London Cage

by Helen Fry

  A criminal element: The guards

  The arrival of tough new guards in 1946 did nothing for the already dubious reputation of 6–8 Kensington Palace Gardens. They were chosen ‘for their height rather than their brains’.29 It was said by an anonymous eyewitness to this period that when a request was sent to Pirbright (or some other source of guards), the commanding officer did not necessarily send his best men to London; rather, he was glad to get rid of a discipline problem. At this time, Lord Belper (Ronnie Strutt) of the Coldstream Guards took over from Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Peel as the new commander of the guards at the London Cage. He admitted that his predecessor had ‘drawn men who were not of the best type’,30 and tried to restore the guards’ reputation by dismissing unsuitable personnel. He described Sergeant Major Frederick White of the guard as ‘a nasty character, a bit tricky and in danger of being court-martialled’.31

  A criminal element of the guards ran what became known as the ‘Ham Scam’ and the ‘Lead Scam’.32 The ‘Ham Scam’ was discovered after prisoners complained about the lack of bacon at breakfast. The adjutant was puzzled, because rations of bacon and ham were on regular order. The catering corps confirmed that the bacon had been signed for. A team of police officers was put on the case. They followed the delivery lorry and discovered that some guards from the London Cage were intercepting the delivery and signing for the order. The bacon was then being sold on the black market.

  The ‘Lead Scam’ was uncovered after a report that No. 2 Mess Room was flooded after heavy rainfall. This was strange, because the room was on the first floor and there was a floor above. An inspection revealed that the source of the leak was the roof: the water had seeped through the little-used second floor to the first. A member of staff went up onto the roof and found gaps where the lead had once been. It was discovered that several guards had been climbing onto the roof at night, removing small squares of lead and lowering them over the side wall into the garden at the back, and from there into the gardens of the palace near the paddock. Bit by bit, over the weeks, a substantial amount had gone missing. The discovery ended the scam, but the culprits were never caught.

  In another incident, some of the guards entered the adjutant’s office where there was a large, heavy safe. The back of the safe was not so secure, because it was thought that no one could move it. The guards slid it on soap across the stone floor, unscrewed the back and emptied the contents.

  The behaviour of the guards left a lot to be desired. Sergeant Major Frederick White faced court martial for attending a cocktail party on 19 November 1946 in the officers’ mess and getting drunk. He staggered down to the servants’ quarters, wearing a trilby hat and with a bottle of whisky in his hand. The adjutant ordered him to his room, but White refused and went back upstairs. He was subsequently ordered to appear before a military court in Chelsea.33 Lord Belper arranged for his swift removal from the cage.

  Few testimonies survive from the guards, but Doug Richards of the Welsh Guards did once recall a time in early 1946, when

  a party of White Russians arrived at the London Cage. The Russian Embassy [next door] duly ordered its security men to stand in the middle of the road, armed with machine guns. We were asked to hand over the prisoners. When we asked the Russians why, they replied: ‘We shoot them now.’ How the Russians knew of the arrival of the prisoners we never found out.34

  Having tough guards could sometimes be an advantage. It could prove useful for the interrogators to be able to blame the guards for a prisoner’s treatment and for the conditions in the cage – and thus appear to be the prisoner’s friends. It all seems to have been a charade, a kind of play, harking back to the interrogators as good ‘actors’. An official report noted: ‘Army guards were ordered to be somewhat inconsiderate in their treatment, thus leaving the interrogator to ingratiate himself by ostensibly improving the prisoner’s lot.’35

