense, Scotland understood the psychological importance of getting the prisoners to talk freely about their civilian life – something they believed had no re
levance to the war. It broke down their refusal to speak during interrogation. Scotland was smart enough not to ask direct questions about their naval training, and soon they were relaxed enough to talk to each other. Little did they suspect that their conversations were being bugged and the information recorded by Scotland’s staff in another room.

  Scotland’s reputation for anger was earned early in the war, during the training of his interrogators. He admitted: ‘I always approach a German with a smile, and continue to smile and be friendly – unless he bites. If he bites, I bite back. If he refuses to be anything but rude, then I drop the smile and I am thoroughly rude to him.’6 Rudeness or extreme anger usually signalled the end of an interrogation, because nothing of use could then be gained from the prisoner and another interrogator had to continue. Far more effective was the use of stool pigeons: fluent German speakers, ex-German refugees from Nazism or ‘turned’ prisoners, who masqueraded as fellow prisoners and led conversations in a particular direction in a cell.

  As early as 1940, Scotland accompanied a group of trainee interrogators to Edinburgh to practise interrogation on 300 captured merchant seamen. The problem was not the ordinary seamen, but their captain, who was resisting interrogation by giving nothing more than his name and rank. Scotland stood back and observed as his officers interrogated the captain without success. Then he intervened and accused the captain of being a spy: as such, he told him, he could be ‘tried and shot like a dog’.7 A screaming match in German is said to have ensued between Scotland and the prisoner as the interrogators looked on, stunned. They little understood what was going on in Scotland’s mind; his knowledge of the German regime told him that the captain was no ordinary captain, but SS or SA. The captain denied this. Scotland shouted at him: ‘You are a liar!’ Nothing could break the captain’s will to resist. He and his crew were transferred to an internment camp on the Isle of Man.