D-DAY AND ITS AFTERMATH
As 1944 dawned, Allied commanders were preparing for the largest invasion in history – D-Day. The mammoth task of collecting intelligence ahead of 6 June continued in the M Rooms. German prisoners had been escorted from the battlefields of North Africa, Sicily and Italy for processing at CSDIC sites during 1942 and 1943. Several other POW centres – known as ‘cages’ – were situated at various locations in the south of England.1 Ahead of D-Day, intelligence was being amassed from interrogations and recorded conversations: intelligence concerning fortifications along the French coast, German patrol routes and the construction of German concrete bunkers along the coast. The Dieppe raid two years previously, in August 1942, had failed in its prime objective of capturing the four-rotor Enigma machine, which would have aided the work at Bletchley Park.2 But four prisoners had been brought back to Latimer House. Kendrick noted that from those four prisoners it was possible to produce a very thorough and detailed report on static defence batteries; this thereafter served as a template for all investigations and interrogations on that subject.
One of the major benefits of this raid (from a CSDIC point of view) was that it provided ‘valuable experience which was later turned to account in the pre D-Day investigations of the Atlantik Wall [sic]’.3 As former interrogator Derrick Simon wrote: ‘Every small detail which could be of use to an invading army was obtained from persons who had been in the appropriate areas of the coastal strip.’4
There could be no complacency, because Germany was racing to gain superiority of the air and sea: its huge technological leaps seemed almost like science fiction to the British Admiralty and Air Ministry. It remained a difficult war – and one that would have been lost without the continuous stream of intelligence from Kendrick’s unit and codebreaking at Bletchley Park.
That year, 1944, would see the liberation of Belgium and Holland, and the invasion of Germany. It was also a significant year for Kendrick as he witnessed the largest influx to his sites of captured senior officers, German generals and at least two field marshals. His highly efficient establishment was ready for them. Extraordinary scenes are reported in the intelligence reports about the generals and the ‘Mad Hatter’s tea-party’ of daily life at Trent Park. On 11 January 1944, M Room operators overheard the anti-Nazi clique debating whether they should set up their own official political council in captivity.5 The rancour between the pro-Nazis and the anti-Nazis was as bitter as ever. Crüwell realized that he had become the most unpopular general: the others avoided sitting with him at mealtimes. He started to spend more time in his room. The others also occasionally preferred to spend time in their bedrooms; this was fine, as the fireplaces there had hidden microphones and could pick up any conversations the generals had over cards or chess.
Just before Hitler’s birthday on 20 April, the generals discussed how they would mark the occasion. The discussion became quite heated, with the pro-Nazi clique concerned that the anti-Nazis might not raise their glasses in a toast to Hitler at supper. Crüwell concluded that if Bassenge messed up preparations for the Führer’s birthday and von Thoma refused to toast him, they would be expelled from the corps of officers and prohibited from eating in the officers’ mess at Trent Park. On the morning of 20 April, it was obvious that it was no ordinary day:
The German batmen were dressed in their Sunday best – the officers were not! At 12.30 hrs, General von Arnim, supported by Captain Meixner, visited the batmen’s dining room and a toast was drunk to Hitler, and von Arnim made a speech.6
These scenes were quite extraordinary; but as far as Kendrick was concerned there was one overriding goal: to harvest intelligence that would secure the outcome of the war for the Allies.
Outrageous as the frivolous life of the generals may seem, actionable intelligence was being received by Kendrick’s teams. And it was contributing to the military might of Nazi Germany being gradually dismantled and defeated. Without exception, the generals – whether pro- or anti-Nazi – had respect for Kendrick, whom they saw as a decent and honourable military man, who, in turn, respected their ranks as military commanders. The deception was working: Kendrick’s interpersonal skills could dupe even Hitler’s top generals. They were no fools, but their egos and self-importance clouded their judgement of Kendrick, so that they failed to appreciate the covert operation that he had masterminded to gain Nazi secrets.
