Dan Snow's History Hit - Nazi Generals in Britain

Episode Date: June 14, 2020

When captured Nazi generals found themselves in Britain in the Second World War, they were probably surprised to be brought to a beautiful country house where they were wined and dined by a senior British aristocrat. But it was all a charade. For the skirting boards, the swings seats and the flower pots of this house were riddled with recording equipment. Unbeknown to the generals, every single conversation they had was bugged and an army of translators and transcribers worked away in the basement below. The 'senior British aristocrat' who they suspected had Nazi sympathies, was a fictitious character named after a whisky distillery, and the entire show was a genius plot by British Intelligence to squeeze out snippets of valuable information. Helen Fry joined me on the podcast to reveal the extent of this remarkable operation, and the military strategy which was altered as a result of careless comments.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Just when you think you've heard enough of the intelligence battle during the Second World War, someone comes along and writes a book, or comes up with some new research that blows your mind. And that is what has happened right now. Helen Fry has written dozens of books, largely on intelligence and NKWs and the Second World War, and her most recent book is absolutely remarkable. It is the description of the elaborate, the brilliant intelligence operation in which Hitler's senior generals were tricked into giving away vital Nazi secrets. They were captured, for example, initially many of them captured North Africa, then Italy, then Western Europe.

They were sent to a giant stately home. There was a sort of fake aristo bumbling around who appeared to have Nazi sympathies, like many aristos in the 1930s and early 40s. Anyway, they dined, they had a good time, and every single room, every single room, and in fact some of the places outside, were bugged. They were listened to by an army of linguists who were then translating that intelligence and feeding it back huge amounts of things were learned some with proper strategic importance such a good book this such a great story well done to Helen Fry for writing it so I was lucky to have her on the podcast we've got a lot of second world war material history hit Hit TV. We recently had an exclusive documentary, probably one of our most watched things ever, on the aerial war, the bombing war in the Second World War.

It seemed appropriate with the 75th anniversary of Dresden, and then this summer, the atomic strikes on Japan. That was a great documentary featuring people like Victoria Taylor, but also James Holland, Max Hastings, all that kind of stuff. So please go and check that out. You can go to the History Hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. If you use the code POD1, P-O-D-1, you get a month for free.

You get your second month for just one dollar, one pound, one euro. I mean, that's cheap. That's really cheap, in fact. In fact, it feels to me now I'm saying it might be too cheap. Anyway, take the offer while it's there. Enjoy and enjoy this podcast with Helen Fry. Helen, thank you very much for coming on this podcast. It is such a brilliant piece of work, this. Thank you. It's a privilege to be chatting to you today. Thank you.

I mean, we hear so much about intelligence and the Second World War, but why don't we know more about this? Is this a hidden story? It's definitely a hidden story. The files were only declassified about 10, 15 years ago, and I stumbled across them just a year or so after they were declassified. And I think just the sheer volume of information, if it hadn't been for my own personal connection to a war veteran, I promised him I would tell the story of his unit. I think I would not have, you know, worked through these files. They're pretty daunting. And thank goodness for everybody that you did work through them. Let's go from the beginning. When did the British government come up with the idea of treating

high-ranking German prisoners in this particular way? Well, the unit opened actually in September 1939. Of course, before the high ranking German generals were captured, they were captured in 1942. So we were already treating prisoners of war in a very specific way, recording their conversations in special sites. But 1942, that's when things change. And of course, the first generals start being captured in North Africa. 43, the North Africa campaigns collapsed and General von Arnhem surrenders with 350,000 men. And he ends up in a luxury home at Trent Park, which is near Enfield. It's at Cockfosters. But of course, that was just the beginning of the saga of Hitler's generals, because by the end of the war, in that beautiful stately home, being treated almost like a gentleman's club, they had 59 German generals and 40 officers just below the rank of general. So it's an incredible story.

Talk me through what happens when a general arrives in the UK as a prisoner. Talk me through what happens to them. Well, there were two sister sites where they dealt with lower rank prisoners. And we know that the German generals often were taken there for a day or so. And they were sort of debriefed. This was Latimer House and Wilson Park in Buckinghamshire. They had a sort of debriefing. You can't really interrogate them because they don't really appreciate being interrogated. And then, of course, they thought that was it it the British just sort of chatted them up got what they needed and then they were transferred escorted to Trent Park which is about 20 miles away and there they were greeted with the utmost respect by Sir General Gepp and accorded a life

of luxury so they kind of enter into the house. They don't think, well, they don't even question why they're being held in a stately home and not in Nissen Huts with barbed wire. They believe they deserve to be there. And that kind of plays to their ego and means that the most magical theatrical stage set unfolds in that house from 1942 until the end of the war. Well, all they were seeing were servants and luxury. What was actually going on in that house

behind the walls? So behind the walls, the house had already been wired for sound. It had been wired in 1939. And just before the generals first arrived, it was wired a bit further. So instead of just the light fittings and the fireplaces, the beautiful marble fireplaces, British intelligence hid bugging devices. We know from the reports in plant pots, in the billiards table, everything, the skirting boards, everything that could be bugged was bugged. And that included the seat in the garden. That was a really good one.

