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2 SAS Regiment, War Crimes Investigations, andBritish Intelligence: Intelligence Officials and theNatzweiler TrialLorie CharlesworthPublished online: 05 Oct 2012.

To cite this article: Lorie Charlesworth (2006) 2 SAS Regiment, War Crimes Investigations, and British Intelligence:Intelligence Officials and the Natzweiler Trial , Journal of Intelligence History, 6:2, 13-60

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* The writer would like to thank Stuart Hadaway, Assistant Curator, Royal Air Force

Museum, Hendon, UK, for his assistance and for the use of his conference paper

on the RAF, MRES; Judith Rowbotham, Siobhan Pike and Michael Salter for their

advice. This article consists of some preliminary conclusions by this writer and

forms part of a larger research project currently underway. The views expressed

are the author’s own.

1 R. Aldridge, The Hidden Hand, Britain, American and Cold War Secret

Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001), 184-85, 200-205; Michael Salter, Nazi

War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg: Controver-

sies regarding the role of the Office of Strategic Service (London: Glasshouse

Press, forthcoming); M. Salter, “Intelligence Agencies and War Crimes Prosecu-

tion: Allen Dulles’s Involvement in Witness Testimony at Nuremberg”, Journal

of International Criminal Justice 2 (2004): 826-54; I. Bryan and M. Salter, “War

Crimes Prosecutions and Intelligence Agencies: The case for Assessing their

Collaboration,” Intelligence and National Security 16 (2001): 93-120; for an

analysis of how some of the evidence gathered by the OSS, was used to success-

fully prosecute Ribbentrop at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial see: Lorie

Charlesworth and Michael Salter, “Ensuring the After-life of the Ciano Diaries:

Allen Dulles’ Provision of Nuremberg Trial Evidence”, Intelligence and National

Security 21 (August (2006): 568-603; Salter and Charlesworth, “The Ciano Diaries

within the Nuremberg Trial,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 1 (2006):

103-127.

The Journal of Intelligence History 6 (Winter 2006)

2 SAS Regiment, War Crimes Investigations, andBritish Intelligence: Intelligence Officials and theNatzweiler Trial

Lorie Charlesworth*

IntroductionThe controversial activities of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

in the provision of evidence for war crimes trials at the end of World War II

have been the subject of recent research. That research has illuminated the1

extent to which these representatives of the hard side of the modern state,

operating at the margins of legal accountability, have contributed to the

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14 Lorie Charlesworth

2 S. Hall, “Politics of prisoner of war recovery: SOE and the Burma-Thailand

Railway during world war II,” Intelligence and National Security 17 (2002): 51-80

(addressing, in part, the support SOE provided for Allied war crimes trials in the

Far East); Aldridge, The Hidden Hand, 184-85, 200-205; Bryan and Salter, “War

Crimes Prosecutions”. The OSS supplied over 130 personnel to the American staff

preparing for different aspects of the Nuremberg trials: M. Salter, “The Prosecu-

tion of Nazi War Criminals and the OSS: The Need for a new Research Agenda,”

The Journal of Intelligence History 2 (2002): 77-119.

3 See: R. Breitman et al., US Intelligence and the Nazis (Cambridge: CUP, 2005);

R. Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency,

(Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1972), 239-40; A. Cave-Brown, ed., The

Secret War Report of the OSS (NY: Berkley, 1976).

4 See, for example, the OSS file regarding atrocities committed against members of

the Dawes Mission: Record Group 226, Entry 90, Box 3, Folder 36; RG 226, Entry

136, Box 26, Folder 264; RG 226, Entry 190, Box 22, Folder 1 (Bari-1, X-2

counter-intelligence file), all National Archives II, College Park, MD.

5 Letter from “Minningman” [illegible] Lieutenant-Colonel Commander, 1 British

Airborne Corps (Rear), to The Under Secretary of State, The WO (A.G.3 V.W.)

cc. to HQ SAS Troops and OC 2 SAS Regiment, 18 August, 1945: National

Archives, Kew, London, (hereafter NA), WO 311/694. See also: memo attached

to the letter summarizing the fate of SAS soldiers in Europe. This stated that of 39

members of 2 SAS Regiment who had been captured by the Germans whilst in

uniform, 7 returned home safely, 13 were killed after surrender, 1 killed by Allied

bombing and 18 unaccounted for, ibid. For histories of the SAS see Philip Warner,

The Special Air Service (London: William Kimber, 1971); John Strawson, History

of the SAS Regiment (London: Batsford, 1969); James D. Ladd, SAS Operations

prosecution of genocide and other violations of human rights. Far less well2

known and not at all as well funded, the British Special Air Services (SAS)

undertook a similar although smaller scale role. A comparison between these

two groups reveals some correspondence in their respective positions. Thus,

even though the OSS was a large, well-funded intelligence branch of govern-

ment its head, General Donovan, attempted to institutionalize its peacetime

survival by extending its role of collecting evidence against the Axis; the SAS,3

a group of Special Forces soldiers whose duties included an intelligence role,

faced demobilization as the war ended. In addition, recent declassifications of

OSS war crimes files by the American authorities has revealed a proactive

series of interventions by American intelligence officials regarding war

criminality committed against their colleagues, including the torture and killing

of captured agents and Special Forces. Equally, recent declassification of4

British War Office (WO) files in summer 2005 reveals that a prime motive for

SAS war crimes investigations was a concern with discovering the fate of

murdered comrades. 5

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British Intelligence Officials and the Natzweiler Trial 15

(London; Robert Hale, 1986); Anthony Kemp, The SAS at War (London: Penguin

Books, 1993); Roy Farran, Winged Dagger: Adventures on Special Service (1948;

London: Cassell, 1998 ); J. Fraser McLuskey, Parachute Padre: Behind Enemy

Lines With the SAS France 1944 (Stevenage: Spa Books Ltd, 1985); Roy Close,

In Action with the SAS (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2005); Eric Morris, Guerrillas

in Uniform (London: Hutchinson, 1989); J.V. Byrne, The General Salutes a

Soldier (London: Robert Hale, 1986); Adrian Weale; Secret Warfare (London:

Hodder and Stoughton, 1997); Paul Gaujac, Special Forces in the Invasion of

France (Paris: Histoire et Collections, 1999); Derrick Harrison, These Men are

Dangerous (London: Blandford Press, 1988). For a critical historiography of the

SAS see: John Newsinger, Dangerous Men; The SAS and Popular Culture

(London: Pluto Press, 1997), 71-93.

6 Breitman et al., US Intelligence; on the immunity from prosecution for SS General

Wolfe see: K. von Lingen and M. Salter, “Contrasting Strategies within the War

Crimes Trials of Kesselring and Wolff,” Liverpool Law Review 26 (2005): 225-66.

See also: the postwar recruitment by the US Army Chemical Corps of scientists,

who had either been prosecuted at Nuremberg, or, in effect, traded their scientific

expertise for legal immunity: Linda Hunt, “U.S. Cover up of Nazi Scientists,”

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (April 1985): 16ff.; idem, Secret Agenda: the

United States Government, Nazi Scientist, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990

(NY: St Martins Press, 1991); C. Simpson,The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law

and Genocide in the 20th Century (NY: Grove Press, 1993), 26; C. Lasby, Project

Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War (NY: Atheneum, 1975); J.

Gimbel, “German Scientists, United States Denazification Policy, and the

‘Paperclip Conspiracy’,” International History Review 12 (1990): 441-65; J.

Gimbel, “Project Paperclip: German Scientists, American Policy, and the Cold

War,” Diplomatic History 14 (1990): 343-365. On the atrocities associated with

the Dora Camp, see: Michael J. Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemuende

and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

1995); Andre Sellier, A History of the Dora Camp: The Untold Story of the Nazi

Slave Labor Camp that Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets (Chicago: Ivan R.

Dee, 2003). On more recent research see papers published in 2006 on CIA files

released in 2005: Timothy Naftali, ‘New Information on Cold War CIA Stay-

Behind Operations in Germany and on the Adolf Eichmann Case’: http://www.fas.

org/sgp/eprint/naftali.pdf; Robert Wolfe, ‘Gustav Hilger: From Hitler’s Foreign

Office to CIA Consultant’: http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/wolfe.pdf; Richard

Breitman, ‘Tscherim Soobzokov’: http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/ breitman. pdf [3

August 2006]. Similarly, MI5 and MI6 (SIS) recruited anti-Soviet agents from

Both British and American intelligence agencies stand accused of

recruiting suspected war criminals, including Eastern European neo-fascists and

right-wing nationalists, with whom these agencies traded legal immunity from

prosecution in return for early military surrenders, or militarily useful scientific,

espionage and medical information. Thus, it is increasingly apparent that it is6

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amongst Displaced Persons, including Axis collaborators and known war

criminals. SIS recruited former Latvian Waffen-SS for anti-Soviet operations in

Latvia: David Cesarini, Justice Delayed (London: Heinemann, 1992), 6, 142-43.

Similarly, Frank G. Wisner, former OSS then CIA, involved in recruiting Gehlen’s

network, used Eastern European émigrés in collaboration with British military

intelligence: Cesarini Justice Delayed, 154-56. Recently declassified documents

(August 2005) reveal the details of Home Office permission to allow over 9,000

of the Ukranian Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division, to settle en masse in Britain: NA,

HO 213/1851, 1853, 1518.

7 Salter, “The Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals.”

precisely the selective nature of support, including partiality, war crimes

prosecutors can expect from intelligence officials, the simultaneous facilitation

and frustration of aspects of their work, which merits particular scholarly

attention. As the nature of these activities ensures that contemporary events

remain concealed, it has become a tradition within intelligence scholarship to

look to the declassified records of the past for enlightenment. This article in part

follows that tradition of examining the complex and often-contradictory role

played by Allied intelligence agencies in the prosecution of alleged war

criminals, specifically via the medium of a case study. In addition, it is part of

a larger project examining the activities of war crimes investigations by serving

British soldiers, including 2 SAS, between 1945-48 which will extend the

methodological parameters of combining intelligence studies and human rights

scholarship suggested by Salter, into a broader historical reconstruction of those

post-war Allied investigations and prosecutions resulting in the ‘minor’ war

crimes trials. 7

More specifically, intelligence agencies have consistently demonstrated an

increasingly sophisticated ability, not only to monitor acts of war criminality

as they occur, but also to secure important information on the internal political

and military command structure of regimes engaged in genocide. Both of these

functions can produce incriminating types of potential trial evidence, extremely

useful to prosecutors. As such, the disproportionate influence such agencies

may possess in the decision-making process concerning who is brought to trial

requires microanalysis of the process and motives for such activities.

Thus, it is within the context of all the above that this article considers

how, in spite of no formal authority being issued, no specific background in this

task, no discrete budget and officially disbanded as a Brigade in October 1945,

nevertheless soldiers of 2 SAS Regiment set up and operated War Crimes

Investigation Teams (WCIT) between 1945-49. In their turn, these investigators

became involved within the immediate trial processes that resulted from these

investigations. However, these investigations were not, as appears from an

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8 In fact only three were SOE. See below for further discussion. Natzweiler-Struthof

was the only extermination camp on French soil. It was situated in Alsace in the

Vosges: Steegman and Aycoberry, Struthof (Paris: Nuee Bleue, 2005); Raymond

Couraud et al., Struthof: Natzweiler (Paris: Hirle, 2004). Natzweiler had some

seventy (Gilbert claims twenty) satellite labour camps; the first executions took

place there on 18 September 1942: M. Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the

Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2002), 75. H. Adamo and F. Herve, Natzweiler-

Struthof (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2002). By September 1944 the Germans had

evacuated the prisoners, most to Dachau. Prisoner memoirs displayed at the

museum state that the Germans destroyed papers before they left. Allied forces

entered the camp 23 November 1944. There are various conflicting accounts

concerning numbers who died, numbers of sub-camps etc. and the above. Details

can be found at The United States Memorial Holocaust Museum: http://www.

ushmm.org/wlc/article.php? ModuleId=10005337 (2 August 2006).

9 For co-operation between SOE and SID see: I. Herrington, “The SID and SOE in

Norway 1940-1945: Conflict or Co-operation?” War in History 9 (2002): 82-110.

For SOE /SAS see from personal experience: McLuskey, Parachute Padre, 91-93.

For an opposing perspective see: Alan Hoe, David Stirling (London: Little, Brown,

1992), 203-204. Although an ‘authorized’ biography, Hoe makes no mention of

2 SAS WCIT.

initial examination of the archival record, entirely ad hoc and without

precedent. Rather as will be discussed below, they can be contextualised within,

amongst other factors, a pattern of the political will to recover and identify the

remains of missing British combatants, the establishment of British military war

crimes investigations and SAS’ own involvement in intelligence activities. As

a result of the successful activities and personal committment of 2 SAS WCIT

they became recognised and partially institutionalised within Allied war crimes

investigations and prosecutions. This was not a smooth process. The recent

declassification of British WO documents has allowed this writer to make a

preliminary study of that formation and early operation.

In order to supplement this research, this writer has traced the investiga-

tion, prosecution and conviction of Nazi war criminals for the murder of four

women, including three Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents at the

Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp by lethal injection. There are many8

more records and much more detail available concerning this trial and of other

prosecutions than is appropriate to discuss here. This writer has selected the

Natzweiler Trial in part because the investigation reveals close co-operation

between 2 SAS WCIT and SOE. However, the conduct of this trial reveals9

something more significant, an intimate connection between the presence of

these and other security officials and the ‘authority’ of their evidence in this

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10 The trial transcript is accessible to the reader, having been published in 1949: M.

Webb ed. The Natzweiler Trial (London: William Hodge and Co., 1949). The

original type-written transcript is held at the National Archives, London, NA, WO

235/336 and 337. There are some minor differences between that transcription and

the published version.

11 Kemp, SAS at War, 118-19. Its existence was only publicized in March 1945 when

Eisenhower made a wireless proclamation: “Report, 23 June 1948”: Kemp, Secret

Hunters, 24, 118-19. A copy of the Order, 18 October 1942, can be accessed at:

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/commando1.htm [25 June 2006]. The Supple-

mentary Order of the Fuehrer, 19 October 1942, can be accessed at: http://www.

ess. uwe.ac.uk/genocide/commando2.htm [25 June 2006].

case unsupported by recovered Nazi documentation. Any suitably balanced10

assessment of the historical role of Special Forces and intelligence officials with

respect to human rights issues must also take into account the implications of

this role. Finally, this study also highlights the manner in which members of

British intelligence and Special Forces (SOE and SAS) were amongst the

victims of Nazi war criminality. This murder of captured soldiers was in breach

of the laws of war and under the terms of Article 6 of the International Military

Tribunal (IMT), on 8 August 1945 this was designated a war crime.

During the war, SAS officers had been actively involved in interrogating

and debriefing both German and Allied soldiers. Through one of these

interrogations in 1944, 2 SAS Intelligence Officer Major Eric ‘Bill’ Barkworth

discovered the existence of Hitler’s “Commando Order” issued on 18 October

1942, which, in breach of the norms and customs of international law, called for

all captured parachutists to be handed over to the SD for disposal; Barkworth

passed this information to HQ 1 Airborne Corps. He later wrote a report on the

Order as part of his work as a war crimes’ investigator, expressing his regret

that his initial report was ignored until a copy of the Order was recovered in

Italy in autumn 1944.11

The first part of this article will consider the institutional, military and

intelligence background to the formation of 2 SAS WCIT and then examine the

various organizational and logistical issues facing these officials investigating

war crimes committed within concentration camps and other sites against SAS

personnel. This article will concentrate on the activities of the team led in

Germany by WCIT overall head, Barkworth. The second section will briefly

examine the ‘working partnership’ between 2 SAS WCIT and SOE in their joint

and separate efforts to bring the murderers of the four women killed at

Natzweiler-Struthof to justice. That discussion will illustrate how, with

reference to the Natzweiler Trial, 1946, such investigations contributed to the

conviction of some of those Nazi officials responsible for war crimes. This is

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12 Stuart Hadaway, “The Royal Air Force Missing Research and Enquiry Service

1944-1952”, Paper presented at the Social History Society Conference, University

of Reading, March 2006. Public demand was, in part, triggered by the Air Ministry

practice of only declaring an airman dead if his body could be positively identified

by a reliable source, otherwise ‘Missing Believed Killed’. On the importance of

this issue in shaping British war crimes policy, see: Priscilla Dale Jones, “Nazi

Atrocities against Allied Airmen: Stalag Luft III and the end of British War Crimes

Trials,” The Historical Journal 41 (1998): 543-65.