Major General Heinrich Kreipe came to have a particularly close rapport with Kendrick. Kreipe was the subject of a daring kidnap in Crete by SOE on 25 May 1944.7 The abduction was thought to have been undertaken to undermine morale in the German High Command – the sub-text being that SOE could take out any German military leader. Kreipe was taken first to Wilton Park, and then to Trent Park. Summaries of his interrogation and of a number of conversations with British army officers have survived.8 During his time there, Kreipe discussed the putative ‘secret weapon’ with the other senior German officers, expressing his belief that it really did exist.9 He was entertained at Kendrick’s home in Oxshott, as grandson Ken Walsh recalled:
I have vivid memories of Kreipe being entertained at my grandfather’s house where I lived with my mother and sister for over a year and where we also spent our school holidays. General Kreipe took a liking to me and made little cranes complete with a cab, a jib and a bucket. One of the cranes had an operator’s revolving cabin on a strip used to seal fish paste jars.10
What Kendrick thought of Kreipe is not known; nor is it clear whether he secured any information from him in private conversation.
D-Day, 6 June 1944, and the subsequent Allied military success led to the surrender of several German military commanders and thousand of soldiers. All POWs needed to be assessed at one of MI19’s ‘cages’, in order to ascertain whether they should be transferred to one of Kendrick’s sites for detailed interrogation.11 It was a massive logistical challenge for CSDIC, but Kendrick was prepared. From D-Day until 31 August 1944, just over 1,600 POWs passed through Wilton Park and Latimer House, 523 of them officers.12
In total, 98 senior German officers would be held at Trent Park, 59 of them generals.13 Among those captured after D-Day were Admiral Walter Hennecke, commander of all German sea defences in Normandy; Lieutenant General Karl von Schlieben, the commander at Cherbourg; Lieutenant General Ferdinand Heim, the commander of Boulogne; Colonel Andreas von Aulock, commandant of the fortress of St Malo; and Colonel Eberhard Wildermuth, commandant of Le Havre. They came with eyewitness accounts of D-Day that are particularly revealing.14 Admiral Hennecke confirmed that, as soon as he saw the vast resources of the Allies hoving into view on the horizon, he knew it was all over for the German forces. He and his colleagues were overwhelmed and dispirited by the size of the Allied air superiority. They had not expected the invasion to begin before August, and the sea defences and gun emplacements near Cherbourg had not yet been completed. He confessed that he had been ill supplied with intelligence, chiefly because of the inability of Germany to conduct air reconnaissance after the defeat of the Luftwaffe.15
August 1944 saw the arrival at Trent Park of General Dietrich von Choltitz, the commander of Paris, who was finally arrested on 25 August.16 He figures prominently in transcripts from Trent Park at this time. Hitler’s commanders continued to be brought from the battlefields of France between D-Day and the end of the war in Europe, in May 1945. They had vital information about the state of the German war machine and fighting on the Western Front.17 Major General Carl Wahle, who had commanded 42 Infantry Division, confirmed in conversations at Trent Park that German forces had suffered heavy losses and their communications had completely broken down. He admitted that the men in his division had severe frostbite, sustained earlier in the harsh Russian winter, and were in no fit state to continue fighting.18 Other noteworthy information came from General Heinrich Eberbach, who revealed that the total German tank strength in Normandy had been 800, half of which had been destroyed by the Allies.19 Information like this was important as it enabled Allied intelligence to assess the military threat that could still come from Axis forces, as well as the impact of Germany’s losses on its fighting capability.
Again, the generals expressed dismay that they were losing the war, and this led to further discussions about the secret weapon. It became clear that they were pinning their hopes on this, if Germany was to win the war. Just four days after D-Day, Kreipe expressed to Bassenge his disappointment that Germany had not yet started using the weapon in retaliation.20 To this Bassenge replied:
I am interested in the rocket business. I know all about this great problem of the rockets with liquid propellant. I knew about them years ago in peace time. I was constantly at the experimental establishment at Kumersdorf (?) [i.e. Kummersdorf].