And the trees as well, because, you know, if those generals were chatting, a couple of them stood under the seat in the garden that was a really good one and the trees as well because you know those generals were chatting a couple of them stood under a tree in the garden we might need to know what they're saying but of course what they didn't realize was in the basement was this whole secret world of the listeners who were listening to everything that was going on upstairs you mentioned the book they were sort of welcomed by someone pretending to be an aristocrat or a cousin of the Queen or something. Oh, yeah. This is what I love. Well, the commanding officer was an MI6 officer, actually,

Colonel Thomas Joseph Kendrick, and he was discussing the idea with the intelligence chiefs, you know, it would be a good idea to have a welfare officer to really schmooze the generals kind of make sure they're relaxed and they discussed the rank and the director of military intelligence said well you know major so no no says kendrick the generals love an aristocrat okay so what are we going to call him well they called him lord aberfeldy and i don't know if you've sort of picked up already i think you would have from the book, that they named him after a whiskey distillery, which of course is

typical British sense of humour. So Lord Aberfeldy treated them to day trips, extra cigars, and the generals really felt that he actually might secretly be a Nazi and was on their side. What kind of stuff did they overhear these generals talking about? Oh, there's tons and tons of stuff. I mean, one of the big reveals that I trace in the book is the connection between bugged conversation in March 1943. The generals are very depressed after the final fall of Stalingrad. One of them says, you know, that's it, we've lost the war. And it's General Fontoma who says, no, we haven't, we've got the secret weapon. And, of course, we'd had intelligence already from agents behind enemy lines.

There was the Oslo report about this on November 39. So we had things already on this, but this was the final confirmation. You know, you've got Hitler's closest circle of generals some of them didn't know about it and then of course we start getting conversations about v1 and the v2 and ultimately actually the v3 which I'd never heard of but the consequence of course I trace in the book is how that bugged conversation in the coming days as well, led to Churchill's authorisation of the bombing of Penemunde, which, of course, was the top secret site where all this was being developed in northern Germany.

Were the generals monitored right the way till the end of the war? Did it start to run out? I suppose the good news is every time a new general came in, the others would all quiz him as how it was all going. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And we had a couple of field marshals. Field Marshal von Rundstedt ends up there. Of course, after D-Day, whole swathes of top commanders arrive at Trent Park. And we're getting, you asked about the kind of intelligence. I mean, I gave you the

sort of big one, which I think people relate to quite easily. But we've got eyewitness accounts of D-Day, which are fascinating themselves. We've got the generals discussing military strategy. I mean, every Friday night, each of the generals took a turn each week to give a one hour military lecture. And we recorded every single word. It's slightly different intelligence from the lower rank prisoners that we're still processing at Latham House and Wilson Park, while all this is going on with the generals but it gives us an insight into their military mindset we've also got development of pro-Nazis and anti-Nazis in the house and again it gives us an interesting indication of cracks in the Nazi regime reactions of course to the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944.

We used for propaganda purposes as well. I mean, it's massive. And, of course, there's obviously still a lot more work to be done by our historians on this. Do we have the audio recording still, or is it all the transcription? Surely the audio hasn't survived. We've got all the transcripts which survive in the National Archives, 75,000 of them the audio nothing's come to light but what's interesting the generals and of course the lower rank prisoners as

well did talk about atrocities and kendrick commanding officer ensured that the listeners kept cut discs so they were recorded onto acetate discs 78s and very old technology now. So Kendrick asked for this to be kept. And I'm just hoping that somewhere in some dusty basement, maybe the war office or some storage they've forgotten about, there may well still be some of these that have survived. I mean, whether they're usable and we can hear them, I don't know. So you mentioned atrocities. I mean, it's debate over the extent of the genocide going on in Central and Eastern Europe. Was this useful intelligence on that front as well? Yeah this is revelatory actually because Kendrick writes as early as 1940 and don't forget these are just before the generals haven't arrived yet but from lower rank prisoners he writes in