13 The decision to expand the Service was taken on 26 July 1945: NA, AIR

20/9050/3 (document supplied by Hadaway; forthwith noted as “SH”). Five units

were set up in Europe and one in the Far East, each with twenty-five search teams,

an HQ and clerical staff. Logistical support would come from RAF units already

established in Europe. In December 1944 a team of six search officers and six

drivers had landed in France to begin the search: Jones, “Nazi Atrocities”. See

also: “Minutes of Meeting of Committee (appointed by A.M.P.) to consider the

detailed organization and establishments necessary for an expanded Missing

Research and Enquiry Service,”2 August 1945: NA, AIR 20/9050/4. (SH).

followed by a brief discussion of the ‘unusual’ role of 2 SAS in such investiga-

tions and in conclusion considers the implications of this study for the operation

of the rule of law in war crimes prosecutions both after World War II and today.

The Establishment and Operation of 2 SAS WCITThe narrative of SAS involvement in war crimes investigations cannot be

viewed in isolation from recent research findings concerning developments

within other areas of the British armed services. In short, that in 1941 the Air

Ministry created a Missing Research Section in P.4 (Cas), as a response to

increasing public demand for information as to the fate of aircrew lost in the

Battles of France and Britain. This Section, which collected files on all12

missing aircraft and their crew, became the foundation of the fully-fledged

Missing Research and Enquiry Service (MRES) in 1944. By July 1945 a

decision was taken at the Air Ministry: “… that the matter is to be pursued as

one of great urgency [as] the public interest in the missing airmen demanded

that the highest priority be accorded to the requirements of the Missing

Research and Enquiry Service in personnel and M.T.” As a consequence of13

this decision, there was a pre-existing culture of investigations within the armed

forces establishment at the highest level.

In addition, from their formation the SAS were involved in intelligence

operations as a necessary adjunct to their military activities as small units

dropped behind enemy lines. To achieve this and perhaps other purposes,

David Stirling formed 1 SAS, and in 1942 his brother, Bill Stirling, 2 SAS,

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14 Kemp, The Secret Hunters (London: Michael O’Mara Books Ltd., 1986); idem,

The SAS at War, 97-98; Gavin Mortimer, Stirling’s Men (London: Weidenfeld and

Nicholson, 2004); Weale, Secret Warfare. By the end of 1943 there were five SAS

squadrons (later Regiments), HQ, two British, two French and one Belgian. These

were grouped into SAS Brigade; by the summer of 1944 the Brigade had a total

strength of 2,500. They were under the command of Brigadier (later General)

Roderick McLeod a Royal Artillery officer, and were based in Ayrshire, near

Prestwick Aerodrome, to train for operations in Europe: Ladd, SAS Operations,

68-71;Weale, Secret Warfare, 121. On the description of life at HQ, see:

McLuskey, Parachute Padre, 43-55.

15 Defined as: “encouraging and supporting armed resistance in hostile territory by

specialist personnel of the armed forces or intelligence services”: Simon Anglim,

“MI(R), G(R) and British Covert Operations, 1939-42,” Intelligence and National

Security 20 (2005): 631-53, 633. MI(R) was incorporated into SOE, and the

training continued: William Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE Special

Operations Executive 1940-45 (London: St Ermin’s Press, 2000), 62-71, 734, the

‘internal’ SOE history written between 1945-47, but not published until this date,

although available to ‘official’ historians earlier; M.R.D. Foot, SOE: The Special

Operations Executive1940-6 (London: Pimlico, 1999), 6. On some of the detail of

that training see: Hoe, David Stirling, 47-48; Foot, SOE, 79-85, Foot served with

the SAS.

16 Hoe, David Stirling, 260; on their activities in the field see: McLuskey, Parachute

Padre, 106-109. Captain Henry Druce, recruited into MI6 in 1943, joined the SAS

in 1944; he continued his MI6 role until 1951: Mortimer, Stirling’s Men, 187, 354.

17 A sceptical account can be found in: Newsinger, Dangerous Men, 7-12; more

positively see: Warner, The Special Air Service, 79-80; Strawson, A History of the

SAS Regiment, (London: Grafton Books, 1985), 129; Ladd, SAS Operations, 74-

99. The extent of this “co-operation” must be evaluated in the context of David

Stirling’s reminiscences of the early days of the SAS. He detailed three enemies;

from volunteers drawn from 62 Commando. Significantly, both the Stirling14

brothers were trained as Commandos in guerrilla warfare at Loch Ailort, the

Military Intelligence (Research) department of the WO, later incorporated into

SOE, which pioneered special covert operations. For administrative purposes15

the SAS Regiments were located as part of Airborne Forces HQ at Moor Park.

Amongst their official duties, for example, the SAS were directly involved in

reporting information to the Second Tactical Air Force. Hoe claims that SAS’

close liaison with Phantom, the field signals element of GHQ, epitomised their

working relationship and mutual trust with a variety of intelligence agencies.16

Moreover, operating in North Africa and behind the lines in occupied France,

their activities, working with SOE, OSS and local resistors, caused considerable

disruption although the exact extent of their successful contribution remains:

“clouded by the fog of war”. 17

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Middle East Headquarters: “fossilised layers of shit”, the Germans, and SOE: Hoe,

David Stirling, 117-18. In N.W. Europe things seem to have operated more

smoothly, with the Jedburgh teams of SOE/OSS agents working directly with the

SAS: Mackenzie, The Secret History, 604. For a full account see OSS microfilm:

“War Diary SO Branch, OSS London. Vol. 4, JEDBURGHS”: National Archives

Microfilm Publications, USA held at: Imperial War Museum (IWM), 04/26/1.

18 It has been estimated that seven million German soldiers had surrendered in the

west, one and a half million German civilians had fled from the Red Army into the

other occupied zones, some 8 million foreign workers were displaced and ten

million German urban residents had fled to the countryside. In total, seven million

people were on the move; responsibility for the maintenance of order and

restoration of basic amenities lay initially with SHAEF: Cesarini, Justice Delayed,

34-36.

19 In November 1944 the cabinet formally decided that military courts, established

in Germany or where appropriate, should try cases concerning war crimes

committed against British subjects or in British territory: Jones, “Nazi Atrocities”

547: NA, WM (44) 152. Lord Simon, Lord Chancellor, stated: “a great advantage

of military tribunals was the dispatch of their proceedings”: 18 February 1943:

NA, FO 371/39008 CI6362/14/62. See also: Priscilla Dale Jones, “British policy

towards German Crimes against German Jews, 1939-1945”, Leo Beck Institute

Year Book, 36 (1991): 339-66.

20 NA, WO 309; WO 267/600-2.

It must be noted, that it would be a misapprehension to view the activities

of the SAS in war crimes investigations as entirely isolated and individual.

Such activity requires contextualisation within the operational framework of

Allied military war crimes investigations taking place in occupied Europe

where, in addition, the sheer size of the displaced population presented its own

particular difficulties. There were also many other political, military and legal18

factors influencing the process of war crimes investigations too numerous to

discuss here. However, the decision by the British government, that war crimes

investigations and prosecutions would be a military responsibility, enabled 2

SAS to operate in this context. As a result of this decision, operational19

responsibility for collecting evidence of war crimes rested with a variety of

units attached to AFHQ. In Germany several WCIT operated with the 21 Armyst

Group (later British Army of the Rhine; BAOR); in Austria, the British Military

Police and later the Judge Advocate General’s Department (JAG); several

WCIT were active in Norway responsible to HQ, Allied Land forces Norway.

Eventually the WCIT at HQ BAOR were merged to form the War Crimes

Group North West Europe (WCG, NWE).20

Overall responsibility for war crimes policy and prosecution lay with the

Military Department of JAG; and in the absence of any FO initiatives, the

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21 NA, WO 219/5045-54. 148-50. One of these, however, is referred to in a report:

16 October 1945, “Confidential JAG London to DJAG”, giving details of a

“SHAEF court of inquiry”: NA, WO 311/742.

22 NA, WO 235. The Royal Warrant had to be amended to cover cases committed by

Germans against Germans and other non-British nationals.

23 NA, TS 26/876-891 and FO 371. For a full official history see: UNWCC, History

of the United Nations War Crimes Commission (London: HMSO, 1948), 109-67.

On the initial function and organization see: NA, FO 945/343; WO 309/122200;

WO 309/1426; WO 311/619; WO 311/620-2. On the military structure and

organization of tracing and apprehending war criminals see: History UNWCC,

344-91.

24 NA, WO 311/60; WO 309/1703-6.

25 4 October 1944: NA, FO 371/39003 CI3575/14/62. The FO had primacy;

Bloxham, Genocide on Trial, 27.

decisions to prosecute lay also with JAG. In addition, SHAEF held courts of

enquiry into alleged atrocities committed against Allied prisoners of war; some

of these records are subject to a 75-year closure period. In order to bring21

those charged with war crimes to trial, a Royal Warrant of 14 June 1945 was

issued under Army Order 81/45. The terms of the Warrant authorised the setting

up of military courts that were governed by provisions of the Army Act and

rules of procedure relating to field general courts-martial, with certain

relaxations of the rules of evidence (see later). The Warrant restricted the

military courts’ jurisdiction to the trial of war crimes: “violations of the laws

and usages of war committed … since 2 September 1939”. These trials under22

Warrant were for ‘minor’ war criminals, as opposed to the ‘major’ IMT cases.

Following the model of the United Nations War Crimes Commission

(UNWCC) Lists, in spring 1945 SHAEF set up a Central Registry of War

Criminals and Security Suspects (CROWCASS), to provide a pool of

information on persons detained by the Allies and those wanted for war crimes,

on which national governments could draw and to which they were invited to

contribute. To achieve this purpose, CROWCASS regularly published lists of23

detainees and wanted persons in similar format to those published by the

UNWCC. Unfortunately, CROWCASS excluded East Europeans from these24

lists, as the Russians had refused to participate in UNWCC. More pro-actively,

the Americans had committed themselves to investigating crimes dating back

to 1933. On the other hand, in Britain, where the FO was responsible for war

crimes policy and the WO had official jurisdiction for collecting evidence of

war crimes and apprehending suspects when the occupation of Germany began,

there was a continuing reluctance on the part of FO permanent civil servants to

commit the government to prosecutions. Indeed, almost as soon as war crimes25

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26 Jones, “Nazi Atrocities”, 544.

27 Ibid., 551; Bloxham, Genocide on Trial, 33. On 4 November 1946 the cabinet took

the decision to begin winding down the war crimes process: NA, PREM 8/391,

CM (46) 94 conclusions. th

28 Bloxham, Genocide on Trial. On the influence of anti-Communism upon this

decision see: Tom Bowyer, Blind Eye to Murder; Bitain, America and the Purging

of Nazi Germany-A Pledge Betrayed (London; Warner, 1997). However, for a

critique of Bowyer’s work see: Priscilla Dale Jones, “British Policy Towards

‘Minor’ Nazi War Criminals, 1939-1958" (University of Cambridge: D. Phil,

1989). Historiographical consensus has suggested that Britain was ahead of the US

in perceiving, before the end of the war, the threat Soviet expansionism posed to

Europe: Anne Deighton, The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Division of Germany

and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: OUP, 1990), 25.

29 “Somerhough Situation Report WCG (NWE)” to Shapcott, 20 September 1947:

NA, FO 371/64718 C13471/7675/180. After much debate, it was decided that no

new trials should begin after 31 August 1948, with no advance publicity: Jones.

“Nazi Atrocities”, 548-63. Ending the trials was initially opposed by Bevin, but by

May 1948 he too was anxious for the trials to end by September of that year: NA,

FO 371/70818 CG1954/34/184. MRES was disbanded in July 1949: NA, AIR

20/9050/26. (SH).

trials began, cabinet minutes and parliamentary statements reveal that pressure

was exerted at the highest level to bring about a speedy conclusion. 26

Thus by early 1946, the Secretary of State for War, Jack Lawson, was

trying to set a date (31 December 1946) to complete all trials, allowing latitude

for any serious cases that subsequently came to light. As the trials proceeded,27

their increasing cost, combined with weakening of public support in Britain and

the need for a rapprochement with Germany in the developing cold war climate,

left the government even more reluctant to continue. In this context, Group28

Captain the Hon. Anthony George Somerhough, QC JAG (of whom more

later), Officer in Charge of WCG (NWE), wrote a report pointing out the

unlikelihood of war crimes trials: “coming to a natural end for lack of materi-

als”, which proved influential in the decision to set a final date for such British

trials. However, British war crimes trials did continue; by the date of that

report, September 1947, British trials of 669 accused had been completed; trials

of thirty-six defendants were in progress and fifty-four cases were still under

investigation, of which thirty-seven involved British victims.29

The catalyst which had forced a change of heart within the British

government, was the news of atrocities committed against allied military

personnel, particularly the murder of fifty of the officers who had escaped from

Stalag Luft III, in March and April 1944. As a result, a statement was made in

the House of Commons condemning the acts as: “an odious crime against the

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30 Jones, “Nazi Atrocities”, 545.

31 The Belsen Trial took place September-November 1945 at Luneberg, Germany:

Raymond Phillips, ed., Trial of Joseph Kramer and Forty-Four Others (London:

William Hodge and Sons, 1949).

32 Hoe, David Stirling, 137. Calvert, SAS Brigade commander, naturally disagreeing

with this perspective, internally circulated his views on the value of the SAS: “My

experience is that SAS and SOE are complementary to each other. SAS cannot

successfully operate without good intelligence, guides etc. SOE can only do a

certain amount before requiring, when their operations become overt, highly

trained, armed bodies in uniform to operate and set an example to the local

resistance … All senior officers of SOE with whom I have discussed this point

agree to this principle”. Cited in: Strawson, A History of the SAS, 278.

33 Franks was ordered to return to England before the massacre occurred: Kemp,

Secret Hunters, 46; Fowler, Behind Enemy Lines, 87-88; Mortimer, Stirling’s Men,

255-67.

laws and conventions of war”. Thus, when Bergen-Belsen was surrendered to30

the British on 15 April 1945, the British Government in response to conditions

found within that camp, set up No. 1 War Crimes Investigation Team (No.1

WCIT) in May, under Lt.-Col. Leo J. Genn, to prepare a case against the

officials and others at Belsen.31

This brief historical reconstruction sets out some of the contemporary

framework into which 2 SAS WCIT inserted itself. However, it does not

explain how the SAS were able to do so faced, as they were, with disbanding.