MI6’s leading scientist, Professor R.V. Jones, wrote that the information gleaned from prisoners enabled British intelligence to gain a complete understanding of the German V-2 programme and vital intelligence on the mobile launch sites of the V-1 and V-2.21
An even greater revelation was about to break. It came in a conversation between Heinrich Eberbach and Major General Alfred Gutknecht. Eberbach had served in several key campaigns, including on the Russian Front, and by July 1944 had been appointed commander of Panzer Gruppe West.22 On 31 August 1944, he surrendered at Amiens and was taken to Wilton Park.
It was on 1 September – his first day at Wilton Park – that he said, within earshot of the microphones: ‘Above all they are counting on the V-3.’
Gutknecht corrected him: ‘The V-2.’
‘No, the V-3,’ persisted Eberbach.
Gutknecht did not know about the V-3 and asked what it was. Eberbach replied: ‘V-3 is that large rocket which flies through the stratosphere, and which is said to have several times the effect of the V-1.’ He went on to speak of the development of the weapon (otherwise known as the ‘London super-gun’) and how it would be propelled up a ramp from 100 feet under the ground.23
This offers a clear example of why these military commanders had to be brought swiftly from the battlefield to one of Kendrick’s sites: they brought with them fresh intelligence that was given up to the microphones. They could also be used to stimulate conversation with the other generals who had been in captivity for longer and who were eager for information.
Three days later, Eberbach found himself in discussion with a British army officer who openly asked him about the V-3.24 Eberbach told him that it was a long-range radio-controlled ‘rocket’; it had a longer range than the V-1 and could be fired at England from western Germany. In his view, there were still challenges to be overcome, specifically on the construction of the firing ramps; but, with uninterrupted and undetected work day and night, it would be possible to complete such a ramp in eight days.25
These conversations were essential to British intelligence as it was not possible to identify the underground sites solely from RAF aerial photography. The end result of the conversations mirrored that of the Peenemünde intelligence: Allied aircrews flew reconnaissance missions over the V-3 sites and bombed them. Although the Germans did not manage to make the V-3 fully operational, they did launch a test weapon into Holland in 1944. Had the M Rooms at Wilton Park not provided the valuable information, Hitler could have succeeded in firing this deadly new super-gun at England from inside Germany. And there would have been little hope of the Allies finding the launch sites until the invasion of Germany.
Thus, had this new technology and its whereabouts not been discovered, the tide could have turned in favour of Germany and the Allies could have lost the war.
Few generals at Trent Park now believed a German victory to be possible, and discussion turned to how a complete collapse of Germany could be avoided. Cramer admitted: ‘I am in favour of fighting to the last ditch, but I don’t want to find Goebbels sitting in the last ditch.’26 The generals believed they themselves were the only ones who could bring about political change in Germany. Such conversations were as important to the British as operational intelligence. Kendrick realized how useful it was to gain an insight into the military mindset of the commanders – not only to understand how they might conduct their battle plans, but also to detect any cracks in the Nazi leadership that could be exploited by the Allies. Fear of the Russians became one of the most persistent themes in the chats: the desperate hope was that the British and the Americans would reach Berlin before the Russians. The senior German officers believed that Britain would soon unite with Germany against Russia.27
The news of an attempt on Hitler’s life came in at 6 p.m. on 20 July 1944. A British army intelligence officer sent for General Sponeck and gave him the news that Hitler had survived the plot by Claus von Stauffenberg. This information was to be passed on to the generals. Sponeck duly did so. Kendrick immediately instructed his intelligence officers to alert the secret listeners to record the generals’ reactions.28 Their responses varied, but Admiral Hennecke, Hitler’s commander of all the sea defences of Normandy, was realistic, declaring: ‘This is the beginning of the end.’29
How did Kendrick react to the attempt on Hitler’s life? He shared the belief common within MI6 that, had Hitler been successfully assassinated, the Allies may have been forced to make peace with a more moderate German leader, but that this would not necessarily have led to democracy. Furthermore, it was believed that Hitler was making so many bad military decisions that it was better to have him in power than for a new leader to take over who might win the war.30 Kendrick knew that Germany had to suffer total defeat and unconditional surrender in order to ensure that there was no repetition of the mistakes at the end of the First World War, the consequences of which he had lived through. The full restoration of democracy in Germany had to be assured, and that would not happen if any of the top Nazi leadership remained in power.