one of his reports most prisoners are talking about atrocities. And then in 1941, where he's picking up quite a lot from the prisoners on the mobile gas trucks, you know, in Latvia and places like that, and the Russian front, we didn't know about this stuff. You know, we take it for granted, because a lot of the stuff in the conversations started to be known about after the liberation of the camps in 45. But, you know, I was shocked to see the level of detail. And, you know, by 43, most prisoners, including the generals, were boasting that they'd murdered 5 million Jews. And British intelligence has got a comment there saying, well, you know, is this accurate? And one of the other generals is saying, no, it's three and a half million we're also picking up stuff on the warsaw ghetto tons and tons of stuff there the aryan stud project you know hitler's program for a pure aryan race and his breeding program you know young girls with ss officers

i mean that didn't come out until the 1980s but it's all there in these bug conversations But it's all there in these bug conversations. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not

only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Obviously, it's difficult to ask you to get that kind of the consensus of this very diverse group of generals. But where does it leave you thinking about this idea of the kind of the innocent Wehrmacht? You know, the soldiers didn't quite realise what was going on with the SS and the execution squads, and they were just there to make war, and it was other people that were doing the

atrocities? Well, that's one of the big turning points, I think, of assessing this material, because the Wehrmacht, as you said, the German army, for 70 odd years has been sort of the innocent party in all this. and it's absolutely clear that that's now not the case that there was not all of the generals and not all of the prisoners of course but there were a large proportion of the Wehrmacht that was complicit in war crimes and particularly on the Russian front there's tons of stuff and it links up with some of the decoded messages at Bletchley Park actually. So it's a fascinating subject to join up these two intelligence groups which were working very closely together throughout the war. But absolutely I think

some of this stuff is going to change our understanding of parts of the Second World War. Are you telling me that none of the generals at any stage guessed? Do some of them think, well, let's go outside and have this chat and then they're recorded outside anyway? Or were they just ridiculously sort of lazy? Well, you see, they were warned in Germany, if you're captured, the British will bug your conversations. And the Germans were doing it to us. They were doing it it in cold hits and I found stuff in some of the mi9 files that's this branch of military intelligence that we're dealing with so and they weren't fools they were highly educated but I think and this is my assessment of the intelligence reports British intelligence has turned psychology on its head they're not in

surroundings they expect to be they're're pampering them. There's plenty of whiskey. One of them even asks, you know, can we have parole for pheasant shooting? It's like a comedy sketch. You know, Lord Aberfeldy says, well, you know, with the greatest respect, you might shoot the guards. So we've got all this nonsense going on in the house. And I think really they were just looking the wrong way, so to speak. What about the teams that worked there? I mean, were they entering and leaving by some underground pastures? How do you keep all that secret? Well, we have one surviving secret listener from that period, and he doesn't remember actually.

It's a shame, but in the basement itself, it goes right out across a west wing. And at the back, even today, there were like double doors. So we think that's how they went in and out. There's no evidence of tunnels or anything like that. Although I think people locally like to think that there were all these tunnels. And of course, they planted trees as well. So that once they come out of the entrance, anyone looking out from the ground floor wouldn't have seen, you know seen these listeners coming and going. That's our theory, but we don't know for sure.

Do we know what it was like to work there? Do you get the same stories of the excitement, the hard work, the secrecy that you get when you talk to Bletchley veterans? Yeah, I mean, there was one veteran who wouldn't talk. His grandson picked up some of my work and he saw something on BBC actually when I was interviewed a few years ago and he said hang on my grandfather never served a brawl but he did something secret he went around to see him his grandfather wouldn't speak and he said grandfather but look your name is in and then his grandfather spoke so yeah they were bound by secrecy it took a while for me to get

some of the information from them because they weren't too sure but very proud now and I think what's a shame is by the time I got to the story and this is as I say 15 years ago the vast majority of the veterans had passed away and they never realized the sheer impact of the work that they'd done. I mean, 12-hour shifts, very boring. So a couple of them that I interviewed, survivors that I interviewed, you know, they're listening to stuff. Sometimes they're aware that their commanding officer's getting very excited, but they don't remember what they've been listening to over a three or four year period.

So yeah, quite mundane, but incredibly important. Did any of the generals realise ever in their careers that they'd been played like this? Not that we've got evidence of, actually. I mean, my theory, and of course I don't know whether it's accurate, the files weren't declassified, as I mentioned, until about 15 years ago. Well, actually, it took five years for someone at the war office to go through and check that there was nothing sensitive in them. So there's that many

files to go through and check. But my suspicion is that these files weren't declassified until the last German general had died. And so I mean, it's something I need to follow up on. But it is fascinating that I think they were duped to the very end. You mentioned there were some were Nazis and some were anti-Nazis. I mean, was that quite a strong area of disagreement and debate within this group? Oh, absolutely. And in fact, some of the transcripts of their conversations, these typed transcripts, which today are in German and in the English translation, conversations, these typed transcripts, which today are in German and in the English translation, sometimes in brackets, the listeners typed up or whoever typed it up after them, actually,