Indeed, in the summer of 1945, the British had begun to demobilize both their

army and some intelligence units. Discussions on the future of SOE began in

November 1944 when Eden, then Foreign Secretary, suggested to the Prime

Minister that it be amalgamated with its wartime rival, MI6. Slightly later, a

decision was taken to disband the SAS Brigade including 2 SAS, pending the

results of a study into the use of unconventional units during the war, and any

further uses the British Army might have for them. In this context, their

usefulness was acknowledged, but in the face of disapproval from some within

the Army, where the SAS had made enemies.32

In short, political and military decisions concerning war crimes investiga-

tions had barely been taken, and discussions concerning the disbanding of the

SAS were underway, when in July 1945 Colonel Franks, CO of 2 SAS,

received word from French occupying forces of the fate of those men who had

not returned from France in a mission in which he had served. It was reported

that some bodies of British servicemen had been found at Gaggenau, where

there had been a sub-camp of Schirmeck. The victims were SAS soldiers who33

had taken part in Operation Loyton; of the thirty-one taken prisoner by the SD,

thirty were murdered; some at the Natzweiler-Struthof camp in Alsace. In

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34 Mortimer, Stirling’s Men, 215, 255-67; Kemp: Secret Hunters, 25-35, 45-53. The

massacres occurred at the town of Moussey, a few miles east of the German

border. In reprisals for assisting the SAS, 256 local men were taken to various

concentration camps including Natzweiler-Struthof; 144 did not return. The SAS

have continued a special relationship with the citizens of Moussey, returning in

1979 for a memorial service. In September 2004, on the 60 anniversary, a numberth

of SAS veterans visited many sites in France where soldiers had died, amongst

these were Moussey and Natzweiler-Struthof: Roy Close, In Action with the SAS,

194-95.

35 Kemp, Secret Hunters, 46-47; The SAS at War, 229-30; Will Fowler, SAS, Behind

Enemy Lines (London: Collins, 2005), 87-88, 100; Gordon Stevens, The Originals

(London: Ebury Press, 2005), 322.

36 Stonehouse was sent to Dachau in September 1944, with other surviving prisoners,

when the Germans evacuated Natzweiler-Struthof. A bilingual artist, he drew some

of the victims from memory: Rita Kramer, Flames in the Field, the Story of Four

SOE Agents in Occupied France (London: Michael Joseph, 1885), 17-19, 40, 44,

53.

37 Kemp, Secret Hunters, 37-43, 102, Appendices A, B, C and D. Parts of this report

can be found at: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Natzweiler/History/ArmyReport.

html [12 May 2006].

38 Galitzine served in the WO: “Adjutant-General’s Branch 3 – Violation of the Laws

and Usages of War.” In 1986, he stated: “My own personal experiences made me

strongly aware of the whole war crime picture and a feeling that something ought

to be done about it”: Kemp, Secret Hunters, 43-44.

addition, there had been severe reprisals against local townspeople at the time

for assisting the British soldiers. Franks, perhaps concerned at the pre-34

occupation with Belsen by Genn’s team, authorized 2 SAS Intelligence Unit

under Barkworth’s command to travel to the French Zone of Germany to

investigate. Barkworth, who spoke fluent German and good French, on 1035

June 1945 with some twelve NCOs, moved into the requisitioned Bauhaus-style

Villa Degler, at Gaggenau near Karlsruhe, as a base for his investigations.

Franks took the matter further; he recruited Captain, Prince Yurka

Galitzine, who had earlier visited Natzweiler-Struthof with US soldiers. At this

stage Galitzine had obtained the name of a released British prisoner who had

been detained there, Brian Stonehouse (radio operator, F Section, SOE) a

witness to many of the horrific events at that camp. In addition, Galitzine had36

made an official report of what he had found, including mention of three [sic]

women spies being killed. SHAEF had taken no action on this report; as a37

result, when offered the chance to join this investigation team, Galitzine

accepted.38

At this point, Franks, apparently on his own initiative, set up a London HQ

for 2 SAS WCIT attached to the WO at Eaton Square, putting Galitzine in

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39 Randolf Churchill served briefly with the SAS in Egypt, but was injured in a car

crash after a raid on Benghazi in 1942. He later acted as SAS liaison in Italy

having returned to the Highland Division: Warner, The Special Air Service, 54,

150. Churchill also served with SOE; for his service with partisans in Yugoslavia,

see his SOE personnel file (released 2005): NA, HS 9/316/2

40 Hoe, David Stirling, 416. Moreover, Hoe states that Stirling was a “family friend”

of Winston Churchill, ibid., 414. Kemp records that SAS HQ and WCIT were:

“paid directly by the WO”: Secret Hunters, 51. The declassified files used for this

study are WO records.

41 Memorandum attached to letter from “Minningman” [illegible] Lieutenant-Colonel

Commander, 1 British Airborne Corps (Rear), to The Under Secretary of State, the

WO (A.G.3 (V.W.), cc ‘d to HQ SAS Troops and OC 2 SAS Regiment, 18 August,

1945: NA, WO 311/694.

charge to oversee communications and supplies. Hoe states that Randolf

Churchill, a former SAS soldier, assisted directly by his father Winston39

Churchill, made sure that the operation went unhindered. If correct, such40

behind the scenes support goes some way to explain the initial establishment

of this idiosyncratic detective team. Moreover, the records confirm via the

documents’ reporting route that the command structure of 2 SAS WCIT

remained in London and thus bypassed SHEAF. As a result, in one of those

‘strange little military quirks’, 2 SAS would not necessarily have to obey the

orders of anyone else. In addition, the aims and purposes of 2 SAS harmonized

with those of the Air Ministry’s MRES. Finally, Barkworth and his team had

much professional experience, both in the field as soldiers and in intelligence

investigations. This soon became more widely recognized in the field as

Barkworth was given assistance by 21st Army WCG. As a result of their

successful activities, despite 2 SAS being disbanded that year, it was suggested

that the WCIT be retained in their investigative role:

I suggest that BARKWORTH is allowed to take with him his highly

efficient Intelligence Section, who hold all records relating to SAS

operations which will also be needed for the investigations commencing

shortly in Italy.41

It is clear however, that in spite of this high level support for the role of 2

SAS as war crimes investigators, there were considerable difficulties in

agreeing the precise division of labour amongst them and various official

groups involved in war crimes investigations and prosecutions. Furthermore,

such difficulties extended to the question of the remit for the wider investiga-

tion of war crimes and the detention of suspects. In summary, in the summer of

1945 2 SAS Regiment was about to be disbanded and the question of 2 SAS

WCIT was discussed at the highest level. It was felt the team should: “come

directly under the WO”, or: “SAS Brigade HQ if this is still being maintained”.

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42 Ibid. JAG responded to suggestions in the letter concerning the division of

responsibility as regards the prosecution of war crimes; “(a) JAG (WCS):

Investigation and immediate apprehension where they arise out of such investiga-

tions of War Criminals. Preparation of cases for submission to JAG, London for

registration etc. and ultimate advice to C-in-C, and conduct of the prosecution

where such prosecutions undertaken by JAG staff; (b) JAG is responsible for

subsequent legal review; (c) “a” Branch is responsible for the production of

accused at the trial. And, similarly, for the production of prosecution and defence

witnesses, the machinery of the trial and disposal of all accused witnesses

connected therewith. Apprehension of accused in other zones and in circumstances

other than that arising immediately out of investigation.” Letter from Lt-Col. N.

Ashton Hill (JAG) to Col. R. H. Harden A(PS), 24 December 1945, ibid.

43 NA, WO 311/695. “I know you feel you should control the unit, but I hope you

will agree to change your mind”: Letter from Col. R. H. Harden (APS) “A” Branch

to Gp. Capt Somerhough, JAG (WCS) 16 December 1945: NA, WO 311/682.

Somerhough authored: A Guide to Air Force Law Procedure: From Minor

Offences to Court-martial (Aldershot: Gale and Polden Ltd., 1932). After the war,

Somerhough continued his legal career. He was appointed Deputy Public

Prosecutor (Kenya) 1950 and Acting Solicitor General in 1953; he was a member

of the High Court of Northern Rhodesia at the time of his death in 1960: Who Was

Who: Vol. V 1951-1960 (London: A & C Black Ltd, 1961).

BAOR was felt to be unsuitable because of communication difficulties. If a

change became necessary it was preferred that the team should come under:

‘“operational control’ of A.G.3/(V/W)”, at the War Office. There is also42

evidence of a power struggle between Somerhough at JAG and “A” Branch

concerning 2 SAS WCIT. Somerhough was a powerful enemy; an experienced

career military legal officer, he entered the RAF in 1927, served in the Fleet Air

Arm from 1928 and was called to the bar in 1936. Somerhough then joined

JAG and was appointed Legal Staff Officer for the British Expeditionary Forces

1939-40. As DJAG in the Middle East 1940-44 he was three times mentioned

in despatches. As such, officers handling Somerhough’s complaints about 2

SAS dealt circumspectly with him.43

Understandably, the members of 2 SAS WCIT did not want to become

assimilated and absorbed into any wider organizational pattern. Their

continuing concern was a loss of autonomy and operational discretion in

pursuing their chief interest in settling accounts through securing successful

prosecutions. This fear is not surprising, as any positive view of the usefulness

of 2 SAS’ role was not universal. In a correspondence marked by increasing

bitterness, Somerhough, reported that the SAS’ role as he understood it, perhaps

conflating it with that of MRES, was restricted to tracking down: “the bodies

of murdered SAS personnel.” At the same time, he sought to reign in elements

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44 Letter from Gp. Capt Somerhough, JAG (WCS) at HQ BAOR to Lt. Col. A. Harris

at A(PS.4), 24 November 1945: NA, WO 311/682. This was in response to the

Report “Man Hunting” nd. or signed, but probably November 1945 from Lt. Col.

A Harris at A(PS.4), which roused the ire of Somerhough, ibid.

45 The circulation list for these reports included MI5/6, as well as JAG, amongst

many others. These reports began around the middle week in February 1946. Thus:

“in accordance with H.Q. B.A.O.R. instructions to S.A.S. W.C.I.T., A.G.3(V.W.)

will pass … situation reports … which are received by wireless from GAGGE-

NAU”. Such co-operation was not always wholehearted: “No report was issued

last week as O.C. S.A.S. W.C.I.T. was away at H.Q. B.A.O.R. on admin

business”: “S.A.S. W.C.I.T. Weekly Sitrep- No.4”, for week ending 13 March

1946: NA, WO 311/742. In addition, Barkworth, was concerned about: “being

interrupted in his work by unnecessary ‘directions’.” Plus, he had been required

to make three journeys of 300 miles in a few weeks to report to HQ BAOR.

Report, “SAS War Crimes Investigation Team-Policy,” 7 February 1946,

accompanying a letter from Col. R. H. Harden (APS) “A” Branch to the W O, 8

February 1946: NA, WO 311/694.

46 Letter from Col. R. H. Harden (APS) “A” Branch to Gp. Capt Somerhough JAG

(WCS) 16 December 1945: NA, WO 311/682. Difficulties between the SAS, and

JAG BAOR were such that even as late as February 1946, it was suggested that

someone should approach: “JAGs Office (Mil. Dept.) London, with a request that

they should help improve the team’s position.” Letter, 8 February 1946: NA, WO

311/694.

of 2 SAS’ autonomy in order to impose overall command and control. In this44

context, for a while 2 SAS WCIT was instructed to draw up weekly reports.45

Not surprisingly, the typical tensions between policies and expectations

formulated by the desk-bound bureaucrats at central headquarters, which

included Whitehall civil servants and Government law officers, implemented

at JAG HQ BAOR, made themselves particularly apparent to these investiga-

tors; and indeed appear as such within the archives. This must have been46

extremely frustrating for 2 SAS WCIT faced on a daily basis with the complex

and grim realities of post-war Europe.

More positively, WO/SAS records indicate both the manner and the extent

to which members of this elite Special Forces unit eventually became

considered by British authorities, including some JAG lawyers, to be particu-

larly well suited for the type of investigative work necessary to track down

those Nazi officials suspected of complicity in the torture and execution of their

former colleagues. In particular, and over and above any understandable SAS

motivation to settle accounts, there was recognition that certain of the skills

acquired by SAS officers overlapped with those of successful war crimes

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47 “It is considered that SAS officers are likely to be of the type who would take

readily to the work involved and that the advantages of retaining officers of 2 SAS

to command ex SAS personnel outweigh any advantage the employment of JAG

Staff Pool officers might offer in the early stages”: note to JAG, 16 December

1945, from Col. R. H. Harden A(PS): NA, WO 311/682.

48 The proposal from HQ BAOR was for a “Special Search Unit” to be based at HQ,

with a three section HQ and ten detachments. Letter from Field Marshall’s Office

(C-in-C, BAOR) to the WO (cc. JAG), 19 December 1945, ibid. For details of the

proposed: “Distribution of Rank and File by Trades and Duties,” listing officers

and other ranks required, transport, weapons and deployment location. See also:

“Special Search Unit For Establishment (i) Personnel” accompanying letter from

Col. R. H. Harden (APS) “A” Branch to Gp. Capt Somerhough, JAG (WCS) 16

December 1945, and the additional note to JAG, 16 December 1945, from Col. R.

H. Harden A(PS), ibid.

49 “[A] photographer (sgt) has been added to unit HQ to reproduce photographs of

wanted persons. His equipment should include an enlarger.” Letter from Field

Marshall’s Office (C-in-C, BAOR) to The WO (cc’d to JAG), 29 December 1945:

NA, WO 311/682.

50 Report entitled “Man Hunting”: NA, WO 311/682; Barkworth’s: “ideal establish-

ment” for the SAS WCIT, was an: “O.C. Major, 2 other offices, Capt or Lieuts.

Same number of Other Ranks with additional drivers if further transport is

authorised.” One officer would check the PW camps, the other: “should be an

Administrative Officer and should be responsible for keeping the team on the road

and for liaison with B.A.O.R.” Two specific individuals were suggested, one, a

Lieutenant: “already earmarked for Man Hunting,” the other: “a Captain, an

Administrative Officer of the 2 SAS.” Report, “SAS War Crimes Investigation

Team-Policy,” 7 February 1946, accompanying a letter from Col. R. H. Harden

investigators from JAG. Such changes over time reflected the developing47

pressures upon JAG to bring war crimes trials to a speedy end in the developing

cold war geopolitical climate and thus utilise all resources open to them,

including SAS expertise.

Other general war crimes investigations issues arose, such as to the best

balance within specialist investigation units between officers and lower ranking

staff. Moreover, problems were exacerbated by the difficulties in securing48

British military staff with the necessary range of linguistic, investigative and

administrative skills, unlike the well-equipped US WCIT. Such concerns

extended to acquiring technical equipment, including photographic and

communications gear, that each unit would need to successfully carry out its

mission within Germany and the former Nazi-occupied territories. Thus, it is49

not surprising that 2 SAS in common with the British Army WCG faced

considerable problems with respect to a range of these and other logistical

issues; not least with respect to securing sufficient qualified personnel,50

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(APS) “A” Branch to the WO, 8 February 1946: NA, WO 311/694.

51 Barkworth complained about this specifically, ibid. The RAF MRES suffered a

similar lack of reliable transport, and equal problems in obtaining vehicles. Letter,

Air Marshall Philip Wigglesworth, AHQ (Ops) BAFO, to Air Minister for Person-

nel, complaining that the MRES were draining his resources. August 1947: NA,

AIR 20/9050. (SH).

52 2 SAS were due to be disbanded by the end of September 1945, and their

headquarters, the base for the team in Alsace, derequisitioned on 10 October 1945.

It was predicted that these actions: “would seriously dislocate operation.”