While the generals discussed Hitler’s security and the attempt on his life, senior commanders continued to be brought from the battlefields of Europe to Kendrick’s three sites: during the autumn and winter of 1944, 22 German generals arrived.31 But some of Hitler’s elite troops also arrived after their capture.
Elite German paratroopers
Kendrick took the decision that captured German paratroopers and POWs from anti-aircraft units were to be interrogated mainly by army interrogation officers, rather than RAF interrogators, even though the POWs were part of the German air force.32 This decision appears to have been based on the kind of information that these particular prisoners would hold. It demonstrates his foresight in adapting to the needs of intelligence at different stages in the war and his understanding of how best to secure intelligence from high-value POWs.
Paratroopers captured in Sicily and Italy were being brought to Kendrick’s sites for detailed interrogation from as early as 1943. But after D-Day, there was an increase in the number of such prisoners. The CSDIC reports reveal that the majority were anti-Nazi, as noted on their interrogation reports.33 This is rather a surprising discovery, since the elite forces might be assumed to have been die-hard Nazis. In interrogation, they gave up a huge volume of intelligence on the different para regiments and battalions of Hitler’s airborne forces, including information about German operations at Nettuno, Anzio and Catania, and about discussions of Allied tactics in the region.34 The extraordinary level of detail extended to particulars of their training and the locations of schools for airborne forces; the equipment used in airborne operations; the history and foundation of each regiment and battalion; offensive tactics; and eyewitness accounts of various campaigns.35
Interrogations provided a picture of the scale of Germany’s continued build-up of specialist fighting troops that could be deployed to support advancing ground troops. CSDIC interrogators even managed to gain information about a para regiment called ‘Legion Turkestan’, which had its own insignia and comprised 90 per cent Russians (Cossacks and Mongolians).36 In 1941, they had jumped at Minsk, but details of that top-secret mission remained sketchy until they were revealed during an interrogation by an American, Heimwarth Jestin, at Wilton Park. There was confirmation, too, that German para divisions in Crimea and Odessa had sustained heavy losses.37 There was talk among prisoners of the 6th Para Division, which had jumped at Vilna and fought on the Eastern Front, again with heavy casualties.38
After D-Day, paratroopers passing through Kendrick’s sites enabled Allied intelligence to chart the complete chain of command and structure of the Parachute Army under Luftwaffe General Kurt Student, who would himself be brought to Trent Park in June 1945.39 Within a fortnight of D-Day, Lieutenant Hoffmann, a paratrooper, was arrested near Cherbourg and taken to Wilton Park, where he was interrogated by the 24-year-old Jestin, who was attached to CSDIC. Hoffmann, who only knew Jestin by his cover name of ‘Lieutenant Colonel Jenkins’, had guarded the secret installations for flying bombs in northern France and gave up intelligence on these.40 Paratrooper Deiser, captured at Nancy on 14 September 1944, spoke of how the 4th, 5th and 6th Para Divisions had been wiped out in Normandy and were reforming in Germany.41 Other paratroopers painted a comprehensive picture of the operational deployment and movements of the 2nd Parachute Corps and information on its reconnaissance battalion.42
Hermann Ramcke, a paratrooper general who had served in North Africa, the Soviet Union and Italy, was finally captured by US forces in his bunker at Brest, in northern France, on 19 September 1944. With him were found a large quantity of French brandy and liqueurs, a French mistress, an Irish setter dog, at least 20 high-quality uniforms and a complete dinner service. He was brought to Wilton Park just two days after his capture and housed in a cottage on the site together with Lieutenant Generals Heyking and Heim and Vice Admiral Weber.43 Ramcke was particularly tight-lipped and gave nothing away in his conversations. Jestin, an expert on German paratroops, was sent to interrogate him. He knocked on the door of the cottage, a bottle of cognac in his hand.44
Ramcke was dismissive of Jestin, but the American persisted and said he had come to celebrate: Hitler had awarded Ramcke the highest level of the Iron Cross, the Knight’s Cross with diamonds, for valour. Jestin handed him a newspaper with the announcement.45 Ramcke reluctantly conceded, let Jestin in and agreed to celebrate. The drinking continued all evening. By 11 p.m., Jestin was feeling rather drunk and had to be helped back to his billet by a guard. At just before midnight, Ramcke gave up to his comrades the vital intelligence that the M Room operators were waiting for and that Jestin had failed to gain in interrogation – military strategy, details of glider installations and troop information.46 The irony is that Ramcke died in 1968 without ever finding out that the medal from the Führer had been fake: it had been a masterful piece of deception on the part of Jestin to secure the intelligence. And fully in keeping with Kendrick’s views on how to secure Nazi secrets from unwitting Axis commanders.
