Interrogation Center Bad Nenndorf

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The Bad Nenndorf interrogation center within the British occupation zone was operated by the British Army of the Rhine in the Winckler-Bad in Bad Nenndorf from June 1945 to July 1947, i.e. immediately after the end of World War II in Europe ( VE Day ) .

The Winckler bath in autumn 2012 before the renovation

function

The internment camp set up the British War Office as a strictly shielded secret prison under the designation No. 74 Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Center . It was located in the Winckler-Bad building complex and adjacent buildings. The bath house is named after Axel Winckler, a leading balneologist and well doctor in Bad Nenndorf. The prison was jointly under the control of the secret service, the British Army of the Rhine and the British military government . Predominantly those people were interned and interrogated here who were considered to be the highest security threat. In addition to high and highest officials of the NSDAP, diplomats, officers of the Abwehr and all parts of the armed forces, there were also “small fish”, cross-border commuters who were accused of espionage for the Soviet Union . A total of 372 men and 44 women were detained and interrogated in the Bad Nenndorf internment camp, often under torture . Initially, the victims were mostly former members of the SS , the SA , the Gestapo or the Abwehr as well as functionaries of the NSDAP or the Hitler Youth . The British feared revolts against the occupation regime and terrorist attacks by the werewolf . They tried brutal questioning methods to get information about upcoming and planned actions. In at least one case, they are also said to have used Gestapo torture tools (such as thumb and shin screws) that they had obtained from Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg . When internees were transferred to the Fallingbostel internment camp in the spring of 1947, it became known that the conditions in Bad Nenndorf were catastrophic. After interventions by the Catholic Church, a British Cardinal and Labor MP Richard Stokes , the internment camp was closed.

process

Scotland Yard investigated the incidents and in the spring of 1948 there was a trial in London. The camp commandant Colonel Robin Stephens, several interrogators and guards, and the camp doctor were charged. The internee Count Robert Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels appeared in the process, who had changed sides several times as a spy during and after the war and had lost his toes in the water cell in Bad Nenndorfer twelve due to frostbite. Only the camp doctor was sentenced by discharge from the British Army. Despite the acquittals, it was found that internees had been treated inappropriately and ill-treated, with the result that some of them suffered permanent damage. There had been abuse to blackmail testimony and baseless excesses on the part of guards alleged to have come from a punishment company .

resolution

After the closure of the Bad Nenndorf internment camp, many of the internees were subsequently transferred to Camp Roosevelt in Hemer , which was used as main camp VI A during World War II , or to the Eselheide internment camp near Paderborn . Shortly afterwards, the military secret service set up a new interrogation camp to replace Bad Nenndorf, but this was immediately closed again by the British government, allegedly by the responsible Germany minister personally.

reception

When it became known in 2005 that British soldiers were torturing in Iraq, the issue was picked up again in the English and German media. According to these reports, at least some of the internees in Bad Nenndorf were systematically mistreated by British troops, and some were tortured to death. The original aim of the camp was to arrest members of the Waffen SS . Later, however, industrialists, forest owners or even members of left-wing groups were interned in this camp. The English journalist Ian Cobain reported that even a German Jew who survived Buchenwald was imprisoned in this internment camp. According to the last survivor, Gerhard Menzel, it was Hans Habermann .

Like the Rhine meadow camps in Germany, the internment camp Bad Nenndorf is a political issue. According to historian Heiner Wember, "neo-Nazis [still] claim that the British used methods in the regular internment camps for Nazis after the war like the Nazis themselves ... But that's pure nonsense." He was the first historian to evaluate and describe the English internment files British internment policy and the trials of 19,000 internees.

Place of right-wing extremist demonstrations

Since 2006, so-called “Free Forces” of the neo-Nazi scene have been holding so-called funeral marches to the Wincklerbad in Bad Nenndorf every year in August , which were later renamed March of Honor . The tenor of this is the memory of the "victims of the Allied torture camp in the Wincklerbad". Such events have been announced annually in Bad Nenndorf until 2030.

Citizens in Bad Nenndorf founded out of concern that Bad Nenndorf was developing into a meeting place for the right-wing scene, the Bad Nenndorf alliance is colorful . The association organizes the annual demonstrations of the right-wing scene each counter-demonstrations, which include the participation of up to 1000 people. Since several thousand police officers are deployed to protect the gatherings, a state of emergency prevails in the town for two days.

See also

literature

swell

  1. ↑ Josef Hufelschulte: Torture to death in the name of majesty. In: Focus , January 21, 2013, accessed February 8, 2013.
  2. ^ "The forbidden village" - report on the interrogation center Wincklerbad in Bad Nenndorf. Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance , accessed on May 30, 2017.
  3. ^ Englishmen tortured concentration camp victims with Gestapo torture tools. In: Focus , January 21, 2013.
  4. ^ Heiner Wember: re-education in the camp. Internment and punishment of National Socialists in the British zone of occupation of Germany , Essen 1991, ISBN 3-88474-152-7 (Düsseldorfer Schriften zur Neueren Landesgeschichte Nordrhein-Westfalens; Vol. 30), pp. 87ff
  5. ↑ On hunger torture against German communists. In: The Guardian , 2005
  6. ^ A report by NDR on Ian Cobain's research ( Memento from September 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Death Torture in the Name of the Majesty. In: Focus.de , January 21, 2013
  8. ↑ Tommies as the perpetrator. In: The time
  9. ↑ Bad Nenndorf defends itself against the right. In: ndr.de , July 2, 2012

Coordinates: 52 ° 20 ′ 8.9 "  N , 9 ° 22 ′ 25.3"  E