However, SAS Intelligence section, based at HQ, was to be retained as a team:

“Through long service in section are invaluable assistance as they know way about

voluminous filing system and remember details previous operations,” which had

resulted in the capture and torture of former colleagues: NA, WO 311/695. JAG

London, dealing with Barkworth’s SAS cases, also experienced personnel

difficulties. The major originally handling the cases was released in December

1945, his replacement, due for release in March 1946, had agreed to stay, but: “not

much longer than the end of April to prepare and prosecute the case.” However,

although 2 SAS Regiment was being disbanded, there is evidence that personnel

were being held back against future need by WCIT, for example: “2 drivers, who

can be obtained from list of 2 SAS personnel frozen for Man-Hunting teams”:

Report, “SAS War Crimes Investigation Team-Policy,” 7 February 1946,

accompanying a letter from Col. R. H. Harden (APS) “A” Branch to the WO, 8

February 1946: NA, WO 311/694. WO authority was sought for a “Special Search

Unit”: “its formation and equipment. It is further understood that you will arrange

for the necessary personnel to be specially selected from disbanding units.” Letter

from the Field Marshall’s Office (C-in-C, BAOR) to The WO (cc. JAG), 29

December 1945: NA, WO 311/682.

suitable transport (four jeeps that: “gave out” as: “they had been dropped by

parachutes in several operations”) and related facilities. These problems were51

intensified by the rapid demobilisation of potentially helpful staff, and the

running down of military operations generally. In addition, the authorities had52

to decide upon the geographical location, jurisdiction and institutional

attachment of these specialist investigative units. Finally, issues arose between

the various wartime Allies regarding degrees of cooperation between different

agencies and units with some measure of responsibility for the investigation of

war crimes and the prosecution of those suspected of complicity. This was

particularly difficult in the immediate post-war period where problems of

coordinating war crimes investigations with the newly liberated French were

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53 Barkworth had experienced some difficulties in working with French officials

during his time investigating in the Vosges; Memorandum attached to letter from

“Minningman” [illegible] Lieutenant-Colonel Commander, 1 British Airborne

Corps (Rear), to The Under Secretary of State, The WO (A.G.3 V.W.) cc’d to HQ

SAS Troops and OC 2 SAS Regiment, 18 August, 1945: NA, WO 311/694.

However, the French tried more war criminals than Britain and the US together:

Bloxham, Genocide on Trial, x.

54 For example; Barkworth to AAG Liaison Brit WCD US, request, re Wild: “clear

living in Russian zone and that the matter of whether we or the French obtain

extradition for him from the American zone is purely academic and serves no

useful purpose. Can we can get cooperation from Russian zone.” 7 November

1946: NA, WO 311/744. JAG found German witnesses reluctant to go to

Yugoslavia, Poland or the Soviet Union to give evidence and were: “unwilling to

force them to do so”: “Somerhough Situation Report”. WCG (NWE) to Shapcott,

20 September 1947: NA, FO 371/ 64718 c13471/7675/180. This lack of co-

operation operated at the highest level. Thus the British, after debating the matter

at Cabinet level, refused to hand over war criminals to the Russians: Cesarini,

Justice Delayed, 59-65.

55 Amongst many other matters, Barkworth’s letter highlighted five bodies

discovered by the French at a camp near Baden Baden and not followed up; a

report on the case of Lieut. Silly, forwarded to the French authorities but never

passed on: NA, WO 311/694. In contrast, Galitzine remembers good relations with

the French; Kemp, Secret Hunters, 51.

56 Letter to Brigadier J. M. Calvert, “Confidential”, Commander SAS Troops, from

Lt-Col Franks C.C. 2 SAS, 23 July 1945. Circulation included the WO: NA, WO

311/694. See also letter: 26 July 1945, from Lt. Col. “Collins” [illegible]

Commander 1 British Airborne Corps (Rear), Rickmansworth, to the WO,

CROWCASS, Special Forces HQ, and HQ SAS amongst others. This emphasised

considerable, as indeed was the later hostility between the Russians and other53

Allies as the Cold War mentalite manifested itself.54

Earlier, in the summer of 1945, the problem with the French came to a

head. In July Franks circulated copies of a report from Barkworth who was:

“working under extreme difficulty mainly due to the disorganisation of the

French in whose areas the proven atrocities have taken place.” The French had

six separate bureaux dealing with war crimes with no overall head to co-

ordinate their operations. Moreover, in one of a number of examples of

incompetence, the French had destroyed the card index showing all the

prisoners who had passed through Schirmeck Camp: “as the index only

concerned missing America and British personnel.” In addition, Barkworth55

interrogated a prisoner held by the French whom they had never searched and:

“found a photograph of a man who may be Black, wearing “S” Phone

equipment, also photographs of a Jedburgh wireless set”. Perhaps56

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the importance of Barkworth’s report and the confidential accompanying letter.

57 Memorandum attached to letter from “Minningman” [illegible] Lieutenant-Colonel

Commander, 1 British Airborne Corps (Rear), to The Under Secretary of State,

The WO (A.G.3 V.W.) cc HQ SAS Troops and OC 2 SAS Regiment, 18 August,

1945, ibid.

58 “In some cases Germans held by countries formerly occupied by themselves are

successfully blackmailing their captors into either releasing them or not showing

them as held on PW lists, for fear of exposure as collaborators. This is particularly

true in the French zone where some of the leading accused in the S.A.S. case have

only been found by unofficial enquiry”: report entitled “Man Hunting”: NA, WO

311/682.

59 “Examples of this are the French recruits in Alsace where several pure-blooded

Germans have been traced and arrested by S.A.S. W.C.I.T. as serving members of

French forces. Again in Italy the Polish II Corps is increasing at a tremendous rate,

volunteers being taken from ‘so-called Poles’ who have been impressed into the

German Army and are ex-German PW. The Corps is now 150,000 strong and it is

suspected that War Criminals may be finding refuge there”, ibid. Cesarini notes that

in fact the French screened more carefully than the British before accepting

Displaced Persons: Justice Delayed, 91.

60 By 1946 there is evidence of some agreement: 19 Sept. 46. AAG to AAG Liaison

Brit US zone. Noailles SAS case: “it is requested you try to make a gentleman’s

agreement with the French. In the past in other SAS cases they have agreed to loan

accused to BAOR for trial on the understanding that they are handed over

afterwards regardless of sentence”: NA, WO 311/744. 2 SAS WCIT developed a

more cooperative relationship with other agencies and Allies over suspect

transfers. One sample entry, to serve for many, is Barkworth’s report for S.A.S.

W.C.I.T. to H.Q. B.A.O.R, 19 August 1946. He asks HQ to check if Alfred

Achossig has been arrested by the Russians; that Streiner, wanted for killing 29

British parachutists and one American be extradited and so on: SAS War crimes

cases vol 2; folios 101-199. Indexed, 1 May 1946 August 1946: NA, WO

311/743.

unsurprisingly therefore, one officer in a memorandum to the WO expressed

concern about: “the incompetence of the French authorities” and: “The[ir]

dishonesty.” In particular, the declassified WO records indicate that a number57

of French officials, who were supposedly cooperating with the investigation of

war crimes and the detention of former Nazi officials and SS personnel, were

being blackmailed very effectively into shielding these potential defendants.58

Moreover, French and Italian military authorities had recruited a number of

wanted former Nazi officials. One of the problems faced by investigators was

that armies being raised by various allies were not checking: “… the identity of

bona fides of some enlisting”. By 1946, however, there is evidence that59

matters were somewhat improved. 60

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61 NA, WO 311/695. See also letter of praise concerning Barkworth’s investigations

in Baden and Alsace, and also expressing thanks for the use of a pathologist

(Kuscherer). Colonel Chavez, (US) WCIU, A.P.O. 752 to A.G.3 (V.W.), 7

December 1945: NA, WO 311/694. Franks also wrote: “I had a long talk with Col.

Chavez and was much impressed by his desire to help us. He expressed amaze-

ment that the British investigation of 27 cases should be left in the hands of a

single officer. He showed great gratitude for the assistance he had received from

Barkworth and is incorporating his report in his own to 7 Army. It is to be hoped

that the Gaggenau cases may be dealt with through American sources”: Letter to

Brigadier J. M. Calvert, “Confidential,” Commander SAS Troops, from Lt-Col

Franks C.C. 2 SAS, 23 July 1945, ibid

62 Barkworth wrote to Chavez from 2 SAS WCIT local HQ, Gaggenau: “In view of

the many occasions this unit has received help from the American authorities, and

particularly from your team, it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to be of

some assistance to you”: Letter from Major Barkworth 2 SAS to Col. Chavez US

War Crimes Team, 30 October 1945: NA, WO 311/747.

63 NA, WO 311/694; Kemp, Secret Hunters, 48-49. The MRES could call on the

assistance of pathologists from London if required: Hadaway, “Royal Air Force.”

Warner notes that three senior Gestapo officials were tried and executed for these

murders in 1946: Special Air Service, 173.

In contrast to the above, the relationship between 2 SAS WCIT and the US

investigators seems to have been consistently good. That same summer, 1945,

it was reported that: “The Americans … have given very full assistance to the

men in our area”. Franks, when reporting on the difficulties with the French

also spoke highly of the American War Crimes Team (WCT) headed by Col.

Chavez: “[I]t is clearly a highly efficient organisation. Barkworth has worked

in close co-operation with them and they have exceeded their duty in investigat-

ing the cases of this Regiment.” Barkworth was able to return the favour by61

providing information concerning the death of three American airmen. In62

addition, Kemp records that Chavez was present at Gaggenau at the start of the

Loyton investigation and supplied a professional pathologist to help identify the

bodies as SAS. Unfortunately, relationships with BAOR remained63

sour. By October 1945, 18 of the 34 SAS bodies were still missing and the view

at BAOR WCG was that, as to the other bodies: “no clue which would provide

results has been found … and only a miracle will now provide such a clue”. A

pencilled hand-written note added later onto the file states: “The last bodies

were found in Feb 46 and since than over 100 Germans have been caught of

whom 50 are to be tried on 25/4/46.” This same memo reveals BAOR’s

perception of the SAS’ role in war crimes matters:

The situation at the moment is that Barkworth and his men continue to

search but it is obviously not part of our Team’s duty to seek for clues to

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64 The memo continues: “Barkworth and his party have made themselves somewhat

unpopular with the French, who feel considerable resentment at the way they have

circulated in French territory without apparently informing the French of their

presence and intentions, and have finally written a report on the attitude of the

French which the French regard as highly offensive. He has now applied to

USFET for a laissez passer for his party in the American Zone; the Americans

have referred the letter to us but before we back the application we would like to

have him and his team officially attached to this HQ. We can then brief him as to

the need for tact in Allied areas before we let him lose. We would like this

attachment to be for the purposes of war crimes investigations in general, and NOT

exclusively for the SAS cases”: Memo Lt.-Colonel Harris, HQ BAOR to Col G.R.

Bradshaw, WO, 6 October 1945: NA, WO 311/694.

65 A memo from JAG concerning liaison with the Provost Marshal’s Dept states that

there is no objection to MRES tracing war criminals: “as a sideline, provided it

does not interfere with their regular work.” The memo continues: “The War

Crimes Commission (WCC) is concerned with the criminals; the MRES is

concerned, inter alia, with their victims”: “Missing Research Memorandum

(MRM) No.5. Liaison with Provost Marshal’s Dept” P.4 CAS & IMR Group

Captain Burgess, JAG Section at BAOR, 6, September 1945: Air Force Museum

Archives, Hendon, (AFM), DC 74/39/13. (SH).

establish war crimes, their job is to establish and prove a crime when some

initial clue has been given. In other words, our object begins where

Barkworth’s object ends … There are other differences between the SAS

investigation and ours. This is that although the SAS are in many ways

extremely valuable as investigators, Barkworth’s material conforms to no

known legal standard of proof and is very often based on pure hearsay;

much of it is never reduced to writing. This is not in any way suggesting

that his Report and his work are not of value, but that a considerable

proportion of what he gets could not possibly be used for our purposes

[Here the later unknown hand has added in pencil: “!!!”] without going

over the ground again and using our own established methods. [here is

added: “This has been completely denied by JAG London who says that

B’s evidence is more than enough”].64

In this context, Air Ministry files indicate that MRES also experienced similar

bureaucratic difficulties concerning hierarchical demarcation issues with JAG

and BAOR. Many of these and other issues discussed above continued to65

bedevil the operations of 2 SAS WCIT for the rest of 1945 and into 1946. In

February, Col. R. H. Harden (APS) “A” Branch wrote to the WO, enclosing an

Appendix listing personnel, equipment and transport required for Barkworth’s

unit. This suggests that: “In view of the various complications and difficulties,

which … have attached themselves to this team … that the unit be regularized

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66 The transport difficulties caused by: “unserviceable” vehicles (P.Us), exacerbated

by the distances vehicles had to travel (over 200 miles per day). Report, “SAS War

Crimes Investigation Team-Policy,” 7 February 1946: NA, WO 311/694.

67 “Loose Minute” AG3(VW) [illegible probably Harden) 13 February 1946, ibid.

68 It was finally established that: “Major Barkworth has been absorbed into the War

Crimes Investigation Unit, BAOR and is now under command of the Officer

Commanding that Unit for all administrative purposes. Operationally he continues

to work under J.A.G., Spring Gardens, London”; Letter from Col. N.E. Savill, 14

March 1946, ibid.

69 It was noted that all the staff were ex 2 SAS, investigating purely cases involving

2 SAS Regt; “Loose Minute,”13 February 1946, ibid.

70 Capt. T. Burt, MBE, 2 SAS and the Buffs, was selected for his: “Special qualifica-

tions for this operation [in Alsace]”, ibid. Burt and his men accompanied Jedburg

team ‘Harold’ dropped into the Vendee in France 15/16 July 1944, ‘OSS Report’:

IWM, 04/26/1, 502.

71 Letter from Canadian Joint Staff Mission to JAG (War Crimes Section) HQ BAOR

9 December 1947: NA, WO 311/724.

… within the new Investigation Pool.” Harden proposed that the unit comprise

a more: “self-contained staff”, to facilitate the fact the unit works a long way

from HQ and: “not among other British Troops.” When JAG designated the66

SAS investigation in Alsace as: “the most important War Crimes operation,”

this issue became more critical. This military bureaucratic uncertainty was67

resolved in March 1946, when 2 SAS WCIT was officially “absorbed” into the

new War Crimes Investigation Unit, BAOR.

In spite of this official resolution to the “unofficial” status of 2 SAS WCIT,

via his reporting route to London, Barkworth retained a considerable amount

of operational autonomy, including the exclusive use of SAS personnel for68

investigations into the murder of SAS soldiers. This included the secondment69

of Captain Burt, formerly Administrative Officer 2 SAS who, in what may have

been an expression of personal loyalty to that Regiment, was willing to forgo

embarkation leave to join the Unit. Overall, there were no real solutions to the70

awkward relationship between the rather maverick SAS and the British military

establishment. These difficulties continued so that, for example, in December

1947 Barkworth’s investigations and operations were still a matter for inter-

organisational disagreement, and even international concern. At that late date,

discussions were still on-going, involving the Canadian Joint Staff Mission, as

to whether 2 SAS WCIT should remain under operational control of London,

and if: “the trials of SAS cases shall be put on in the normal manner and not in

one series.” 71

The Working Partnership between SOE and

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72 Andrée “Denise” Borrell, was a shop assistant who trained as a nurse on the

outbreak of the Second World War and joined the French resistance after the

surrender of France. In 1942 she traveled to London and was recruited by SOE.

Borrell and Lise de Baissac became the first woman agents to be parachuted into

France in September 1942, and Borrell moved to Paris to join the Prosper network.

She was arrested in June 1943 and sent to Fresnes prison, where she was held until

being transported to Germany in May 1944. For her SOE personnel file see: NA,

HS 9/183; Anthony Kemp, Secret Hunters, 67.

73 Diana Rowden was flown by Lysander in July 1943 to act as courier for Acrobat.

She was arrested in November in Lons-le-Saunier. For her SOE personnel file see:

NA, HS 9/1287/6; Kemp, Secret Hunters, 68.

74 Vera Leigh arrived in May 1943 to join Inventor. She was betrayed and arrested

in October in Paris. For her SOE personnel file see: NA, HS 9/910; Kemp, Secret

Hunters, 68.

