Revealed: UK wartime torture camp

[IndianaGreen]

Revealed: UK wartime torture camp

Ian Cobain
Saturday November 12, 2005
The Guardian

The British government operated a secret torture centre during the second world war to extract information and confessions from German prisoners, according to official papers which have been unearthed by the Guardian.
More than 3,000 prisoners passed through the centre, where many were systematically beaten, deprived of sleep, forced to stand still for more than 24 hours at a time and threatened with execution or unnecessary surgery.

Some are also alleged to have been starved and subjected to extremes of temperature in specially built showers, while others later complained that they had been threatened with electric shock torture or menaced by interrogators brandishing red-hot pokers.

The centre, which was housed in a row of mansions in one of London's most affluent neighbourhoods, was carefully concealed from the Red Cross, the papers show. It continued to operate for three years after the war, during which time a number of German civilians were also tortured.

A subsequent assessment by MI5, the Security Service, concluded that the commanding officer had been guilty of "clear breaches" of the Geneva convention and that some interrogation methods "completely contradicted" international law.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1640957,00.html

[ECH1969]

1. The US had torture camps in WW2 and Vietnam as well

[psychopomp]

3. What an amazing find, IG

This is further evidence that puts the lie to the myth that the armies of the west were above this sort of thing in the fight against fascism in WWII. War inevitably brings atrocities on all sides, which is why it is to be avoided at all cost. The leaders of the world understood this implicitly sixty years ago and established the United Nations to militate against the sweeping tide that leads to war.

[JoFerret]

14. The stakes were high

the times were different, the price for losing was unimaginable...but they were above nothing. Nothing.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. In Vietnam we often delegated torture to Korean and Turkish

"specialists."

[Kagemusha]

2. There goes "we treated them humanely in WWII" defense.

Ugh. Just... ugh.

Lip service. That's all international law ever was, apparently. And in this case I would never have cared to assume the Brits had done this if the Brits themselves had not discovered the information...

[applegrove]

5. Oh no - this was one lot of prisoners overseen by spooks. I've read

some WWII history of late and the guys on the ground - be they allied or germans..the regular guys followed the red cross rules. If you got caught by the SS - well only then did you get summarily executed. Leaving what the SS and some locals did to civilians during the WWII .... of course.

Nope - it was rare. The infantry were not encouraged to humiliate the people they captured. An ancestor of mine was given presents from the german locals for being so fair while they were under occupation by him & his troops at the end of the war.

There are always going to be a cabal of nutbombs with nothing holding them back. We found the ones in England during the war. 60 years later.

WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE TYPES OF PEOPLE DOING IN THE WH?

[JoFerret]

15. POW camps in the UK were well run

I have never heard of routine tortune or humiliation. Quite the reverse.

[applegrove]

16. Exactly. It was a secretive cabal who broke the laws on torture. As

it always used to be. Until Cheney became President.

[applegrove]

4. We know torture happens. And we know that some creepy spooks

at times break the laws. We know this. That does not mean that the policy of torture should be put into policy as a new "norm". And planes flying cargo to be tortured around the world. That makes it systematic. Specially not during "boutique wars". Plus - you get bad info - but perhaps that is why Cheney likes it so much..if you torture some Islamofascist and get him to say what you want..as they did.. they you can go to war.

Missing intel on Iran converting Uranium to military use? Because they are not - don't let that stop your war.. Find a Iranian and torture them into saying what you want to hear.

A Myth! Voila!!

Obviously in WWII - Chruchill or whoever ran this place new that they had to keep it under raps. Cause it would be soul-stealing dangerous to the public. Who would get in a plane and fly over the channel with a 1 in 20 chance of dying that flight for that! For torture?

Somehow - 60 years later - the Bush WH doesn't seem to mind if Americans are turned into a nation of predators. As Richard Perle every clarified what he meant by "new norms".

[IndianaGreen]

6. How ironic that in Israel, a country that is much maligned on this board

How ironic that in Israel, a country that is much maligned on this board, torture is illegal?

We had one day in which a terrorist attack took place and we pissed away all of our civil liberties and gave the government dictatorial powers, yet in Israel, a country that suffers the effects of terrorism on a regular basis, they kept their civil liberties and their government is still answerable to the people.

[ECH1969]

7. If a US soldier gets captured by the insurgents

the actions of Bush have made it likely that soldier will be tortured or killed.

[IndianaGreen]

8. 90 Senators agreed with you on that!

The most disgusting sight is to see war criminals like Cheney pressuring Congress to make torture legal.

A government that has the power to torture and murder its foreign enemies, will easily torture and murder its domestic opponents.

[ECH1969]

10. Nick Burg would not have died if not for Abu Ghreb

If you listen to the transcript of tape they say clearly that they were doing this as revenge for the abuse of prisioners.

[applegrove]

11. And like Nick's father says.. if the Berg's had not been to peace

demostrations, the freepers there would not have taken their names down.. and then the Berg Company name would not have been on the FBI list, so Nick would have gone home and not been detained.