Another significant paratroop commander to be captured was 37-year-old Friedrich von der Heydte, taken at Monschau, near Aachen, on 23 December 1944. He had commanded a German airborne group that was dropped behind the American lines in the Ardennes offensive and the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. He gave his CSDIC interrogators detailed information about the history, active service and formations of the majority of the regiments and divisions of the airborne troops, as well as types of weapons carried, signals equipment and battle plans of the Ardennes operation.47 As an expert on gliders and glider techniques, he provided valuable details, but was also an eyewitness to the Ardennes offensive.48 The Germans intended this offensive to be the last great push to hold back advancing Allied forces, and von der Heydte described one of the night-time drops:
There was no moonlight. The men jumped in sticks of 13 men each; the orders were to drop from a height of 125m, but in point of fact it varied from 60 to 300m . . . the Bonn-Hangelar airfield illuminated, flares shot up in a stream . . . From the front line to the DZ [drop zone] the way was indicated by parachute flares dropped by a pathfinder aircraft. They flew at a height of 600–800m.49
He confirmed that if all the supplies and men had been dropped with him, they could have survived for 8–10 days without fresh supplies. He spoke, too, about another secret offensive mission in December 1944, which used two parachute parties: one landed on the right flank of the German attack near Eupen, and the other west of Malmedy. He recounted the mission in detail, day by day, from 8 to 23 December 1944, and revealed that they had sustained 50 per cent casualties during the descent by the airborne forces.50
During another interrogation, von der Heydte gave details of a number of other airborne operations that he had helped with at the planning stage, but that had never been carried out. These included the invasion of Britain in 1940, codenamed Seelöwe (Operation Sealion); also information on a planned attack on Gibraltar in autumn 1940; a jump into the region near Kholm in Russia in 1942; and a four-phased attack on Malta for 1942 and 1943.51 The intelligence was so significant that von der Heydte was held at Wilton Park for several weeks, during which time he underwent several interrogations. He complained to Jestin that he did not have any useful information and that he should be transferred. He was eventually escorted to Trent Park.
A paratrooper captured in spring 1945 gave details of textile mills at Vorarlberg that had been converted into a factory complex for the production of parts for the V-weapons.52
The sheer detail of the information about Hitler’s airborne troops offers yet another example of how Kendrick’s operation was able to build up a complete picture of the enemy. Under his command and direction, Allied intelligence secured the most comprehensive intelligence on the German paratroops. The volume of the special intelligence that continued to come from Kendrick’s sites until the end of the war (and its detail) is astonishing. It was a huge achievement by the commander himself to establish and oversee such a large-scale intelligence operation, and its success underscored just how correct Hugh Sinclair had been, back in the autumn of 1938, when he decided that Kendrick was the right man. Sadly, Sinclair did not live to see either the Allied victory or Kendrick’s success, as he died in November 1939.