75 Sonia Olschanezky, b. 1923 at Chemnitz to a secular Russian Jewish family who

moved to Paris in 1930, but retained their Russian nationality. Sonia trained as a

dancer. Through her relationship with Jacques Weil, Sonia began to work for the

resistance, initially as a courier for Juggler. Later, when Prospect collapsed, Sonia

managed to contact London and continue her work. Sonia was picked up in Paris

on 21 January 1944 attempting to meet up with a British contact. She was sent to

Fresnes, then Karlshruhe with six other women. There, prison officials contacted

their RHSA superiors in Berlin for instructions concerning these women held in:

“protective custody.” Sonia and the three other women were to be transferred to

Natzweiler-Struthof on 6 July for: “special treatment”. In 1956, two British

journalists, Anthony Terry and Elisabeth Nicholas, finally established Sonia’s

identity: http://edechambost.ifrance.com/Sonia.htm?2 (11 May 2006). See also: S.

Helm, A Life in Secrets (London: Little, Brown, 2005), 242-43, 295-96, 329.

2 SAS WCIT in the Natzweiler TrialAmongst the many investigations undertaken by 2 SAS WCIT one resulting

prosecution, the Natzweiler Trial has become well known, not for the

collaboration between 2 SAS and SOE, but rather because of the victims, and

the manner of their death. The case in point concerned the murder of four

women, Denise Borrell, Diana Rowden, Vera Leigh and a fourth, Sonia72 73 74

Olschanezky, whose identity was not known at the time of the trial and initially

believed to be Noor Inayat-Khan; all bar Sonia, members of SOE. Their75

deaths occurred at the Natzweiler-Struthof camp on 6 July 1944. The women

were executed by lethal injection, having been brought there from Karlsruhe

Prison the day before and their bodies incinerated in the camp crematorium

immediately afterwards. Some of the witnesses at the subsequent trial gave

evidence at least one of the victims was still alive at that point and that she

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76 In addition, CSM Rhodes (2 SAS) later explained that he saw livid scars on

Hauptscharfuhrer Straub’s face when he arrested him: Kemp, Secret Hunters, 76.

77 For Atkins personnel file see: NA, HS 9/59/2. For her autobiography and her role

in these investigations see: Helm, A Life in Secrets. Atkins interrogated Straub and

Hartjenstein. Later she interrogated officials from Flossenbürg, Ravensbrück and

Auschwitz amongst others: Kemp, Secret Hunters, 76-80

78 Lieutenant Colonel M.J. Buckmaster was in charge of section F operations in

France and the Low Countries: Anthony Clayton, Forearmed: A History of the

Intelligence Corps (London: Brassey’s, 1996), 100. See also: Helm, A Life in

Secrets, xviii. For details of the training of these particular SOE operatives see:

NA, HS 9/183; HS 9/1287/6; HS 9/910.

fought and scratched the crematorium attendant’s face. The next section of76

this work is a discussion of some aspects of that trial, brought directly as a

consequence of investigations by Barkworth and his team with the involvement

of Squadron Leader Vera Atkins of SOE. Their activities included collecting

trial evidence, tracking down and interrogating both suspects and witnesses;

like Barkworth, Atkins, spoke French and German. At this point it must be77

noted, that this article is not concerned with the full details of the trial, nor all

the legal issues it raises, including analysis of aspects of its conduct; these will

be further explored in a companion piece. The focus of the following section

is that of the relationship between intelligence officials and war crimes

prosecutions, as an immediate and vivid illustration of problems associated with

the role of intelligence officials in war crimes trials. Indeed, the involvement of

SOE within the Natzweiler Trial provides a valuable case study of the tensions

and dilemmas that can arise during collaboration between intelligence agencies

and war crimes prosecutors. In the Natzweiler Trial, as this writer will illustrate

below, these officials had some personal interest in the prosecutions of the

accused. In addition, the Judge Advocate and the prosecution treated them as

expert witnesses and that evidence assisted in convicting these defendants.

Thus, Barkworth was present at the trial and gave evidence with Atkins for

the prosecution. Atkins had joined the French Section of SOE in February 1941

and served as intelligence and security assistant to Maurice Buckmaster, head

of F Section. Her work at SOE included interviewing recruits, organising their

training and planning their reception in France. One of her major tasks was to78

create cover stories for all the special agents who were about to be sent into

enemy occupied territory. During the War she sent 470 agents, including thirty-

nine women, into France; more than 100 did not return. According to Kemp,

Atkins interviewed F section and other survivors on their return to Britain,

including Stonehouse and Lieut-Commander O’Leary, both had spent over two

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79 O’Leary’s real name was Albert Marie Guerisse, a Belgian doctor. He was

commissioned into the Royal Navy and took part in clandestine operations in

France where he was arrested posing as a French-Canadian officer. He had been

transferred to Dachau when Natzweiler-Struthof was abandoned by the Germans:

Kemp: Secret Hunters, 69: Kramer, Flames in the Field, 57.

80 Kemp, Secret Hunters, 68-74. Atkins was commissioned as Squadron Leader in

the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as cover, and perhaps to regularize her

position as a war crimes investigator. Helm states that Atkins was funded by MI6

and reported monthly: Helm, A Life in Secrets, 201.

81 Helm, A Life in Secrets, 192-96, 202 350. Atkins described Somerhough as: “the

quickest brain I have ever known”, ibid., xx.

82 Affadavit signed Georges Boogaerts, witnessed Squadron Officer V.M. Atkins, 11

April 1946: NA, WO 311/665; Helm, A Life in Secrets, 244-46.

83 Barkworth took depositions at Gaggenau, from Teresa Becker, wardress at the

Karlsruhe Prison, 14 March 1946, and Kaenemund, a former political prisoner

there, now run by the Americans, 20 March 1946, (Trial Exhibit 2): NA, WO

311/665. Rohde and Hartjenstein gave their statements to Barkworth on 14 April

1946: Webb, Natzweiler Trial, 83-85, 87-88. Wanted lists circulated include: 10

January 1946, Straub; 24 January, Berg (in custody); 1 February, Zeuss (delivery);

years in Nazi hands, much of that time at Natzweiler-Struthof. O’Leary, an79

intelligence officer who had spent twenty-six months in captivity, was

imprisoned at that camp when the four women arrived.

After the collapse of Nazi Germany, with the permission of the head of

SOE Major-General Gubbins, Atkins sought out Galitzine at the WO for

information concerning the camp and, according to Kemp, travelled with him

to Germany to make further enquiries. Buckmaster supported her investiga-80

tions, perhaps in part motivated to demonstrate the continuing value of SOE to

government officials and the WO. Atkins travelled to Bad Oeynhausen in the

British zone, initially on a four-day visit, then returned, where she was

officially seconded to Colonel Draper’s legal section of WCIU and joined

Somerhough the head of JAG who gave her an office and allowed her to

interview suspects. The SAS had already collaborated with SOE in September81

1945, assisting in the investigation of the murder of British airmen at Neuen-

gamme camp. Thus, in early April 1946 when Atkins visited Barkworth’s team

at HQ Gaggenau, to assist in questioning the accused and examining the

evidence, 2 SAS had experience of such collaborative efforts. At this time,

Atkins had interviewed and take a statement in Brussels from Boogaerts, a

former political prisoner in Natzweiler-Struthof, and visited that camp in order

to complete her enquiries into how the four women were killed. Moreover,82

prior to Atkins’ appearance 2 SAS WCIT had also taken statements concerning

this matter and had circulated wanted lists to various relevant authorities.83

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12 February, Zeuss and Straub (in US Zone); SAS weekly Sitrep. report week

ending 24 March lists the Natzweiler case amongst others and details of trial

preparations; 4 April, Hartjenstein (delivery), 6 April to British Liaison, US,

concerning Zeuss, Rohde, Hartjenstein, Zeuss; 7 April, JAG to US WCB extradite

Straub; 8 April, request delivery of various suspects including Berg from the US

Zone; 9 April JAG to US WCB extradite Zeuss; 9 April JAG to US WCB

extradition Rohde, including a note that Galitzine would arrange his collection by

1 Corps: NA, WO 311/742.

84 28 April 1946, 15 defendants were listed; on 20 May, 17 defendants listed: NA,

WO 311/665.

85 Those accused were; Dr. Kurt aus dem Bruch und Harberg (SS, camp dentist; not

guilty); Franz Berg (prisoner, habitual criminal, responsible for stoking the

crematorium and Straub’s assistant: guilty, five years, already facing death penalty

for other crimes); Emil Bruttel (camp medical orderly; guilty, four years

imprisonment); Fritz Hartjenstein (SS, Commandant of the Natzweiler group of

Concentration Camps: guilty, life imprisonment, also sentenced to same by French

in their Natzweiler Trial); Emil Meier (Guard Commander: not guilty); Dr. Werner

Rohde (SS, Camp Medical Officer; guilty, sentenced to death, already under

sentence of death, formerly with Mengele at Auschwitz); Peter Straub (clerk in the

Political Department responsible for making arrangements for executions, de facto

camp executioner; guilty, thirteen years, already under sentence of death); Magnus

Wochner (Gestapo, head of the camp Political Department: guilty); Wolfgang

Zeuss (SS, staff sergeant; not guilty): Webb, Natzweiler Trial, 17. The Camp

Doctor, Heinrich Plaza, whom Rohdes replaced and who was present at the murder

of the women and had also served at Auschwitz was sought, but never found:

Helm, A Life in Secrets, 348. Otto was also not found to stand trial, and Ganninger

(SS) committed suicide shortly after being questioned by Barkworth, ibid., 187. A

tenth accused, Harberg (Karlsruhe Gestapo), was acquitted on the first day of trial,

no evidence offered.

As a direct result of these investigations, on 28 April 1946, the

Commander-in-Chief, BAOR issued a formal list of accused wanted for:

… committing a war crime at STRUTHOF/NATZWEILERN, France in

or about the months of July and August, 1944, in violation of the laws and

usages of war, were concerned in the killing of four British women when

prisoners in the hands of the Germans. 84

Nine of these concentration camp officials went on trial on 29 May 1946 at a

British Military Court for the Trial of War Criminals, held at the Zoological

Gardens, Wuppertal, Germany. Some had already been sentenced to death at85

earlier trials, and after this trial Berg, Hartjenstein, Straub and Wochner were

tried for other war crimes and sentenced to death.

The prosecution faced the legal difficulty that, unlike the killing of

captured soldiers, the execution of spies was lawful under the terms of Articles

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86 Described as a: “young trainee solicitor”: Helm, A Life in Secrets, 241.

87 Webb, Natzweiler Trial, 37-38.

88 Atkins stated: “1. From April 1941 to July 1944 I was Intelligence Officer to the

French Section of M. O. I. S. P. working in London, and as such my duties were

to brief Allied women agents in this country prior to their proceeding to the

Continent on special missions. 2. Among those whom I briefed but who failed to

return to this country were Miss Denise BORRELL, Section Officer Diane

ROWDEN, W.A.A.F. A.S.O. Nora INAYAT-KHAN, W.A.A.F., Miss Vera

LEIGH, F.A.N.Y … 4. On the 26 April 1946 I visited the Public Safety Officer,

Military Government Karlsruhe and was introduced by him to the Prison Director

of the Karlsruhe Prison and the Riefstahlstrasse who informed me that during a

further search of the records of the prison he had discovered the records of 7 of the

8 British women who had been confined in Karlsruhe Prison in the summer of

1944. He handed me the originals and the records of 3 of these women namely of

Vera LEIGH , Dianne ROWDEN and Denise BORRELL which are attached here-

to”, ibid., 35.

29 and 30 of the Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land

under the Hague Convention 1907, provided they had received a trial prior to

execution. Therefore, in his opening speech, the prosecutor, Major Hunt, drew86

attention to the possibility that:

It may be argued by the Defence that these four had been the subject of a

trial and that their killing was merely lawful execution. The case for the

Prosecution is that a killing in such a manner at such a time and in such

circumstances raises a presumption that there was in fact no trial, and in

this connection it is interesting to remember … If this was a lawful

execution, then why the secrecy? 87

Hunt continued by pointing out that evidence collected at: “Karlsruhe Prison

relating to three of the deceased”, described them before, and after collection

as: “In protective custody”. He argued that: “persons under sentence of death

would hardly be described as in protective custody”. Moreover, such documen-

tary evidence that the women were in “protective custody” could not refute the

defence contention that: “in Germany during the last few years every political

suspect was a prisoner in protective custody.”

Atkins, the first prosecution witness, gave evidence about three of the

victims, Denise Borrell, Diana Rowden and Vera Leigh. She explained that,88

as an Intelligence Officer with SOE, she saw all outgoing officers including

those three women and that she saw them during their ‘training’. The

prosecution sought to use Atkin’s evidence to establish a breach of Art. 30 of

the Hague Regulations, which states: “A spy taken in the act shall not be

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89 Hague Convention 1907 clarifies the distinction between spies and soldiers:

Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land , “Art. 29. A

person can be considered a spy when, acting clandestinely or on false pretences,

he obtains or endeavours to obtain information in the zone of operation of a

belligerent, with the intention of communicating it to the hostile party. Thus

soldiers not wearing a disguise who have penetrated into the zone of operations of

the hostile army for this purpose are not considered spies: soldiers and civilians,

carrying out their mission openly, entrusted with the delivery of dispatches,

intended either for their own army or the enemies’ army.”

90 Webb, Natzweiler Trial, 40.

91 Ibid., 107.

punished without previous trial.” She confirmed the authenticity of the records89

from Karlsruhe Prison, “Exhibit 1”, and was then asked, as an ‘expert’ witness:

Did you, throughout your investigations, come across any evidence that

these four had been tried by a properly authorised and constituted court?-

No, and I think it would be right to say no other officers caught in similar

circumstances operating behind the lines were ever given a trial … [except]

an officer who was shot down before landing. 90

In this context, the Court later recalled the intelligence officer O’Leary, who

had been imprisoned with Stonehouse at Natzweiler-Struthof and transferred

to Dachau when the camp was abandoned; he was questioned by the Judge

Advocate in corroborative evidence. He stated:

I was captured by the Germans in civilian clothes … [Judge Advocate].

Were you ever tried? – No Never… [Judge Advocate] Did any members

of British services in similar positions to you so far as you know have any

trials? – Yes, the British officers belonging to my organisation who were

caught before 1943 were tried, condemned to death and shot. [After 1943]

as far as I know no British officers caught on special service were tried by

the Germans. They were simply sent to a concentration camp ... At the end

of 1944 and the beginning of 1945 many of them were exterminated in

concentration camps. [Judge Advocate] Were they executed without trial?

– They were executed without trial.91

In response, the defence challenged this evidence. In his opening speech

Groebel, speaking on behalf all the defence lawyers, argued that the defendants

lacked criminal intent and had no reason to suspect that their involvement in

these killings was anything other than the lawful execution of properly

convicted spies, precisely the terms in which it had been presented to them. In

addition, concerning Art. 30 he added:

[I]n 1907 it was not meant that in an official Court-Martial somebody had

to be present to pass sentence on every person as in the case of Mata Hari

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92 Groebel read an opinion to the court from an advisor to the Nuremberg Trials,

Professor Mosler of the University of Bonn, a leading German expert on

International Law: “‘Treatment according to usages of war does not require the

lawful guarantee of a proper trial. It is sufficient to ascertain that a war criminal

offence has been committed.’ At another point he states the following: ‘Usages of

war do not know of any regulations on who could pass a sentence. Normally the

Commanding Officer of the troops who brought about the arrest would be the one

to ascertain the guilt, the punishment, and the execution, and would order the

execution. Competence to permit shooting even in a small trial is doubtful and may

only be granted if the offence is evident and considering military circumstance,

speed is necessary.’” Groebel argued that: “We Germans have been hermetically

sealed off from the rest of the world and I do not know how proceedings are

carried on there now”, ibid., 98-99.

