I have seen heard quite a few stories of the interrogation of US soldiers captured by the Germans in WWII. Many of them said that the German interrogators knew a great deal about them and their families in the US. Recently, I listened to an interview with one former POW who said the Germans had his training graduation pictures, knew what high school he went to and the amount of taxes his father paid on the family house. There are a fair number who recount a similar experience. My question is--where/how did the Germans get this kind of info?
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I'll take a stab at this:
Keep in mind that there were huge numbers of German emigrees here in the United States and many still had contact with relatives back in Germany. Most of the information you cited above would be readily available to anyone who wanted to search for it. I suspect requested information regarding any particular prisoner was relayed back to the German prisoner authorities in some fashion.
Jim -
"I have seen heard quite a few stories of the interrogation of US soldiers captured by the Germans in WWII. Many of them said that the German interrogators knew a great deal about them and their families in the US. Recently, I listened to an interview with one former POW who said the Germans had his training graduation pictures, knew what high school he went to and the amount of taxes his father paid on the family house. There are a fair number who recount a similar experience. My question is--where/how did the Germans get this kind of info?"
My guess is that a lot of this may be veterans minds playing tricks on them. What is your source on this?
Knowing the name of the squadron, commanding officer, and buddy shot down last week is one thing. Having a graduation picture and knowing the amount of taxes paid is quite another... And I dont think any German spy rings would waste one precious minute, nor risk communicating such useless information.
Most of this sort of detailed information would usualy be gotten from documents found on the POW or in his airplane, or from fellow POWs; to be given out at the time and in the manner to make the interrogator look as omniscient as possible. Typical way of getting a guy to start talking "because the interrogator already knows everything".
JLComment
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The best book on this subject is "The Interrogator" by Hans Scharf. He was a Luftwaffe interrogator at Uberursel near Frankfurt and dealt with almost all downed Allied airmen. A fasciinating read.
Now, keep in mind that in the 1940s access to information was nothing like it is today. The story of the interrogation and info which started this thread is, IMHO, highly unlikely. Having said that, years ago I had a personal experience with a U.S. POW which was, and is, still amazing to me.
This gent was captured in France, I believe in the Falasise pocket. He was initially questioned by a German officer and an English-speaking NCO who spoke perfect American accented German. The officer left the area and the NCO asked where he was from. The Yank declined to say and the NCO said he was only curious as he had lived in the U.S. My man told him New York and the German asked where? He answered you probably never heard of it. The German said where again. My man answered Larchmont, which is a community in Westchester County, north of New York City. The German said I lived in Mamaroneck, which is the next town over. My man asked the German some geographical questions about the area and the German answered each one perfectly! !
The German then revealed that he was born in New York to German parents who took him back to Germany in the late 1930s and he eventually was conscripted into the Wehrmacht! So there are strange stories out there! BobComment
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Seems that a certain amount of information was reaching Germany from the US. Below are quotes from a story on the 4420 Fighter Wing Website--http://www.442fw.afrc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/182645/world-war-ii-airmen-remember-captivity-pow-series/Originally posted by james m View Post
"The colonel gave only his name, rank and serial number, so the interrogator, he said, "begins to recite to me when I graduated from flying school, when I arrived in England."
"You were supposed to give your name, rank and serial number, but they knew more about me than I knew about myself," he said. "They had pictures out of the Wichita newspaper when I graduated from gunnery school. I had some of the identical ones at home. They knew what I took in school and that I'd worked in Kansas City. They'd done their homework. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe they had all that information."
"They told me the name of my girlfriend," Lieutenant Whitney said. "Their intelligence was such that when you had a little newspaper article about so and so - maybe someone enlisted in the Air Force or whatever - that clipping somehow got to Germany and they had a file of those. As a result of that, they had some information. They told me the hard stand (parking space) where my plane was parked. Hell, I couldn't remember that. That would tend to shock you."Comment
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I think most of these are POW embellishments......story telling.
I could tell you volumes of silly things ( aka nonsense) I have been told by US veterans in my lifetime.Willi
Preußens Gloria!
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Sapere audeComment
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The newspaper cliping thing was probably true in certain cases.
Impressive to see that in Germany, but it was only confirming the obvious....
JLComment
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Well, its no doubt that the Germans knew a lot, they had lists and data gathering pre war and throughout which was quite detailed, the same way we did! If they had invaded England they knew already "who was what". The same methods are used today, all newspapers, military periodicals etc are monitored, think about linked in etc...
So back then it was just the same, capture a group, put them under pressure, cross reference information etc...even if you had a bus ticket in your pocket, this could be used to question your friend, and then you from what your friend spilled...just making connections....
Go and watch on youtube the OSS or SOE training videos, especially resistance to interogation, "how to fight" or many more modern ones...
Most information is useless within 72 hours, although many POWs had info they wanted, such as technical data from planes etc...
The worst was to be captured by an irregular unit or in the heat of battle by a smaller group of enemy soldiers. I have heard from more than one source, that if they captured X amount or X amount they did X or X...The guys who got captured were often lucky! Especially Pilots!
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