[applegrove]

9. Was a court case the people took to the Supreme Court in 1999 I believe.

They can use psychological tricks but they cannot physically touch anyone in torture. I don't know if that means they can stop you from sleeping.

Yes - Israel is a rocking little democracy waiting to happen. They could lead the world if they ever clean up the mess they have made of the region and let people vote so there is peace. I'm still hoping this peace attempt goes through. Palestinians are so connected & all over the greater world now - that fighting over land is not such a big thing i think. We are all cybernoids.

[Nostradamus]

17. Israel DOES torture prisoners

An official Israeli report has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli security service tortured detainees during the Palestinian uprising, the Intifada, between 1988 and 1992.

The report, written five years ago but kept secret until now, said the leadership of the security service Shin Bet knew about the torture but did nothing to stop it.

The report did not detail the torture methods used, but human rights organisations say some detainees died or were left paralysed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/637293.stm

[applegrove]

23. Like I said - it was 1999 went the public had wind of it and took it to

court. And the Isralis admit to this day - it does not work or win battles.

[The Stranger]

25. I was very surprised reading that post from Indiana Green.

Israel pioneered torture methods and the varying "degrees" by which it can be "implemented."

[applegrove]

13. Yes - we know that systematic torture give the moral "high grownd"

to the enemy. And what wins a war is the moral high ground. No outside country can win a war with local insurgents because the local insurgents have the "moral high ground". Perhaps in their own minds. But they have it. And that is who wins.

[callady]

18. Revealed: UK Wartime Torture Camp (Guardian)

Revealed: UK wartime torture camp

Ian Cobain
Saturday November 12, 2005
The Guardian


The British government operated a secret torture centre during the second world war to extract information and confessions from German prisoners, according to official papers which have been unearthed by the Guardian.

More than 3,000 prisoners passed through the centre, where many were systematically beaten, deprived of sleep, forced to stand still for more than 24 hours at a time and threatened with execution or unnecessary surgery.

Some are also alleged to have been starved and subjected to extremes of temperature in specially built showers, while others later complained that they had been threatened with electric shock torture or menaced by interrogators brandishing red-hot pokers.

The centre, which was housed in a row of mansions in one of London's most affluent neighbourhoods, was carefully concealed from the Red Cross, the papers show. It continued to operate for three years after the war, during which time a number of German civilians were also tortured.

A subsequent assessment by MI5, the Security Service, concluded that the commanding officer had been guilty of "clear breaches" of the Geneva convention and that some interrogation methods "completely contradicted" international law.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1640949,00.html

It's relevant today as more stories surface about torture in Iraq and detainees being sent off to obscure bases for "interrogation" by US-UK forces.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

19. It's an ages-old pattern

When you create rules of war, they are broken.

The only real solution is to stop having wars.

[merwin]

20. So they're trying to justify torture today by saying

"Well, we did it in World War 2, and we won that!"

[callady]

22. But today it's called "abuse"

More from same paper, same day, same journalist.

The secrets of the London Cage

· Beatings, sleep deprivation and starvation used on SS and Gestapo men
· POW camp in Kensington kept secret and hidden from Red Cross

Ian Cobain
Saturday November 12, 2005
The Guardian


Kensington Palace Gardens is one of the most exclusive, and expensive, addresses in the world: its stately row of 160-year-old mansions, built on land owned by the crown, is home to ambassadors, billionaires and princes. One property bought by the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal for a reputed £57m is said to be the most expensive house in London. Down the road, a pair of Manhattan tax lawyers are renovating No 6, while next door, No 7, is the London home of the Sultan of Brunei. Over the years No 8 has housed its fair share of dowagers and dukes.

<snip>

The London Cage was run by MI19, the section of the War Office responsible for gleaning information from enemy prisoners of war, and few outside this organisation knew exactly what went on beyond the single barbed-wire fence that separated the three houses from the busy streets and grand parks of west London.

Years later Tony Whitehead, a consultant psychiatrist in Brighton, recounted in his memoirs how, as a young aircraftsman delivering a belligerent SS sergeant to the Cage, he was shocked to see a German naval officer in full dress uniform on his hands and knees, cleaning the entrance hall floor. An enormous Guardsman stood with one foot on the prisoner's back, casually enjoying a smoke. When Whitehead collected his prisoner three days later, the man was completely subdued, rarely looked up, and addressed him as sir. "I do not know what had happened to him at the London Cage," Dr Whitehead wrote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,164...

If nothing else it is good this gets the light of day so when the horror stories that are set to come out of Iraq, as if there weren't enough, are presented to the media illiterate some of us can illustrate the historical precedents and patterns.

[bahrbearian]

21. I didn't know , I quess that makes it O.K now.

[Omaha Steve]

24. Second time in a week I have learned...

of the allies breaking the modern rules of war in W.W.II as set forth in the Geneva Convention. No wonder W says we don't, but wants an exemption.