93 Ibid.

94 In addition, by the end of 1943, the local newspapers stated that 78 had been

sentenced to death and 38 executed: Henri Amouroux, Un printemps de mort et

d’espoir (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1985), 371-72.

and other spies. I believe that such a Court-Martial is no longer necessary

to decide such a case. I cannot prove it now. We Germans have been

hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world … 92

Moreover, Groebel pointed out the, given the predominance of ad hoc courts:

The court knows better than we do whether these matters were handled in

that way also in other countries. For us Germans our Government in the

last years have created an enormous number of special Courts, amongst

which I myself have found S.S. Courts, and S.D. Courts, Courts which

everywhere decided the fate of human beings and normally passed

sentences of death. I mention this so you can decide for yourself whether

all these accused should appreciate that they had to know whether a

sentence had been passed or not. From the last read statements it is

noticeable that the higher officials of the camp were of the opinion that a

sentence had been passed.93

It is ironic for Groebel’s point, that twenty-three French citizens, convicted by

these ‘special courts’ whose existence was not acknowledged by the prosecu-

tion, were murdered at Natzweiler-Struthof on 17 February 1943, hence during

the time scale when many of the accused were carrying out their roles at that

camp. Moreover, such trials had been introduced in Alsace on 10 January94

1941 by Wagner, Gauleiter for the area, who was tried and convicted by the

Permanent Military Tribunal at Strasbourg three weeks before this trial

commenced, for these and other matters including responsibility for atrocities

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95 Atrocities at the camp, including the ‘medical’ experiments appear in the

Indictment in Case no. 13, Trial of Robert Wagner, Gauleiter and Head of Civil

Government of Alsace during the Occupation and six others, Strasbourg, 23 April

to 3 May 1946 and Court of Appeal 24 July 1946: Law Reports UNWCC, vol. III,

1948. Report available at: http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/wagner1.htm [8 May

2006].

96 Ibid., 42. Atkins was being disingenuous. Ward, for example, records that Borrel:

“was always chosen for the most dangerous and delicate work such as recruiting

and arranging rendez-vous … she took part in several coups de mains, notably an

operation against the Chevilly power station in March 1943”: F.A.N.Y. Invicta,

214.

at Natweiler-Struthof. Groebel further suggested to the court that, although the95

Public Prosecutor stated that he could enter evidence from the prison at

Karlsruhe to show that no sentences had been passed, this was not, in fact so.

The court rejected these arguments.

One other issue that has significance for this historical reconstruction and

was equally problematic for the prosecution concerns the legal status of the

women. Groebel had earlier asserted that he had no doubt that the women were

spies. They were sent from Britain to collect messages in France, they wore

uniforms in Britain but not in France, they arrived in France in an “irregular

way” and they contacted the “Maquis”, a movement considered illegal by the

Germans. In cross-examination Atkins explained:

[Groebel] Contrary to the opinion of the Prosecution, I consider the

mission as such of these women is of importance. What kind of employ-

ment did these four women have? - [Atkins] The three of them I knew were

acting as couriers and assistants to British Liaison Officers in France.

[Groebel] What were their tasks? - [Atkins] Their task was to assist those

British Liaison Officers whose mission it was to establish communications

between London and the Resistance Movement in France…. [Groebel] I

have seen from your affidavit that you are in charge of the Intelligence

Section? - [Atkins] I was an Intelligence Officer in an operational section.

[Groebel] I take it from your statement that these ladies had a task of a

military kind? - [Atkins] Yes.[Dr. Hagemeier] It can be seen … some of

the women were British officers and some were just described as “Miss”…

- [Atkins] They were members of the F.A.N.Y., which is the First Aid

Nursing Yeomanry…whose members retain civilian status.96

Indeed, three of the murdered women were members of FANY; formed during

World War I, FANY was transformed during the Second World War into what

was effectively an intelligence unit of women. Members of SOE, women who

dealt with security signals and others were commissioned into FANY to give

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97 FANY were ideal for SOE as there were no military restrictions on their use of

arms, unlike the other women’s services: Margaret Pawley, In Obedience to

Instructions: FANY with the SOE in the Mediterranean (Barnsley: Leo Cooper,

1999), 8-9. For histories of FANY see: Irene Ward, F.A,N,Y. Invicta (London:

Hutchinson, 1955); FANY members carried out many tasks including secretarial

duties, accountants, cooks, drivers, including dispatch and ambulances, wireless

operators and agents. These Special Unit FANY members signed the Official

Secrets Act. Seventy-three were trained as agents of whom, thirty-nine went into

the field: Hugh Popham, F.A.N.Y. The Story of the Women”s Transport Service

1907-1984 (London: Leo Cooper, 1984), 87-88, 91, 98-101. In 1944, SOE records

indicate some 1,500 FANY personnel attached to their organization, many

received specialist training by SOE: MacKenzie, Secret History, 719, 740.

98 It was argued at the highest level, by Colonel Gubbins, head of SOE (who took the

decision to use FANY for security purposes) that as FANY was a civilian

organization they were not subject to the rules governing the services and thus not

breaching the rules of war: Helm, A Life in Secrets, 9-10; Pawley, In Obedience,

162; Ward, F.A.N.Y Invicta, 219, Kramer, Flames in the Field, 65. Many

intelligence FANY were originally WAAFs before recruitment into SOE, and

some were enrolled into the WAAFs to regularize their position, including

ensuring salary and pension rights, others such as Vera Leigh, were FANY ATS:

Popham, F.A.N.Y., 98; Ward, F.A.N.Y Invicta, 219-21; Kramer, Flames in the

Field, 61.

them military status and regularise their position, both within the military and

intelligence hierarchies and as a cover in their personal lives. As such, FANY97

SOE operatives were spies, and unlike murdered SAS soldiers, could be

lawfully executed if convicted by trial under the established rules of war.98

Under pressure, Atkins further confirmed that these women wore a uniform

when on duty in England. This was an important concession because it revealed

that military officers were deployed out of uniform and behind the front lines,

one of the defining characteristics of spies. As such, covert acts of information

gathering, including collecting vital intelligence from escaped POWs, identified

such agents as spies lacking the legal rights of other POWs.

At this point, which threatened the prosecution’s case, the Judge Advocate

intervened to confirm that the only work in which these women were engaged

was in: “maintaining communications between London and the Resistance,”

and that: “they were not engaged in espionage against the German Army or

whatever was happening behind the German lines other than the Resistance

Movement.” In response to the defence lawyer, Groebel’s, suggestion that one

of the women had stated to O’Leary (his evidence) that she had the task of

contacting and liberating prisoners of war, Atkins gave evidence that the

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100 Ibid., 42-43. Such depositions were admissible in evidence under the amended

courts-martial procedure.

101 Ibid. Brian Stonehouse’ evidence was by affidavit, witnessed by an officer of JAG

at HQ BAOR, 5 April 1946: 45-46, Dr. Boogaerts, 52,

102 Walter Shultz, a political prisoner at the camp, gave evidence that he overheard a

conversation between Hoos (Gestapo, a member of the Political Department) and

Wochner (one of the accused). Schultz reported that: “Hoos was agitated and

stated that: ‘these women should have been treated as soldiers because they

belonged to some voluntary army… W.V.A.F’, or something similar’, and then he

said, ‘Well where does the Geneva Convention [sic] come in?’”, ibid., 63.

103 Webb, Natzweiler Trial, 203-204, 217, 222.

104 There is a postscript to his story. It consists of an extradition application on file 12

November 1946, for Rhode for war crimes: “Rohde was member of the medical

corps of the direction of the Concentration camp NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF,

and took part in the medical experiences [sic] practiced on the prisoners. Likewise

he is responsible for the extermination of numerous jews [sic] in the Concentration

women were not to make any such contacts. Georg Kaenemund, a political99

prisoner in Karsruhe Prison, in a deposition attested to in court by Barkworth,

stated that he overheard the interrogation of one of the murdered prisoners. He

reported that she had said: “she was a Lieutenant in the British Army,

demanded to be brought before a proper Court-Martial, and said that as a

member of the armed forces she should not be in prison.” However, a number100

of former prisoners at Natzweiler-Struthof, including Stonehouse, (SOE) via

Affidavit, provided evidence that the women arrived in the camp in civilian

clothes. The prosecution then sought to create the impression that the four101

women were military officials not spies, and that the German camp officials had

even recognised this and sought guidance from the laws of war concerning

POWs.102

The Judge Advocate, in his summing up briefly discussed the rules of

international law and rejected the defence claim of not knowing what is meant

by a “court”; concluded that Atkin’s evidence demonstrated that detained SOE

officers were not given trials as did O’Leary’s evidence which had been to the

effect that prisoners were executed without trial after 1943. He suggested that

this policy had arisen for political reasons of expediency as: “the Germans may

well have had some considerable apprehension as to the final result of the war.”

In short, based upon the evidence of these two intelligence officials, he

concluded that the possibility of the women having had a trial was very remote.

After then summing up the evidence against each of the individual accused the

court adjourned. It took them 40 minutes to agree the verdicts, and 30 minutes

to decide upon sentences. Rohde received a death sentence. 103 104

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Camp AUSCHWITZ.” At the bottom of the sheet is a hand-written notation:

“Executed 11/10/46.” Issued by the French War Crimes Liaison Group, BAOR.

Rohde had appealed against the death sentence and was supported in this by a

number of clergy, at least one of whom, Pastor Bongards, was well thought of by

the Religious Affairs Branch, BAOR. See: Letter 18 September 1946 to Penal

Branch BAOR. Letters of support included two from Hans Kleyer, padre for the

Penitentiary Camp, 24 and 26 August 1946; also a letter from Dr. Manfried

Germer, parson and camp-chaplain in the American Prisoner of War Enclosure,

Bad Aibling, 5 August 1946: NA, WO 309/730.

105 Margaret Peacock, a journalist at the trail, records that the journalists present

agreed to this: “[A] decision she has since regretted for she feels the account of the

trial achieved far less prominence than it deserved and failed to make a lasting

impression”: Ward, F.A.N.Y. Invicta, 228.

106 “Parachute W.A.A.F were tortured. Four British girls burned alive-one German to

die. Girl fought at oven door. Wuppertal, Saturday. For burning alive four British

women parachutists – two W.A.A.F. and two F.A.N.Y. officers – one German –

out of ten charged- was today sentenced to death by hanging… The trial was

watched by a young W.A.A.F. intelligence officer who briefed them for their

mission and traced their road to death”: Sunday Express, 2 June 1946: NA, WO

311/665.

A close reading of the trial report reveals a prosecution bogged down with

the problem of establishing the bureaucratic processes concerned with orders

to execute, whilst the accused obfuscate and contradict each other. No

documentary evidence was produced to clarify this matter. As such, this

provides a remarkable contrast with the volume and range of documentary

evidence made available by the OSS to the IMT at Nuremberg. Perhaps this

concentration upon unsubstantiated bureaucratic process, thereby muddying the

prosecution’s ability to establish personal liability for the murders, frustrated

some of those present. As a result, in spite of the desire of SOE, government

officials and the court, that this case should not be publicized, the latter having

ordered a news blackout, after the trial horrific information concerning the105

fate of the women was passed to the newspapers, leading to a critical and

sensational headline in the Sunday Express. This report was badly received106

at EXFOR in London. They suggested a court of inquiry: “for purpose of

establishing how matters not brought before the court or proved in evidence

appeared in press as statement of fact.” London believed that the leak occurred

in Germany and were concerned that: “there may well be representations that

press protests have influenced court in second trial. No need to stress most

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107 Telegram from EXFOR to the WO and JAG, London: “Believed Galitzine to be

material witness … Atkins available now Hunt and Barkworth available …”: NA,

WO 311/665.

108 This trial immediately followed the Natzweiler Trial, at Wupperthal, in June 1946.

Eleven officials were tried and five sentenced to death, including Straub,

Hartjenstein and Berg (all accused at the Natzweiler Trial), five to imprisonment.

Barkworth and his men were quartered in the building: History UNWCC, 537, 541-

42; Kemp, Secret Hunters, 86-87.

109 Memo from Brigadier J.L. von der Heyde (Lieutenant General Commander I

Corps District) to the President of the War Crimes Court, Wuppertal, 3 June 1946:

NA, WO 309/1520.

110 History UNWCC, 542.

111 Helm, A Life in Secrets, 196-98. After the War Galitzine wrote a ‘Plan’ for the US

Government for setting up a World Information Service. This can be found in the

C.D. Jackson Papers held at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Texas,

regrettable effect of this on members of future courts.” Significantly, this107

concern reflected the pending British trial at Wupperthal of a number of these

same officials. A further confidential memo states that the newspaper story108

contained information of which the Court would have remained unaware had

it not been for the newspaper story. 109

At this distance, it is impossible to know what those hearing the case

actually knew about events at Natzweiler-Struthof. However, the massive

publicity of horrific conditions within Bergen-Belsen revealed the previous year

make it plausible that some of those concerned in investigating the case wished

for similar background information to ‘come out’ in the Natzweiler Trial. As

a result of the conduct of the trial, especially the absence of any evidence

concerning the purpose and history of the camp, some may have feared that

those accused would be leniently treated and possibly not convicted in this and

the British trial due to follow. In addition, those involved in investigating these

and other murders at Natzweiler-Struthof, including Allied and SAS soldiers

imprisoned at that camp, were well aware of the then chaotic state of affairs

within the French war crimes detection and prosecution system (see earlier).

Thus, they may have believed that the French would never manage to bring

these concentration camp officials to trial, allowing some to escape punishment

for their acts perpetrated at Natzweiler-Struthof on French soil. However, the

French trial took place at Rastatt in January 1947 when fifteen defendants were

sentenced to death and executed.110

Finally, in all probability Galitzine himself was the leak for these

newspaper stories. As a former Daily Express reporter Galitzine wrote a

newspaper report on that camp after his visit there in August 1944 to gather

‘political intelligence’ about the German occupation. During that visit,111

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US: http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/listofholdingshtml/listofholdingsJ/JACK

SONCDPapers193167.pdf [3 June 2006].

112 Galitzine had a more personal connection with FANY. He married Jean Dawnay,

a FANY officer and former cipher expert who acted as an assistant to Air Chief

Marshal Sholto Douglas in Berlin, then served later with the Control Commission.

Cited in author's cuts, Anthony Beevor, Berlin the Downfall 1945: http://www.

antonybeevor.com/Berlin/berlin-authorcuts.htm [3 June 2006].

113 Reg. 8 (1) of the Royal Warrant. These include written statements made under

oath, which would not be received as evidence in English Courts. Similarly, Reg.

8 (1) a, permits uncorroborated reports of conversations as evidence.

114 “If the Officer agrees, only on the grounds of ‘substantial miscarriage of justice,’

then the case is referred to JAG. This position has not been challenged in Britain

but has been the subject of judicial review in the US: ex parte Quirin and others

(1942), in re Yamashita (1946), re Homma (1946): Law Reports of Trials of War

Criminals, The UNWCC, Vol. I, (London: HMSO, 1947).

Galitzine had collected witness information against a number of these SS

defendants for the brutal murders of camp inmates; Aus-Dem Bruch, Harjen-

stein, Ganninger (suicide before trial), Rohde, Straub and Zeuss. As a result, it

is not unreasonable to deduce that Natzweiler-Struthof had become a personal

matter for him, as indeed for Atkins. 112

In conclusion, this brief reconstruction of these particular aspects of the

Natzweiler Trial raises certain questions; for example, the transcript reveals

constant mis-citing of the Hague Regultions as the Geneva Convention. In

addition, the evidence of a ‘partial’ Allied prisoner, contrary to the broader

‘legal’ realities of Nazi Germany, established the non-existence of ad hoc

German courts to try captured Allied soldiers and others. The rules of evidence

in Allied courts-martial, as amended by the Royal Warrant, allowed these courts

to accept statements or documents that would assist in proving or disproving the

charges, even though such evidence would not be admissible before a Field

General Court-martial. Moreover, the sole avenue of appeal against113

sentencing (which included death by hanging or shooting) consisted of the right

to submit a petition to the Confirming Officer within 14 days. As such, this114

writer will return to this subject at another time, but the conduct of the trial

itself indicates another area for further research.

