London Cage
Encyclopedia
The "London Cage" was a MI19
prisoner of war
facility during and immediately after World War II
that was subject to frequent allegations of torture
. It was located on Kensington Palace Gardens
in London
.
, the head of Prisoner of War Interrogation Section (PWIS) of the Intelligence Corps. The prisoners were sent to prison camps after their interrogation at the cages. Nine cages were established from southern England to Scotland, with the London cage also being "an important transit camp."
The cages varied in facilities. The Doncaster
cage used a portion of the town's racecourse
as a camp, while the Catterick
and Loughborough
cages were in bare fields. The London Cage, located in a fashionable part of the city, had space for 60 prisoners, was equipped with five interrogation rooms, and staffed by 10 officers serving under Scotland, plus a dozen noncommissioned officers who served as interrogators and interpreters. Security was provided by soldiers from the Guards regiments
selected "for their height rather than their brains."
After the war, the PWIS became known as the War Crimes Investigation Unit (WCIU), and the London Cage became the headquarters for questionining suspected war criminals. Among the Nazi war criminals confined at the London cage was Fritz Knoechlein
, who was in charge of the murder of 100 British prisoners
who had surrendered at Le Paradis, France in May 1940. Knoechlein was convicted and hanged in 1949.
Alexander Scotland participated in the interrogation of Gen. Kurt Meyer
, who was accused of participating in a massacre of Canadian troops. Meyer was eventually sentenced to death, although the sentence was not carried out. Scotland observed that Meyer received milder treatment after news of the atrocity had grown "cold". He said that a Nazi Gauleiter, Sporenburg, who was responsible for the deaths of 46,000 Jews in Poland toward the end of the war, was not prosecuted by Poland despite documentary evidence of his crimes, because of Polish dislike of Jews.
Other Nazi war criminals passing through the London Cage after the war included Sepp Dietrich
, an SS general accused but never prosecuted for the murder of British prisoners in 1940. Alexander Scotland participated in the investigation of the SS and Gestapo men who murdered 50 escaped prisoners from Stalag Luft III
in 1944, in the aftermath of what became known as the "Great Escape". The London Cage closed in 1948.
pointed out that Scotland had detailed repeated breaches of the Geneva Convention (1929)
, and had admitted "that prisoners had been forced to kneel while being beaten about the head; forced to stand to attention for up to 26 hours; threatened with execution; or threatened with 'an unnecessary operation'." Publication of the book was delayed for years, and these details were excised.
In London Cage, Scotland vigorously denied that violence was used against prisoners, and that confessions were obtained by seizing upon discrepancies in the accounts of prisoners. "We were not so foolish as to imagine that petty violence, nor even violence of a stronger character, was likely to produce the results hoped for in dealing with some of the toughest creatures of the Hitler regime."
While denying "sadism", Scotland said things were done that were "mentally just as cruel". One "cheeky and obstinate" prisoner, he said, was forced to strip naked and exercise. This "deflated him completely" and he began to talk. Prisoners were sometimes forced to stand "round the clock", and "if a prisoner wanted to pee he had to do it there and then, in his clothes. It was surprisingly effective."
Scotland refused to allow Red Cross inspections at the London Cage, on the grounds that the prisoners there were neither civilians or criminals within the armed services.
In September 1940, Guy Liddell
, director of MI5
's counterintelligence B Division, said that he had been told by an officer present at the interrogation that Scotland had punched the jaw of a captured German agent at the London Cage. The agent was Wulf Schmidt, known by the code name "Tate." Liddell said in a diary entry that Scotland was "hitting TATE in the jaw and I think got one back himself." Liddell said: "Apart from the moral aspects of the thing, I am convinced that these Gestapo
methods do not pay in the long run." Liddell said that "Scotland turned up this morning with a syringe containing some drug or other, which it was thought would induce the prisoner [Tate] to speak." Schmidt subsequently became a double agent against the Germans as part of the Double Cross System
of double agents operated by MI5.
In 1943, allegations of mistreatment at the London Cage resulted in a formal protest to the Secretary of State for War by MI5
director Maxwell Knight
. The allegations were made by Otto Witt, a German anti-Nazi who was interrogated to determine if he was acting on behalf of German intelligence.
At his war crimes trial, SS Obersturmbannführer
Fritz Knoechlein
claimed that he was tortured, which Scotland dismisses in London Cage as a "lame allegation". According to Knoechlein, he was stripped, deprived of sleep, kicked by guards and starved. He said that he was compelled to walk in a tight circle for four hours. After complaining to Scotland, Knoechlein alleges that he was doused in cold water, pushed down stairs, and beaten. He claimed he was forced to stand beside a hot gas stove before being showered with cold water. He claimed that he and another prisoner were forced to run in circles while carrying heavy logs.