  Mistreatment: The allegations

  To this day, the London Cage continues to be the subject of controversy about just how terrible the interrogations and conditions were for the prisoners. A rare interview at the Imperial War Museum provides further evidence of life inside the cage from former German POW Alfred Conrad Wernard.36 A wireless operator of U-boat U-187, Wernard spent three weeks in Kensington Palace Gardens and spoke about threats of execution, sleep deprivation and daily interrogations at different times in the dead of the night, always after having been dragged out of bed from a deep sleep. He was taken blindfolded to a room for interrogation.37 Interrogators were particularly interested in information Wernard had concerning a forerunner of the German radar system. ‘British Intelligence was interested in it,’ Wernard said. ‘They even knew that I went on a course about the new equipment and the instructor’s name … The interrogator knew more about our U-boat than we did.’38 When Wernard refused to give information, the interrogator began to slowly rotate a revolver on the desk between them. ‘When it points at you,’ he said abruptly, ‘I pull the trigger.’39 ‘I had no way of telling if he would,’ Wernard admitted. Out in the yard, he was shown a deep trench and was threatened with being shot. ‘It was all designed to make us talk … It looked like a prison and there were bars on the windows.’40 Back in his room, which Wernard shared with a U-boat companion, the prisoners discovered a bugging device in the light fitting. ‘We were careful what we said,’ he commented.41

  The main official complaint of physical mistreatment and torture came from SS Lieutenant Colonel Fritz Knöchlein and Heinz Druwe. Aside from Knöchlein’s own claimed mistreatment (discussed in chapter 11), he maintained that other prisoners were tortured in the cage, which was ‘unsuitable as a torture chamber’.42 He said that he heard the excited voice of a German prisoner wailing all over the house: ‘Do kill me, I can’t stand it any longer, kill me!’43

  Knöchlein signed a voluntary statement on 13 August 1947, witnessed by Captain Ryder, that when Oskar Schmidt returned from an interrogation ‘one of his eyes was disfigured and bloodshot and he alleged that he had been beaten during the interrogation’.44 The interrogator, whose name was not given, was described as ‘particularly big and heavy physique [sic]’.45 At his trial the following year, Knöchlein alleged that he and a number of his comrades were ‘in a most brutal and gruesome fashion tortured at the London Cage’.46 He raised the case of prisoner Werner Schifer, who had a medical certificate in three languages – German, English and French – from an international medical committee attesting to his ‘grave injuries’.47 Yet, during his time at the London Cage, Schifer’s injured back was allegedly regularly knocked with cudgels.48 When he showed his medical certificate, the staff were said to have sneered at him and thrown it onto the floor.49 Schifer was subjected to sleep deprivation, being woken by a guard in the middle of the night and shown a signed order from a British officer that he, Schifer, was ‘prey to any kind of treatment’.50 After several heavy bouts of malaria, Schifer reported to a doctor and was allegedly beaten afterwards with a stick by Sergeant Major White.51

  According to Knöchlein, there was a long list of prisoners who suffered at the hands of Colonel Scotland and some of his interrogators. Prisoners Reinhold Bruchardt and Zacharias Noa had tufts of hair pulled from their heads. Bruchardt was subjected to ‘cold water cure’ and other ‘special’, unspecified, kinds of treatment.52 During the second Sagan trial (1948), Scotland had to answer questions in the dock about whether Bruchardt had ever been beaten by Captain Cornish or Major Terry. He answered in the negative. The court wanted to know whether Scotland had ever shown Bruchardt a hide whip, or told prisoners that they could be beaten with it. Scotland maintained that there were ‘never any whips, sticks, pistols or any other weapons’, referring to Bruchardt’s claims as ‘absolute nonsense’.53 If these allegations were true, argued Scotland, Bruchardt should have complained while he was in the cage.

  Lieutenant Colonel Neutler was apparently told by Scotland that there were sufficient possibilities for a man to disappear without trace, and that he wo
uld be the first to vanish from the London Cage. A former member of a German signal unit, prisoner Wunder, was supposedly badly beaten because he would not incriminate his battalion’s adjutant in the desired way. There were allegations by another prisoner that he had received sixty punches from Scotland during an interrogation, and claims by others of beatings, strippings, forced confessions and ice-cold showers.54

  In September 1947, another formal complaint was issued by Heinz Druwe, who was being held in connection with the Wormhoudt massacre. This time, the allegations were against two interrogators rather than Colonel Scotland. The complaint concerned violence during an interrogation on 5 May 1947, in which Druwe claimed RSM Stanton and Sergeant Conway had forced him to kneel with his hands at his sides and then beat him about the face for thirty minutes of the forty-five-minute interrogation. The beatings had ceased by the time Scotland entered the room, but Druwe said that his face was still very red and swollen. He was escorted to Scotland’s office, where he was interrogated once in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Druwe said he did not complain because he feared he would never leave the cage. When he finally did leave, a week later, on 12 May 1947, he had to sign a certificate in German stating that he had no complaint about his treatment there.