2 SAS and War Crimes InvestigationsIn this and other contexts discussed above, a number of questions remain

concerning the almost ‘dad’s army’ activities of 2 SAS WCIT. The most

immediate is, precisely on what basis did they select crimes for investigation

given their occasional wider activities than concern with their own regimental

casualties? As such, personal motivation itself was not entirely unusual in

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115 NA, AIR/10121. (SH). In fact, this trial was one of the last to take place: Jones,

“Nazi Atrocities”.

116 Atkins spent a year in pursuit of information concerning 118 missing F agents, she

discovered the fate of 117: Foot, SOE, 356.

117 11 May 45. Letter: “Unknown Sender German” [65th Infantry Division] to father

of Capt Dudgeon d. Italy 3 Oct 1943 on the road Parma-La Spenzia. One of 2

British soldiers several hundred miles behind enemy lines carrying explosives

who: “would probably be shot”, by “existing order of the Fuhrer”: NA, WO

311/630. 7 Aug 45: Confidential memo, HQ Brit Airborne Corps Herts. To Under

Sec State WO AG3 (VW): “[A]ttached is copy letter received 2SAS from German

Officer Victor Schmit describing the shooting of Capt Dudgeon, Gen von Zielberg

responsible, should he be dealt with as War Criminal. Do you wish Capt. Parker

2 SAS to take up this with AFHQ when he goes out to Italy?” Copy JAG, ibid. 23

August 45, “Teleg from Troopers AG3 to HQ 1 Brit Airborne Corp.” “Gen von

Zeilberg not held in UK. Name sent to Central Registry with special enquiry”, ibid.

British war crimes investigations. The prosecutions resulting from the murder

of those British service men who escaped from Stalag Luft III, began with a

small group deciding privately that something should be done, and initiating

enquiries. Equally, the MRES teams were instructed that if they found115

evidence of war crimes, they could pursue the matter in their own time. For 2

SAS, one motive was undoubtedly avenging the murder of colleagues. By

contrast, the Natzweiler-Struthof investigation extended further than their usual

remit and resulted from a combination of circumstances; legally qualifying

‘British’ victims in the camp (including SAS), the winding down of SOE and

perhaps, Atkins’ own personal needs for resolution. Atkins’ SOE involve-116

ment was on a micro, almost personal level. She contacted Somerhaugh, was

presumably sent by him to Barkworth, who shared her interest in ensuring these

prosecutions. Once at Gaggenau, Atkins could draw on the information the

team had obtained.

Other SAS investigations appear fortuitous; the father of Captain Dudgeon,

a prisoner shot in Germany, triggered one such example recorded within the

files. The father received a letter from Schmidt, a German officer and translator.

That letter recounts how Schmidt spent the last night with the condemned

soldier and that he had promised to inform his family of his fate; the father

passed this letter on to 2 SAS. As a result, enquiries were set in motion to locate

and detain the German general responsible for issuing the orders to have this

soldier shot. These and other associated investigations raise further issues,117

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118 For example, there is evidence of referrals to the IMT: 4 July 46. Message to

Nuremberg: “… have you objection to execution of Andergassen, Storz, Schiffer

sentenced to death by CMF for murder of 2 British and 4 Americans at Bolzano

about 19 Mar 45?”, ibid.; 15 July 46. Secret Cypher Teleg. “From AFHQ to

AGWAR ref NAF 1167”, “no reply UNWCC London or ONGUS if interested in

these men as witnesses or to be interrogated therefore stay of execution pending

further instructions”, ibid; 17 July 46: Secret Cypher Teleg: “From AFHQ Italy to

AGWAR”, “ref your TAM 775 execution stayed pending your instructions. US

Chief Consul Nuremburg IMT and Cabinet Offices have advised they do not desire

subjects”, ibid.

119 Jones, “Nazi Atrocities.”

120 Hadaway, “Royal Air Force”: NA, AIR 2/7088/31. (SH).

121 Report from Galitzine, “Report of visit to N. W. Europe, Sept 10 – Sept 15 1945,”

19 September 1945: NA, WO 311/695. Kramer was tried and sentenced to death

by hanging at the earlier Belsen Trial, 27 November 1945: Phillips, Trial of Joseph

Kramer, 643.

questions and problems, not least the need for a detailed study of the procedures

by which wanted individuals were brought to trial for specific offences.118

As noted above, the decision to bring prosecutions based upon evidence

brought before them, lay with JAG. For its part, the British government

evidenced a marked reluctance to participate in the later ‘show trial’ elements

of the IMT, such as the industrialists’ trials. Only the first British trial, the119

Belsen Trial at Luneberg on 17 September, a month before the IMT at

Nuremberg, demonstrated some of that grandstanding element; perhaps due

more to the numbers of accused, the widely reported horrors which were

recounted in the evidence and the three month duration of that trial rather than

any deliberate intention. In fact, the declassified files examined by thie writer

to date indicate that in the ‘minor’ trials individuals were brought to court under

the Royal Warrant, as and when prosecution cases were ready. Thus, in July

1946 when 19 Section 4 MRES Unit tried to find the perpetrators of a murdered

Canadian aircrew to aid in identification of the remains, they found two had

been executed and one already sentenced for these crimes to 15 years hard

labour. A rather pragmatic tone emerges; thus in one early example to stand120

for many, Galitzine reported that Kramer, later convicted and sentenced to

death at the Belsen Trial, was sought from the French: “so that he might take

his stand as chief accused in the Struthof [Natzweiler] trial as he had formerly

been Camp Commandant there for [three and a half] years whereas he had only

been at Belsen for three months”. The report continued: “[the French] did not

mind if Kramer had already been condemned to death by us first, or whether he

would have to be returned to us after to be executed, so long as he was

executed”. Such an attitude may give the support to the appearance of121

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122 For an extensive list of contemporary legal analysis see: Norman Tutorow, War

Crimes, War Criminals and War Crimes Trials (NY: Greenwood Press, 1987), 58-

69, 313-17.

123 Phillips, Trial of Joseph Kramer, 174.

124 Peter Mason, Official Assassin: Winston Churchill’s SAS Hit Team (Williamstown

NJ: Phillips Publications, 1998). This autobiography vividly evokes the military

and civilian environment in Germany at the end of the war.

125 Mason identifies these men as Klaus Baur, Abwehr, specializing in Soviet

communications and SS Unterscharfuehrer Leopold Opelt from Natzweiler-

Struthof. The latter’s assassination ordered in the presence of Barkworth by CO

WO (unnamed), Galitzine having left the room: Official Assassin, 29-30; 129-39.

In support a file entry of 19 April 1946, lists Opelt as: ‘wanted for murder of four

women and 30 SAS’: WO 311/742; later Opelt is listed in the files as: ‘wanted for

the murder of 16 British parachutists’: NA, WO 311/743. A third victim, Otto

Ortegies, a Hitler Youth leader is named by Mason in an interview with the

‘victor’s justice’ apparently revealed within the transcript of Natzweiler and

other trials, the subject of much contemporary legal criticism. However, that122

perspective requires nuancing given the horrific crimes committed by this

individual who was later executed for the war crimes he committed while at

Belsen and Auschwitz. Indeed, during that trial, under cross-examination by

Colonel Backhouse, Kramer gave evidence that the gas chamber at Natzweiler-

Struthof was constructed under his authority; in addition, he had been ordered

by Himmler and had complied with those instructions to gas eighty prisoners

and supply the bodies to Dr Hoess at the University of Strasbourg for the

purposes of ‘medical’ experiments.123

It is noticeable from the files, particularly in the reports and memos

concerning 2 SAS from other branches of the military establishment, that there

is something idiosyncratic about them and their modus operandi. One example,

considered earlier concerns their possible involvement in breaking the silence

ordered by the court in the Natzweiler Trial in order to publicise the events at

that camp to the British public. Perhaps they hoped a public outcry would

influence a severe verdict against the accused next time as only one of these

war criminals received the death sentence at this trial. If 2 SAS were concerned

in the ‘leak’ it adds weight to a much more dramatic allegation about the role

of that regiment in war crimes investigations. That is, a claim by a former

member of 2 SAS who alleges that Barkworth’s personal involvement went

beyond his ‘official’ role. This consists of an allegation by Peter Mason, a124

former SAS soldier, that two secret teams of assassins worked under Barkworth

with WO support and funding, to collect and execute German war crimes

suspects; he names two of his victims as Baur and Opelt whom, he claims, were

unlikely to be brought before a court and convicted. There is supporting125

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Sunday Times, 28 December 1999.

126 Nd. note, probably 7/8 August 1945: Capt Parker AAC 2 SAS: ‘with jeep and

driver is authorized to proceed on duty to Italy by road at the request of AFHQ

pass through American, French and British Zones and get assistance, rations, etc

from each’. NA, WO 311/630. Memos between 10/21 August 1945; ‘AG3 (VW)

to HQ Brit Airborne Corps Herts. Parker. 2 copies of authority forwarded.’ This

document gives details of the complexity of travel and assorted authorities

required, and is issued by AG3(VW).

127 19 April 1946. Machatachek, Opelt, Stark, Koch, Grim, for the murders of four

women and 30 SAS, AAG to US WCB: NA, WO 311/742

128 Kemp, Secret Hunters, 115.

129 Mason, Official Assassin, 131.

130 2 September, 1946. Opelt listed; 6 September to extradition section, US, with

photograph of Opelt; on 18 September approx. nd. teletype message Barkworth

wants photograph of Opelt (returned?); same date telephone message (unusual),

Barkworth requesting: ‘sit rep on Opelt’: NA, WO 311/744. On Mason’s claim to

have been shown Opelt’s photograph: Official Assassin, 131.

evidence within the WO files to substantiate the administrative processes

involved in traveling through occupied Europe that Mason describes, with

evidence to show that some travel is authorised at the War Office, as Mason

claims occurred in the case of Opelt. Moreover, the files further reveal that126

‘Opelt’ was actively being sought by 2 SAS WCIT nine days before the

Natzweiler Trial, both for the murder of the four women at Natzweiler-Struthof

and in connection with the murder of thirty members of 2 SAS in Operation

Loyton, whose loss precipitated the setting up of 2 SAS WCIT. In addition,127

the name ‘Fritz Opelt’ appears earlier in the suspect list attached to Captain

Galitzine’s report on Natzweiler-Struthof, written in December 1944. Thus,128

in the light of the above and earlier discussions concerning Galitzine’s

dedication to war crimes investigations, Mason’s account, which includes

Galitzine as being present at the early stages of the meeting where the

assassination order was later given, is plausible. At this time, he describes that

captain: “almost out of uniform with his suede chukka boots and corduroy

slacks,” launching into: “a lengthy tirade against the apathy of BAOR with

regards to the apprehension of war criminals.”129

Finally, Mason claims that he was shown a photograph of Opelt, and WO

records support that assertion, revealing that Barkworth sought the return of

Opelt’s photograph on 18 September 1946, from US extradition section where

he had sent it two weeks earlier. At this point, it was too late for Opelt to be130

put on trial by the British as a second British war crimes trial of Natzweiler-

Struthof camp officials been already held at Wupperthal in June 1946.

Moreover, given the history of disorganisation within the French war

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131 NA, WO 311/744.

132 Mason, Official Assassin,131-40. For the significance of British rather than US

involvement in this alleged assassination see: Kevin Conley Ruffner, “You are

Never Going to Be Able to Run an Intelligence Unit: SSU Confronts the Black

Market in Berlin”, Journal of Intelligence History 2 (2002). Mason describes the

OSS as unable to infiltrate Opelt’s gang as they are: “a little squeaky clean”:

Official Assassin, 132.

133 Mason, Official Assassin, 28. Further details are provided in an interview Mason

gave to the Sunday Times, 28 December 1997.

134 See for example: Shai Lavi, “‘The Jews are Coming’: Violence and Revenge in

post-Nazi Europe”, Law Culture and the Humanities 1 (2005): 282-301.

investigations at this time (see earlier) a trial for those camp officials not yet

captured may have appeared unlikely.

In this context, ‘Opelt’ is mentioned in a series of memos and requests in

the month of September 1946 but the last mention of him in the files is

approximately datable to 18 September 1946 and appears in that record of a

telephone conversation; significantly perhaps the only record of any telephone

message within the WO SAS WCIT file series for 1 September 1946-31 May

1947. It is noticeable, that although Mason provides no date for this alleged131

order to kill Opelt, he describes Munich as wintry and cold in his account of the

assassination. Furthermore, when considered in the context of recent research

into the involvement of US intelligence officials in illicit activities, Mason’s

claim that Opelt was a black marketeer in Munich and that he and his unit were

to report to US authorities only after the killing lends more plausibility to the

story. Finally, further corroborating evidence of Mason’s activities with this132

unit is his claim to have a copy of a document with the code, “AG-3-VW”, the

correct file code for that department of the War Office; responsible amongst

other things for travel documents. This is particularly persuasive, as these133

documents were not released to the public until summer 2005, seven years after

the publication of Mason’s book in the United States.

Although the evidence supporting Mason’s allegations is circumstantial,

it would be naïve to dismiss this account out of hand, made more possible in the

chaotic circumstances that prevailed in post-war Europe, including many

revenge killings. Moreover, there is at least one later account of unconven-134

tional behaviour by Barkworth and his team at their Gaggenau HQ. The case

in point, concerns an allegation that a séance was held to find missing bodies,

involving Barkworth, Galitzine, some other soldiers and an ouija board. The

session resulted in the glass spelling out: “Killed at Cirey in the Vosges”;

Galitzine remembers that they drove eighty miles to the village. Three

unmarked graves were located and Galitzine found himself in trouble when he

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135 “Barkworth, who was no respecter of persons, started being fairly rough with [the

peasants] … but after a bit of bullying and kicking doors we found a pair of flying

boots in somebody’s house”: Kemp, Secret Hunters, 64-65.

136 For example, 2 SAS CSM Rhodes impersonated a Warrant Officer to pick up a

German working for the US Army Legal Department: Kemp, Secret Hunters, 63.

137 The SAS seemed to attract more than its share of aristocrats; for example, Major

the Honourable J. J. Astor, drafted into the Brigade as a radio operator: Ladd, SAS

Operations, 69; one former soldier recalls: “they seemed to favour the swashbuck-

ling informality of the SAS”: Challoner and Draper, Tanky Challenor: SAS and the

Met (London: Leo Cooper, 1990), 116; and another: “… all the time I served with

the SAS I never quite overcame the impression that I belonged to a species of

banditti”: John Hislop, Anything but a Soldier (London: Michael Joseph, 1965),

122-23; “The SAS had room for the buccaneer”: Foot, SOE, 241. See also:

McLuskey, on the ‘glamour’ of these Special Forces soldiers and the informal

relationship between officers and men: Parachute Padre, 50-51, 55; Harrison

These Men are Dangerous.