"Since these tortures were the consequences of my personal complaint, any further complaint would have been senseless," Knoechlein wrote. "One of the guards who had a somewhat humane feeling advised me not to make any more complaints, otherwise things would turn worse for me." Other prisoners, he alleged, were beaten until they begged to be killed, while some were told that they could be made to disappear.
Scotland said in his memoirs that Knoechlein was not interrogated at all at the London Cage because there was sufficient evidence to convict him, and he wanted "no confusing documents with the aid of which he might try to wriggle from the net." During his last nights at the cage, Scotland states, Knoechlein "began shrieking in a half-crazed fashion, so that the guards at the London Cage were at a loss to know how to control him. At one stage the local police called in to enquire why such a din was emanating from sedate Kensington Palace Gardens."
At a trial in 1947 of eighteen Nazis accused in the massacre of fifty Allied prisoners who escaped from Stalag Luft III
, the Germans alleged starvation, sleep deprival, "third degree" interrogation methods, and torture by electric shock. Scotland describes these in his memoir as "fantastic allegations." "At more than one stage in those fifty days of courtroom wrangling, a stranger to such peculiar affairs might have suspected that the arch-criminal of them all was a British Army intelligence officer known as Colonel Alexander Scotland."
Scotland denied the allegations at the trial. In London Cage he says he was "greatly troubled. . . by the constant focus on our supposed shortcomings at The Cage, for it seemed to me that these manufactured tales of cruelty toward our German prisoners were fast becoming the chief item of news, while the brutal fate of those fifty RAF officers was in danger of becoming old history."
MI19
MI19 was a division of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. In World War II it was responsible for obtaining information from enemy prisoners of war.It was originally created in December 1940 as MI9a, a sub-section of MI9...
prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
facility during and immediately after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
that was subject to frequent allegations of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. It was located on Kensington Palace Gardens
Kensington Palace Gardens
Kensington Palace Gardens is a street in west central London which contains some of the grandest and most expensive houses in the world. It was the location of the London Cage, the British government MI9 centre used during the Second World War and the Cold War.A tree-lined avenue half a mile long...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
History
A "cage" for interrogation of prisoners was established in 1940 in each command area of the UK, manned by officers trained by Alexander ScotlandAlexander Scotland
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Paterson Scotland OBE was a British Army officer and intelligence officer.Scotland was noted for his work during and after World War II as commandant of the "London Cage", a MI19 prisoner of war facility that was subject to frequent allegations of torture.-Early life...
, the head of Prisoner of War Interrogation Section (PWIS) of the Intelligence Corps. The prisoners were sent to prison camps after their interrogation at the cages. Nine cages were established from southern England to Scotland, with the London cage also being "an important transit camp."
The cages varied in facilities. The Doncaster
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
cage used a portion of the town's racecourse
Doncaster Racecourse
Doncaster Racecourse is a racecourse in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. It hosts two of Great Britain's 31 Group 1 flat races, the St Leger Stakes and the Racing Post Trophy.- History :...
as a camp, while the Catterick
Catterick Garrison
Catterick Garrison is a major Army base located in Northern England. It is the largest British Army garrison in the world with a population of around 12,000, plus a large temporary population of soldiers, and is larger than its older neighbour...
and Loughborough
Loughborough
Loughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University...
cages were in bare fields. The London Cage, located in a fashionable part of the city, had space for 60 prisoners, was equipped with five interrogation rooms, and staffed by 10 officers serving under Scotland, plus a dozen noncommissioned officers who served as interrogators and interpreters. Security was provided by soldiers from the Guards regiments
Brigade of Guards
The Brigade of Guards is a historical elite unit of the British Army, which has existed sporadically since the 17th century....
selected "for their height rather than their brains."
After the war, the PWIS became known as the War Crimes Investigation Unit (WCIU), and the London Cage became the headquarters for questionining suspected war criminals. Among the Nazi war criminals confined at the London cage was Fritz Knoechlein
Fritz Knoechlein
Fritz Knöchlein was an SS-Obersturmbannführer during the Second World War who was subsequently convicted and executed for war crimes.-Biography:Fritz Knöchlein joined the SS in 1934...
, who was in charge of the murder of 100 British prisoners
Le Paradis massacre
The Le Paradis massacre was a war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division Totenkopf, under the command of Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein...
who had surrendered at Le Paradis, France in May 1940. Knoechlein was convicted and hanged in 1949.
