Britain's Torture Camps in Post World War II
Aug 1, 2010 Michael Streich
On August 1, 1945, a British military convoy arrived at Bad Nenndorf, located in the British occupation zone of Northwest Germany.
The soldiers ordered the removal of all villagers and began to construct a prison camp. Although some prisoners held at Bad Nenndorf were former Nazi soldiers and officials, others were not. In several cases, the men held here, forced to undergo torture, were innocent of either association with the Nazis or the Communists. The British government sealed all records of this and similar camps for 60 years and still refuses to release damaging photographs.
Torture Used by the British at Bad Nenndorf
Prisoners at the camp were starved and beaten. According to The Guardian writer, Ian Cobain (“The interrogation camp that turned prisoners into living skeletons,” December 17, 2005), “Naked prisoners were handcuffed back-to-back and forced to stand before open windows in mid-winter.”
The web page for the British Security Service MI5, commenting on the scandal once it became public in 1947, states that, “Britain, it was claimed, had established ‘concentration camps’ similar to those of the Nazis.”
Bad Nenndorf Part of a System of Secret Camps
The secret interrogations centers were facilitated by the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Center (CSDIC). Until November 1945, the CSDIC conducted interrogations at camps within the UK. One of these camps, known as the London Cage – located near Kensington Palace Gardens, processed 3,573 men. One of the top interrogators, Robin Stephens, became the camp commander at Bad Nenndorf.
Many of the guards at Nenndorf were social misfits, men reassigned to the camp for crimes such as assault or desertion. Most were very young. According to The Guardian (April 3, 2006), “As one minster of the day wrote, as few people as possible should be aware that British authorities had treated prisoners ‘in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps.’”
What Constitutes “Torture?”
Ian Cobain writes that Colonel Stephens was eventually court martialled during a closed door trial and was acquitted. In another article (April 3, 2006), Cobain says that “The only officer at Bad Nenndorf to be convicted was the prison doctor.” How can all of the stories of torture, including those pictures that were released and published in the April 3, 2006 Guardian newspaper, be reconciled with Stephens’ acquittal?
Ben Macintyre wrote two Times articles, February 10, 2006 and May 1 2009, dealing with Robin Stephens. The first article appeared after the Bad Nenndorf documents were released. ("The truth that Tin Eye saw") The second article stresses that Colonel Stephens may have used psychological intimidation brilliantly, but never employed torture or condoned it.
Significantly, Macintyre begins his 2009 article with the statement that “torture is morally abhorrent…the most important argument against torture is that it doesn’t work.” He then refers to “the cells of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo…” But this is the very essence of the torture debate. Witness statements regarding conditions at Bad Nenndorf, published in the December 17, 2005 Guardian, record that prison inmates were, “severely starved, frostbitten, and caked in dirt. Some had been beaten or whipped.”
The Definition of Torture in Interrogations
Both Winston Churchill and Barack Obama have publicly stated, “We do not torture.” But the definition of torture can mean many things. During the George W. Bush administration, debate ensued whether or not water boarding was an appropriate interrogation technique or if it should be considered torture. Both Mr. Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney rejected the torture definition, claiming that the technique was crucial and legal. (CBS News, February 8, 2008)
Secret Interrogation Points to Illegalities and Human Rights Violations
The British interrogation centers in the UK, while producing desirable results, were completely secret, even to the Red Cross. The same was true of camps like Bad Nenndorf. Observers today refer to the “Gestapo-like” tactics employed on prisoners. At Bad Nenndorf, interrogators used tools taken from the Hamburg Gestapo headquarters that had been used by Nazis to interrogate enemies of the Reich.
There may indeed be a difference interrogating a dental technician in 1945 who was considered a security risk and a 2010 terrorist like Faisal Shahzad who confessed to attempting to detonate a bomb in New York City’s Times Square. Water boarding the mastermind behind the 9/11 atrocity may save many more lives if similar plots are revealed. Post modern society, however, will have to define the limits of interrogation and the definition of torture in the light of history.
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