  A court of inquiry into Druwe’s allegations was ordered by General Officer Commanding London District, Major-General J. Marriott. On 2 September 1947, the case came before Colonel M.D. Erskine, DSO, of the Scots Guards, at Wellington Barracks, Major H.G.B. Knight of 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, and Captain D.M.A. Wedderburn of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards. Colonel Scotland attended as a witness, and under oath told Colonel Erskine that he permitted no violence during interrogation and nor were prisoners beaten to extract information. Colonel Scotland claimed that Druwe was standing when he entered the room; his face was not swollen or red, but he was showing signs of strain, and RSM Stanton was standing in front of him, with Sergeant Conway nearby.55

  RSM Stanton was called to the inquiry to answer questions. In his sworn statement, he said that Druwe had been interrogated about the killings that took place in 1940:

  From the beginning of the interrogation, Druwe adopted a truculent and uncooperative attitude and gave evasive or, in some cases, untruthful replies to questions put to him. I cautioned him and his attitude, and told him it was his duty to answer the questions … At no time did I make the prisoner kneel, nor was he beaten or struck, either by myself or by Sgt Conway. CSM Richter was present for about 10–15 minutes. He did not strike Druwe.56

  CSM Richter gave his sworn statement, which concurred with Stanton’s evidence, and stated that he had attended twenty minutes of the interrogation. He described Druwe as ‘uncooperative and sloppy’, but said there was no kneeling down or violence.57

  The final witness called to testify was Sergeant Conway, who had translated for half an hour of interrogation on 5 May. He told the court that Druwe was ‘nervous and obstinate when asked questions’. Again, he confirmed that Druwe had not been abused or made to kneel.58

  Colonel Erskine concluded that there was ‘insufficient evidence to prove that physical violence was used at the Cage’, but added a caveat: ‘it does not, however, rule out the possibility that violence was in fact used in this case’.59

  Scotland remained greatly troubled ‘by the constant focus on our supposed shortcomings at the cage for it seemed to me that these manufactured tales of cruelty towards our German prisoners were fast becoming the chief item of news’.60

  In a letter dated 30 March 1948, former SS Major Emil Reinhard Stürzbecher, who had spent time in the London Cage, wrote to interpreter Captain Herbert Sulzbach from a camp at Wisbech:

  As a former member of the Waffen SS, I can only expect hatred and rejection; and beyond this, since I was involved in certain events, though without my actually doing anything or knowing about it, I realise I am regarded as a specially unpleasant former enemy and as a nasty type … When I was confronted by all this, suddenly and fiercely, at my interrogation at the London Cage I was completely to the edge of despair.61

  In the autumn of 1948, Colonel Scotland watched as the last two prisoners of war, manacled, left for RAF Northolt, to be flown back to Germany. The doors of the London Cage finally closed. Kensington Palace Gardens lapsed back into quiet dignity and its secrets lay dormant.

  16

  TORTURE

  Myth or reality?

  With the closure of the London Cage in 1948, the intelligence services perhaps felt that a line could be drawn under the secret wartime interrogation centre. But rumours continued to surface periodically. Using official files from the War Office, Scotland’s two memoirs, and the testimony of a surviving veteran of this period, it has been possible to build up a fairly comprehensive picture of life inside the London Cage. No war diary appears to exist for the London Cage – or if does, it has not yet been declassified. And there is only fleeting mention of the cage in the MI9 and MI19 official war diaries.