Alexander Scotland participated in the interrogation of Gen. Kurt Meyer
Kurt Meyer (Panzermeyer)
Kurt Meyer, nicknamed "Panzermeyer", served as an officer in the Waffen-SS during the Second World War. He saw action in many major battles, including the Invasion of France, Operation Barbarossa, and the Battle of Normandy.Meyer was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and...
, who was accused of participating in a massacre of Canadian troops. Meyer was eventually sentenced to death, although the sentence was not carried out. Scotland observed that Meyer received milder treatment after news of the atrocity had grown "cold". He said that a Nazi Gauleiter, Sporenburg, who was responsible for the deaths of 46,000 Jews in Poland toward the end of the war, was not prosecuted by Poland despite documentary evidence of his crimes, because of Polish dislike of Jews.
Other Nazi war criminals passing through the London Cage after the war included Sepp Dietrich
Sepp Dietrich
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich was a German SS General. He was one of Nazi Germany's most decorated soldiers and commanded formations up to Army level during World War II. Prior to 1929 he was Adolf Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard but received rapid promotion after his participation in the murder of...
, an SS general accused but never prosecuted for the murder of British prisoners in 1940. Alexander Scotland participated in the investigation of the SS and Gestapo men who murdered 50 escaped prisoners from Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...
in 1944, in the aftermath of what became known as the "Great Escape". The London Cage closed in 1948.
Torture allegations
Prior to publication of Alexander Scotland memories called London Cage in 1957, MI5MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
pointed out that Scotland had detailed repeated breaches of the Geneva Convention (1929)
Geneva Convention (1929)
The Geneva Convention was signed at Geneva, July 27, 1929. Its official name is the Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva July 27, 1929. It entered into force 19 June 1931. It is this version of the Geneva Conventions which covered the treatment of prisoners of war...
, and had admitted "that prisoners had been forced to kneel while being beaten about the head; forced to stand to attention for up to 26 hours; threatened with execution; or threatened with 'an unnecessary operation'." Publication of the book was delayed for years, and these details were excised.
In London Cage, Scotland vigorously denied that violence was used against prisoners, and that confessions were obtained by seizing upon discrepancies in the accounts of prisoners. "We were not so foolish as to imagine that petty violence, nor even violence of a stronger character, was likely to produce the results hoped for in dealing with some of the toughest creatures of the Hitler regime."
While denying "sadism", Scotland said things were done that were "mentally just as cruel". One "cheeky and obstinate" prisoner, he said, was forced to strip naked and exercise. This "deflated him completely" and he began to talk. Prisoners were sometimes forced to stand "round the clock", and "if a prisoner wanted to pee he had to do it there and then, in his clothes. It was surprisingly effective."
Scotland refused to allow Red Cross inspections at the London Cage, on the grounds that the prisoners there were neither civilians or criminals within the armed services.
In September 1940, Guy Liddell
Guy Liddell
Guy Maynard Liddell, CB, CBE, MC was a British intelligence officer during World War II.-Early life & career:...
, director of MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
's counterintelligence B Division, said that he had been told by an officer present at the interrogation that Scotland had punched the jaw of a captured German agent at the London Cage. The agent was Wulf Schmidt, known by the code name "Tate." Liddell said in a diary entry that Scotland was "hitting TATE in the jaw and I think got one back himself." Liddell said: "Apart from the moral aspects of the thing, I am convinced that these Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
methods do not pay in the long run." Liddell said that "Scotland turned up this morning with a syringe containing some drug or other, which it was thought would induce the prisoner [Tate] to speak." Schmidt subsequently became a double agent against the Germans as part of the Double Cross System
Double Cross System
The Double Cross System, or XX System, was a World War II anti-espionage and deception operation of the British military intelligence arm, MI5. Nazi agents in Britain - real and false - were captured, turned themselves in or simply announced themselves and were then used by the British to broadcast...
of double agents operated by MI5.
In 1943, allegations of mistreatment at the London Cage resulted in a formal protest to the Secretary of State for War by MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
director Maxwell Knight
Maxwell Knight
Charles Henry Maxwell Knight OBE, known as Maxwell Knight, was an English spymaster, naturalist and broadcaster, whilst reputedly being a model for the James Bond character M.-Spymaster:...
. The allegations were made by Otto Witt, a German anti-Nazi who was interrogated to determine if he was acting on behalf of German intelligence.
At his war crimes trial, SS Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer was a paramilitary Nazi Party rank used by both the SA and the SS. It was created in May 1933 to fill the need for an additional field grade officer rank above Sturmbannführer as the SA expanded. It became an SS rank at the same time...