usually the women, it says in brackets, shouting, or getting irritated. So they put in a sort of tone. And we have a case of a couple of the generals having a really intense argument on the staircase, and one was shouting over the banisters banisters I mean the pro-Nazis were getting quite anxious well that's probably a polite way of putting it because the anti-Nazis wanted to read well sort of democratic literature they were given books and newspapers to read but some of the generals disapproved of what their colleagues were now reading they had a little sort of meeting, this pro-Nazi clique. The other thing, of course, is, you know, what are we going to do with them? And there's a famous story I tell in the book about Hitler's birthday. I mean, this is just extraordinary. They all come down in their Sunday best, as the intelligence reports suggest. And

the pro-Nazis are worried, what happens if the anti-Nazis refuse to raise their glass to Hitler their glass of wine at supper and the pro-Nazis say well you know when we're back in power in post-war Germany we're going to expel them from the officer's corps or shoot them for treason and all this pandemonium is going on in the house. And one of Kendrick's officers has written in the margin of the intelligence report, these guys are never getting back in power. And so I suppose for me, it's that whole charade and the layers of the story. It's not just about the bug conversations. But what I think we have here is a rare snapshot into daily life in the Second

World War. Yeah, I mean, I'm just suddenly thinking away from these generals as political military figures, but as men, I mean, how did they cope with confinement? Although it was luxurious, were they frustrated, bored, angry? I mean, do you get a sense of that? Don't forget, there are quite a lot of them in there. I mean, by May 43, we have at least a dozen there, and that's increasing after Sicily and Italy, and then D-Day, of course. So we've got 59 German generals and officers, and they're batmen. We made sure there was plenty for them to think about and to talk.

In fact, in one case, one of the daily administrators who administrated it for Kendrick, Topham he was, he wrote to his counterpart in America, because don't forget the Americans were involved with this unit as well, American intelligence, and said in his letter, I pray daily for rain because the generals are spending too long outside and we need them talking. Well, of course they were talking, but, you know,

the more that they were indoors and occupied, and they had lessons, you know, some of them taught each other English or other languages, drawing lessons, they had plenty to do and plenty to discuss. Okay, so apart from the V weapons, is there any other one thing that you can think of that was a sort of actionable bit of intelligence? Yeah, they picked up stuff on the atomic bomb programme. Again, this is something we need our historians to look into more closely. We know as well, not just from the generals, but from the lower rank prisoners. And I think we mustn't forget those also because the volumes of stuff there, tons of stuff on the U-boat war. You just get a sense that it's changed the Battle of the Atlantic, the stuff we're reading there that you think, oh my goodness, you know, this has clearly had an impact on defences. We're even picking up

intelligence as early as 1940 on the failed Norwegian campaign. And we did snatch prisoners and they came back to Trent Park. So all this stuff is really worth looking at in more detail. But also, one of the reports by air intelligence at this site said that 95% of the material we, the Allies, gained on German radar and the early stuff, technology, comes from this site alone. And I found that staggering, because I've never read this stuff before. Again, is it just like Bletchley Park in the 1960s and 70s? It was just so secret that that's why the story isn't known about today. Why is it that this is so shocking and surprising to us? Yeah, well, you see, I uncovered a very fierce debate in intelligence circles at the end of the war.

And there was a debate about whether this material, and it goes back to what we discussed on the war crimes and the atrocities in the concentration camps we had all these tons and tons of knowledge this should go to nuremberg and i think this is going to partly answer your question and ultimately some of the intelligence lot said oh yeah we should release this these guys must be brought to justice. But it was actually the new head of MI9 who made the ultimate decision. And because we'd entered a new war, the Cold War, and there's a possibility, of course, that we might have been using the same techniques. Well, we know for sure now, Berlin Tunnel and everything like that. Yeah, so that's the reason the stuff remained classified. And so the decision

was made at the end of the war. No one could speak about this stuff. It would compromise current operations as was then going into the Cold War. Oh, it's just such a fantastic story. And it sounds to me like a treasure trove. There's going to be a lot, lot more coming out of this. So thank you very much, Helen Fry. What's the wonderful book called?

The Walls Have Ears. Well, make sure you go and get it, everybody. It's thank you and fry for coming on the podcast thank you i hope you enjoyed the podcast just before you go bit of a favour to ask. I totally understand if you don't want to become a subscriber or pay me any cash money. Makes sense. But if you could just do me a favour,

it's for free. Go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. If you give it a five-star rating and give it an absolutely glowing review, purge yourself, give it a glowing review. I'd really appreciate that. It's tough weather,

the law of the jungle out there. And I need all the fire support I can get. So that will boost it up the charts. It's so tiresomeome but if you could do it i'd be very very grateful thank you