Towards surrender
As the war entered what would be its final year, there was no let-up at Kendrick’s sites; indeed, the pressure intensified. From March 1945, a special aircraft flew into Britain at least twice a week for the sole purpose of bringing special prisoners to Latimer House, along with documents impounded in the various parts of Germany that had been overrun by Allied forces. The documents were brought in so many sacks, crates and boxes that the teams at Kendrick’s headquarters could not cope with the volume of translation work and assessment for intelligence purposes. Felkin, head of ADI(K), engaged an extra 36 German-speaking refugees to help with microfilming the material and distributing it to the relevant services.53
In March 1945, Hitler retreated to his bunker in Berlin for the final battle. On 30 April, rather than surrender in the besieged city, he and his new wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide there. Whether wartime commanders such as Kendrick and Edward Travis (who had taken over from Alastair Denniston at Bletchley Park) ever foresaw that Hitler would take his own life is not clear. The German generals certainly reacted to the news in their ‘special quarters’. Rather than mourning the loss of their leader, as might have been expected, they discussed whether Admiral Dönitz was a suitable successor, and how they could avoid being prosecuted for war crimes.
By the end of April 1945, just weeks before Germany’s unconditional surrender, Kendrick’s three sites were full of the top echelons of the surrendering German forces. Fifty senior German officers were captured in April 1945 alone.54 On 7 May, Germany signed the unconditional surrender. The war was over. There was a huge sense of relief across Europe and great celebrations on the streets of cities and towns across Britain. For Kendrick and his personnel, the war might have been over, but their work was far from complete: Hitler’s commanders continued to arrive from the battlefields. In May 1945, Kendrick’s sites took in 106 senior German officers and lower-ranking POWs. All had to be interrogated and assessed for intelligence purposes. By July, they had been joined by two field marshals: Erhard Milch (Luftwaffe) and Gerd von Rundstedt (commander-in-chief in the west).55 The latter was the most senior German commander to be held at Trent Park and, in an extraordinary gesture on Victory over Japan Day (15 August 1945), he sought out the British army officers to offer his ‘congratulations on a great victory’.56
Post-war Germany became a hunting ground for the top leadership of Hitler’s government. Many of them, if they had not committed suicide already, had gone into hiding. Among Kendrick’s private papers was a letter dated 8 May 1945, signed by Heinrich Himmler and originally intended for Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Himmler, head of the SS and the main architect of the Holocaust, was high on the list of men wanted by the Allies. On 23 May 1945, two days after his capture, he was brought to the British interrogation camp at Fallingbostel, in the British zone of occupation, where the guards did not immediately recognize him. He died there after crushing a cyanide pill with his teeth. The letter that he had written to Montgomery reads in translation:
Field-Marshal!
Sir,
I know that I have a prominent place on the list of so-called war Criminals. I am also aware of the heavy accusations against me. In spite of that I beg you grant me, the Commander-in-Chief of the Waffen-SS in this war, a personal meeting or authorize a senior member to this task. I am certainly prepared to discuss the accusations against me. Above that I am hopeful and convinced that a discussion with you, the victorious Field Marshal and me, a soldier and politician of the defeated people, would be of great value.
Signed: H. Himmler
It is not known how Kendrick came to be in possession of the letter, but Himmler had been in contact with British intelligence in the spring of 1945, when he tried to negotiate the release of Jewish inmates from concentration camps, in exchange for not being prosecuted as a Nazi war criminal. There are uncorroborated rumours that Himmler was brought briefly to Latimer House for interrogation by Kendrick’s intelligence officers. The original was missing from Kendrick’s private papers on their transfer to England from South Africa a few years ago and so the mystery surrounding it continues.57
All that was achieved by the unit under Kendrick’s command – including the enormous volume of valuable intelligence – was achieved without any ‘third degree methods’ (rough treatment or torture) at his sites.58 Norman Crockatt (head of MI9) wrote to Kendrick in praise:
You have done a Herculean task, and I doubt if anyone else could have carried it through. It would be an impertinence were I to thank you for your contribution to the war effort up to-date: a grateful country ought to do that, but I don’t suppose they will.59
And sure enough, the nation did not honour Kendrick. It could not, because the existence of MI5 and MI6 was not publicly acknowledged.