Fritz Knoechlein
Fritz Knoechlein
Fritz Knöchlein was an SS-Obersturmbannführer during the Second World War who was subsequently convicted and executed for war crimes.-Biography:Fritz Knöchlein joined the SS in 1934...
claimed that he was tortured, which Scotland dismisses in London Cage as a "lame allegation". According to Knoechlein, he was stripped, deprived of sleep, kicked by guards and starved. He said that he was compelled to walk in a tight circle for four hours. After complaining to Scotland, Knoechlein alleges that he was doused in cold water, pushed down stairs, and beaten. He claimed he was forced to stand beside a hot gas stove before being showered with cold water. He claimed that he and another prisoner were forced to run in circles while carrying heavy logs.
"Since these tortures were the consequences of my personal complaint, any further complaint would have been senseless," Knoechlein wrote. "One of the guards who had a somewhat humane feeling advised me not to make any more complaints, otherwise things would turn worse for me." Other prisoners, he alleged, were beaten until they begged to be killed, while some were told that they could be made to disappear.
Scotland said in his memoirs that Knoechlein was not interrogated at all at the London Cage because there was sufficient evidence to convict him, and he wanted "no confusing documents with the aid of which he might try to wriggle from the net." During his last nights at the cage, Scotland states, Knoechlein "began shrieking in a half-crazed fashion, so that the guards at the London Cage were at a loss to know how to control him. At one stage the local police called in to enquire why such a din was emanating from sedate Kensington Palace Gardens."
At a trial in 1947 of eighteen Nazis accused in the massacre of fifty Allied prisoners who escaped from Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...
, the Germans alleged starvation, sleep deprival, "third degree" interrogation methods, and torture by electric shock. Scotland describes these in his memoir as "fantastic allegations." "At more than one stage in those fifty days of courtroom wrangling, a stranger to such peculiar affairs might have suspected that the arch-criminal of them all was a British Army intelligence officer known as Colonel Alexander Scotland."
Scotland denied the allegations at the trial. In London Cage he says he was "greatly troubled. . . by the constant focus on our supposed shortcomings at The Cage, for it seemed to me that these manufactured tales of cruelty toward our German prisoners were fast becoming the chief item of news, while the brutal fate of those fifty RAF officers was in danger of becoming old history."
See also
- Combined Services Detailed Interrogation CentreCombined Services Detailed Interrogation CentreThe term Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre was used for facilities in the UK, the continent between 1942 and 1947, the Middle East, and South Asia. They were run by the British War Office on a joint basis involving the British Army and various intelligence agencies, notably MI5 and...
- Bad Nenndorf interrogation centreBad Nenndorf interrogation centreThe Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre was a British Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre in the town of Bad Nenndorf, Germany, which operated from June 1945 to July 1947. Allegations of mistreatment of detainees by British troops resulted in a police investigation, a public controversy...
- Camp 020Camp 020Camp 020 was a British World War II interrogation centre for captured German agents, based at Latchmere House in south London. It was run by Lt Col Robin “Tin Eye” Stephens. Although other wartime interrogation centres have been alleged to have used torture to extract confessions, torture was not...
External links
- The London Cage
- Piece details TS 50/3, Publication of book 'The London Cage' by Lt Col A P Scotland: retention of his manuscripts under the Official Secrets Act 1911; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Item details TS 50/3/1; Catalogue of The National Archives
- WO 32/16025, Film "Britain's Two Headed Spy": provision of facilities and correspondence with Colonel A P Scotland; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4294, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: notes on operation of War Crimes Interrogation Unit, work and organisation of Prisoners of War Interrogation Section (Home) and miscellaneous subjects; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4295, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: reports of atrocities in European theatre of operation; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4296, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: German concentration camps; POW interrogation reports; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4297, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: Emsland penal camps; reports; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4298, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: Emsland penal camps; statements of former prisoners and guards; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4299, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: Emsland penal camps; War Crimes Investigation Unit correspondence; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4300, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: miscellaneous papers; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Item details WO 208/4300/1; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 208/4301, Papers recovered from Lt Col A P Scotland: shooting of RAF officers at Stalag III; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 309/1813, Report on Wormhoudt case by Lt Col A P Scotland, OC War Crimes Interrogation Unit; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 309/1814, Report on Wormhoudt case by Lt Col A P Scotland, OC War Crimes Interrogation Unit: later version, with additional material; Catalogue of The National Archives
- Piece details WO 311/567, Review of sentences given to war criminals and correspondence between Lt Col A P Scotland and Brig H Shapcott, Army Legal Service; Catalogue of The National Archives