138 For a full discussion of this mythology see: Newsinger, Dangerous Men, 77-85.

139 In at least one case MRES officers hypnotized a gravedigger, who was then able

to re-locate an unmarked grave where he had buried some aircrew several years

before: Hadaway, “The Royal Air Force.” Galitzine recalls Harris, Assistant

Adjutant-General for 21 Army Group, stating that Barkworth was his own worst

enemy: “He will in fact insult generals or brigadiers … He’ll walk into a mess

improperly dressed or he’ll bring a sergeant-major into the officer’s mess …”:

Kemp, Secret Hunters, 52.

reported this procedure to the Adjutant-General in London. It is arguable, that135

the real source or method by which the information was obtained was so

sensitive that these participants would prefer public ridicule to exposure. Or

perhaps, this is another example of the taste for the occult occasionally

exhibited by security services? Similarly Kemp recounts two examples when

Barkworth and CSM Rhodes resorted to trickery to pick up prisoners. In136

short, personal reminiscences reveal that 2 SAS WCIT possessed a reputation

for eccentric behaviour. At this point, the writer wishes to make it clear that137

she is not following the trend to mythologize the Brigade as some SAS histories

have tended to do, rather to make a specific comparison with the RAF in World

War II. That too was a highly dynamic organisation, also in many ways quite138

unorthodox in its methods; it is noticeable that, both the RAF and SAS appear

to have sometimes gone out of their way to prove that they were different. 139

However, the dedication of 2 SAS towards their task is also evident. The

WO/SAS files reveal both the volume of war crimes cases and suspected

individuals with which 2 SAS WCIT were concerned in that first year of

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140 See files on SAS war crimes investigation: France and Germany, 1 May1945- 31

October 1945: NA, WO 311/695; 31 October 1945-30 November 1945: NA, WO

311/696; 1 December 1945-31 December 1945: NA, WO 311/697; 1 June 1945-28

February 1945: WO 311/698; 1 January 1946-31 March 1946: NA, WO 311/699;

1 March 1946-31 March 1946: NA, WO 311/700; 1 September 1946-31 October

1946: NA, WO 311/701; 1 April 1945-31 March 1947: NA, WO 311/702.

Affidavits and trial exhibits: NA WO311/665; War crimes policy file, France and

Germany, 1 July 1945-3 May 1946: NA, WO311/694; 1 May1945- 31 October

1945: NA, WO 311/695; SAS War crimes cases vol 1; folios 1-100. Indexed, 1

August 1945-31 May 1946: NA, WO 311/742; SAS War crimes cases vol 2; folios

101-199. Indexed, 1 May 1946-31 August 1946: NA, WO 311/743; SAS War

Crimes Investigation File, 1 October 1945-28 February 1946: NA, WO 311/747.

141 Sometimes 2 SAS provided evidence of innocence: “This man is stated to be able

to give evidence that the accused was NOT at the scene of the murder”.

“REQUEST FOR A DELIVERY OF A PERSON DESIGNATED A WITNESS

IN A TRIAL FOR A WAR CRIME”, 14 May 1946: NA, WO 311/743.

operation. As such, these files contain numerous copies of requests for the140

handing over of witnesses and accused for trial and they disclose that Bark-

worth’s continuing good, indeed personal, relations with the Americans

facilitated the handing over of many suspects. Moreover, these documents

reveal that 2 SAS WCIT were both determined and proactive in gathering

evidence both for the prosecution and defence in war crimes trials.141

In conclusion, there seems to be no formal overarching structures,

processes or procedures informing 2 SAS WCIT activities. In this context, it is

possible to read the declassified files as a glorified Boys’ Own adventure by 2

SAS. If that is so, it is possible to posit that some guilty individuals may have

escaped punishment for war crimes, simply because they ‘fell off the radar’ of

those responsible for investigating those crimes; alternatively, given the

pressure on the Army WCITs, many who had murdered SAS soldiers and

others, and who might have otherwise escaped prosecution, were located by 2

SAS WCIT. Thus, any negative perception of such ad hoc procedures, when

considered both in this context and within the broader context of the geo-

political imperative to end these trials, cannot be seen as a serious criticism. In

summary, the archival research undertaken to date supports a view of 2SAS

WCIT as a very British story of a shoestring operation that succeeded through

the personal dedication of committed and tenacious individuals, whilst fighting

what sometimes appears to be a malignant Blimpish military bureaucracy. Such

a stereotype requires challenging via a more detailed investigation of the

operational context of WCIT in Europe, the role of CROWCASS, that of JAG,

the various investigative groups (including the associated security services) and

analysis of the courts-martial themselves.

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142 History UNWCC, 344-91, 461-75.

143 British military courts heard 357 war crimes cases between 23 July 1945 and 19

December 1949, involving over 1,000 Axis nationals and collaborators: Jones,

“Nazi Atrocities”, 543-44.

In short, there remains much in the archives to be discovered. This writer’s

research project, currently underway, will look behind the apparently chaotic

state of affairs discussed above, to ascertain the detailed operation of the

pervasive military organisation underpinning war crimes prosecutions in the

‘minor’ trials, summarised broadly by the UNWCC in 1948. As such, this142

writer hopes that this necessarily brief historical reconstruction of the war

crimes investigation role of 2 SAS will encourage further interdisciplinary

research by intelligence historians, socio-legal scholars and others, into the role

of military and security services in British ‘minor’ war crimes investigations,

and thus begin the process which will enable the work of those individuals to

be reappraised within their wider contemporary context. The significance of

that role becomes evident with recognition that over half of all war crimes trials

within the British zone concerned war crimes against British and other Allied

military personnel, mostly airmen.143

It is arguable, that the most contentious issue that emerges to date from this

research is the immediacy of Barkworth, Galitzine, Atkins, Stonehouse and

O’Leary’s involvement in the Natzweiler Trial. As such, their involvement was

more intimate and personal than that of the OSS in war crimes investigations.

OSS involvement in the IMT included the provision of reports written during

the war, some influence upon trial policy and the procuring of huge numbers

of documents. At the Natzweiler Trial, the intelligence officers gave evidence

and in both Atkins’ and Barkworth’s cases sought out and interviewed

witnesses and accused. Little supporting external documentation was apparently

available, so perhaps such a high level of personal involvement by intelligence

officials in these circumstances was not an extraordinary and unusual event,

however in certain aspects they were the evidence.

More significantly, there are implications for the operation of the rule of

law in the contradictory position of such involvement, as indeed of the trial

process itself. The conduct of a trial should exemplify the rationale of the

institution of legality, encompassing impartiality, in order to hold the defen-

dants accountable to reasonable legal principles. As such, the ‘minor’ trials

themselves, in the choice of amended British courts-martial’ procedures to try

foreign nationals on foreign soil, epitomise political control of judicial process

contrary to a fundamental principle of the rule of law. Thus the instrumentalism

of the geo-political aims of these trials and perhaps the actions of intelligence

officials and 2 SAS, could be seen in retrospect as being in contrast with the

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144 25 August 1945, Capt Scott Intelligence Troop 2 SAS Colchester Essex to

Galitzine. Discusses the interrogation of Schmidt. Gives details of who was

responsible plus two more shot, Foster and Shortall. Scott suggests that if Schmidt

continues to co-operate there: “might be reason to hope for commutation life

sentence”. NA, WO 311/630. See also; Capt. Y. N. Galitzine, “Report of visit to

N. W. Europe, Sept. 10 – Sept. 15 1945,” 19 September 1945: NA, WOth th

311/695.

145 By comparison, OSS’ ‘manipulation’ within the Nuremberg trial process appears

to have operated at a much higher level: Von Lingen and Salter, “Contrasting

Strategies,” concerning the immunity from prosecution given to Waffen SS

General Karl Wolff.

146 Kemp, Secret Hunters, 61.

147 One account states that between 1940 and 1944 a total of 45,000 inmates were sent

there, of whom 25,000 perished, mostly worked to death; more died in the seventy

satellite camps. Many prisoners were resistors classified as Nacht und Nebel.

normative aims of the process of justice in action, bringing the ‘core values’ of

legality into disrepute. This instrumentalism for those involved was facilitated

by the nature of what may have been a degree of autonomy, for example by 2

SAS WCIT and Atkins of SOE, in their investigations. Furthermore, they

possessed the authority to provide “incentives” for witnesses to appear in

court. Such instrumentalism appears to have been furthered by their144

‘partiality’ in that they had a personal interest in those convictions. However,145

as discussed further below, this is too simplistic an analysis, Barkworth himself

was aware of this issue and hoped for a better verdict from history. In a report

on his investigations into the St. Die Case, he expressed the: “…confident

expectation that the trial of those concerned will be conducted in such a manner

that [in the future] the proceedings will be regarded as an example of strict

impartial justice and not of revenge”.146

ConclusionIt is all too easy for critics to associate security forces, including intelligence

services, as almost intrinsically suspect institutions associated with systematic

violations of the rule of law in their performance of the darker functions

required by the state. The partiality and apparent instrumentalism of the

intelligence input into the Natzweiler-Struthof convictions could be read as

such an example. There is, however, a further perspective that serves to nuance

this judgment, as there is a missing aspect of the Natzweiler Trial if it is read

in isolation. Namely, that all the accused were directly implicated in at least

some of the deaths of those 25,000 inmates who died in that camp, victims of

a specific locational genocide perpetrated by the named accused and others;

those victims are not recorded within this case. That absence, and those acts147

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Others died as victims of pseudo-medical experiments. Camp victims included

Jews, Gypsies, POWs, resistance fighters, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnessess:

Adamo and Herve, Natzweiler-Struthof. Yad Vashem holds photographs of the

bodies of camp prisoners: http://microformguides.gale.com/Data/Download/

3061000F.pdf [2 August 2006].

148 Galitzine stated forty years later: “I’d had a lot of very scarring experiences … For

many years I just could not bear to be in the same room with a German and it made

me absolutely shake … at the back of my mind, I shall never forget what happened

before and I think it was very important that we did look for these people. I think

it was very important they were brought to justice …[so] that young people …

know what happened … because it could happen again”: Kemp, Secret Hunters,

96-97.

149 This is particularly true of the massacre of European Jewry: Bloxham, Genocide

on Trial. Muriel Klein-Zolty, “Perception du Genocide juif dans le ‘DNA’ et dans

Le Monde de 1944 a 1946,” Le Monde Juif, no.150 (1994), 109-20. On the

theoretical and intelligence background to US choice to prioritize persecution of

Christian Churches see: C. Hulme and M. Salter, ‘The Nazi’s persecution of

religion as a war crime: the OSS’s response within the Nuremberg trials process,’

Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion (2002) at: http://www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/

publications/law-religion/articles/ RJLR_3_1_2.pdf [10 May 2006]; Salter, “The

Visibility of the Holocaust: Franz Neumann and the Nuremberg Trials,” in Robert

Fine ed., Social Theory After the Holocaust (Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Press,

2000), 201-11. For an historian’s alternative reading of this choice see: Donald

Bloxham, “The Genocidal Past in Western Germany and the Experience of

Occupation, 1945-6,” European History Quarterly 34 (2004): 305-35.

perpetrated by the accused, may have been a further motive for Galitzine (if it

were he) or someone else, to leak the story of one aspect of this system of

death. Such publicity and transparency, contrary to the wishes of JAG and148

SOE is anathema to intelligence agencies, but a vital feature of the operation of

the rule of law. Here the official British government and JAG policy of

restricted publicity evident at this trial appears instrumentalist, and it was

(perhaps) some of these war crimes investigators (absent the assassination

story) who were expressing normative values of justice.

The genocidal intent of the Nazi government and selective Allied

Nuremberg-blindness to that intent has been considered elsewhere. Even so,149

Natzweiler-Struthof was the sole concentration camp on French soil, designed

to work prisoners to death and commodify inmates in other ways, for example

in medical experiments; a trope encompassing in microcosm every horror

perpetrated by the Nazi regime, and yet this fact does not appear within the

transcript of this trial of that camp’s most culpable officials. Indeed the editor

of the published trial transcript lauds this: “It is significant how no attempt is

made to prejudice the Court by dramatizing the background of the concentra-

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151 Donald Bloxham, “Genocidal Past in Western Germany”, Genocide on Trial;

Bernard D. Meltzer, “The Nuremberg Trial: A Prosecutor’s Perspective,” Journal

of Genocide Research 4 (2002): 561-68. For a very differing perspective, see:

Henry T. King Jr, “Robert H. Jackson and the Triumph of Justice at Nuremberg,”

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 35 (2003): 263-72. King and

Meltzer were both part of the US prosecution team at Nuremberg.

152 Mark Findlay and Ralph Henham, Transforming International Criminal Justice

(Devon: Willan Publishing, 2005), ix-xx. This work identifies access and inclusion

as the primary indication of fairness to all, in particular lay participants within the

trial process and develops the theme of restorative justice. Indeed, in recognition

of the impossibility of continuing the process and with some sense of its legal

failure, the FO moved: “to establish the rule of law in the British zone … as soon

as possible … move towards a more normal [sic] situation in all legal matters”:

Draft FO memorandum, undated: NA, FO 371 70815 cG495/34/184.

tion camp”. Such blindness was a function and result of the historico-legal150

context of this ‘minor’ war crimes trial. As such, in the story of this trial told151

within the transcript and read today, justice remains truly blindfold, telling a

censored tale of four victims out of tens of thousands who suffered an equally

dreadful fate in that same place, thus limiting the scope of this trial’s historical

resonance. This perception is furthered by knowledge of the court’s instructions

to journalists to suppress details and accentuated by the angry response to the

disclosures from JAG and the WO in London. The significance of these

restrictions should not be underestimated when the role of the trial in interna-

tional criminal justice is taken into account: “[T]he trial is the most public

display of interactive decision-making in the justice process, and is what the

public, the politician and the policy-maker equate with justice in action”. 152

If this is so, then this ‘minor’ British war crimes trial in Germany could be

reconstructed as presenting a censored, inadequate picture of the rule of law.

However, this is only part of the picture, this case must be read in conjunction

with the later British and French trials of these and other accused. In this

context, any reconstruction of the background to the Natzweiler Trial requires

recognition that these further trials were pending, and that 2 SAS and others

were involved in locating and interrogating at least some of those accused. The

delay in finding all the accused and doubts about the probability of the French

trial and perhaps an all-too-human urge to influence any outcomes, when

viewed from the context of the weakness of the legal conduct of the British

Natzweiler Trial (the subject of a companion article) offers an explanation for

leaking details in a lurid manner, as London recognized. Moreover, Natzweiler-

Struthof was for the French what Belsen was for the British; to the extent that

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153 IMT, vi, 278-88; Bloxham, Genocide on Trial, 100-102.

154 Bloxham, Genocide on Trial, 54.

155 For discussion of this see: Salter and Charlesworth, ‘Prosecuting and Defending

Diplomats as War Criminals: Ribbentrop at the Nuremberg Trial,’ Liverpool Law

Review 27 (2006): 67-96 at 67-77.

a former inmate of that camp was chosen to give evidence on behalf of the

French at the IMT, to typify concentration camp atrocities.153

Looking back today, we can see the narrow, incomplete, political as much

as punitive role of these ‘minor’ war crimes trials as an expression of their time.

However, such apparent blindness to genocide as is revealed in this case study,

can no longer be pleaded as an excuse, either for the researcher or in the

conduct of contemporary war crimes trials; this is especially pertinent for

intelligence studies which rely upon case studies of the past to inform modern

analysis. Bloxham describes the lack of prosecution of the far more widespread

and extreme crimes against non-British victims as a matter at the time for: “a

more metaphorical, limited reckoning”. As such, there is a danger that154

modern war crimes trials may produce their own versions of a more than

“metaphorical” denial of justice and the rule of law. Law is historically

contingent, perpetually renegotiated; indeed Bloxham’s own critique of

Nuremberg requires nuancing by the recognition that the IMT in its successful

prosecutions, provided the fundamental legal foundation of the current norms

and definitions of grave international crimes. However, embedded within that155

influence is a legal forgetting, even ignorance, of the precise historical context

of these post-war war crimes trials, especially for those held away from the

spotlight of the well-researched IMT.

In conclusion, there are many aspects of British involvement in ‘minor’

war crimes trials to be explored. Not least, that further research into the

conduct, successes and failures of these investigations by serving soldiers,

assisted on occasion by security service personnel, may provide instructive in

illuminating aspects of similar investigations currently underway and provide

valuable lessons for future war crimes investigations and the conduct of

resulting trials.

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