  The truth about Britain’s secret interrogation centre was multilayered and nuanced. Was violence sanctioned there? And if so, by whom? Inevitably with a secret site, there are unanswered questions. Official guidelines stated: ‘Prisoners may be treated harshly and in an unfriendly manner but they are not to be made to suffer any physical indignity nor man-handled in any way except for the purpose of guiding them.’1

  Scotland himself was at pains to state that ‘No physical force was ever used during our interrogations to obtain information, no cold water treatment, no third degrees, nor any other refinements.’2

  What, then, was the truth? There was certainly psychological intimidation, and there is evidence that prisoners were struck during interrogation. The darker side of mistreatment and torture appears to have arisen in the post-war period, when the cage dealt with hated Nazi war criminals. Although Scotland may have claimed that there were no contraventions of the Geneva Convention, in the end it was a matter of interpretation. The Geneva Convention clearly protected the rights of prisoners of war in the armed forces, but Scotland believed that ‘Many of the war criminals at the London Cage were not members of the armed forces and were not intended to benefit from terms of the Geneva Convention. Nor was it the intention of the Convention to extend its protection to criminals within the armed forces.’3

  When placed in the context of other Military Intelligence establishments, the London Cage was not an isolated case in its ill-treatment of prisoners. There are four known examples of disciplinary action having been taken by the War Office in cases of brutality against prisoners.4 In 1940, Brigadier Drake-Brockman was dismissed from service for hitting two German airmen who crashed near his headquarters.5 In 1948, Colonel Robin ‘Tin-Eye’ Stephens, who had headed the MI5 interrogation centre at Ham during the war, faced court martial for alleged mistreatment of internees at a post-war interrogation centre, No. 74 CSDIC Bad Nenndorf in Germany. The court convened behind closed doors and Stephens was acquitted. In 1954, Colonel Griffiths was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for mistreating Mau Mau fighters during interrogation. Four years later, Captain Lindsay and Captain O’Driscoll were charged with the ill-treatment of Cypriot EOKA prisoners during interrogation. In addition to these four examples, it is now known that internees at the Brompton Oratory School in London may have suffered torture during the Second World War: the treatment received there by the German anti-Nazi Otto Witt, for example, is specifically mentioned in his declassified MI5 file.6

  The Directorate of Military Intelligence made a conscious decision not to investigate allegations surrounding the London Cage for the following reasons: too much time and too many staff members were needed to investigate or to trace the officers associated with them, and a search of files at the War Office and Ministry of Defence was too onerous. It meant the files could be quietly consigned to the basement.

  Neither journalists nor the general public had any right of access to the interrogation cages or penal camps. If there was cause for public concer
n with regard to such places, the under-secretary of state for war had to be approached to hold an inquiry. In 1949, that was Michael Stewart (later foreign secretary, Baron Stewart of Fulham). In the spring of 1949, Reginald Paget MP raised a number of questions in the House of Commons about incidents at the London Cage during 1946. He asked the under-secretary of state for war whether he had considered the declarations made by Reinhold Bruchardt and other prisoners that cruel methods had been adopted by the London Cage to secure statements and confessions. Paget wanted to know whether a full public inquiry would be held. Michael Stewart confined his written response of Tuesday, 8 February 1949, to two cases that had already been discussed in open court during the war crimes trials. He highlighted the fact that the only declarations by Bruchardt alleging cruelties at the London Cage were made at his trial, during which the counsel for the defence had cross-examined one of the witnesses and had not pressed the matter. On the second case, the Sagan trial, Stewart said:

  The allegations made at this trial were investigated with the greatest care by the court which heard the evidence of some Germans that they had been ill-treated at the London Cage. The trial (in which there were 19 accused) took fifty working days. All the accused were convicted, and it follows in the circumstances of the case that the court rejected the contention that the statements made by the accused at London Cage were induced by ill-treatment.7

  In conclusion, Stewart refused to instigate a full inquiry. Although the matter was considered firmly closed, the rumours continued to rumble on.

  Those who had once worked at the cage remained silent. Having signed the Official Secrets Act, they went to their graves without ever speaking about their work. Only Colonel Scotland tested the limits of secrecy by beginning to write his memoirs. The intelligence services seemed to want to suppress any damaging revelations, especially those that could lead surviving Nazi war criminals behind bars to have their cases reopened and their sentences repealed; or that could induce the relatives of those who had died in custody to try and claim compensation from the British government. The truth of life in the London Cage over its ten-year history remained obscured for decades.