History: Bad Nenndorf
Establishment and role of the camp at Bad Nenndorf
The location of Bad Nenndorf in occupied Germany
The British interrogation centre at Bad Nenndorf was established within the spa town's mud baths complex, which was converted into a prison in June 1945. Although it was modelled on MI5's Camp 020 facility, it was run by the War Office - the predecessor of today's Ministry of Defence - rather than by MI5. It was staffed by personnel drawn from various departments of the British Armed Forces and intelligence community, including MI5.
Bad Nenndorf was at the forefront of intelligence gathering in the early Cold War. The camp's prisoners were divided into three distinct categories: self-confessed spies, political refugees and deserters.
Although it was a purely British facility, the other western Allies cooperated with the camp's work, sending prisoners to Bad Nenndorf from internment camps throughout the occupied zones of western Germany. They rarely remained at Bad Nenndorf for more than twelve months and, after they had been fully interrogated, were released back to their original places of internment.
The camp was formally known as No. 74 Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre Western European Area (CSDIC WEA). Its initial aim was to gather information on the German intelligence services, in part to prevent a post-war Nazi revival, which was seen as a real possibility in 1945.
Some of Hitler's most notorious henchmen were interrogated at Bad Nenndorf, including one of the Third Reich's main espionage chiefs, Horst Kopkow (whose MI5 files are now at The National Archives). Hitler's former adjutant, Nicholaus von Below, was sent there and revealed previously undisclosed details of Hitler's final communications to his generals.
The test pilot Hanna Reitsch was also interrogated at Bad Nenndorf under American supervision, as was Oswald Pohl, a senior Nazi official who participated in the Holocaust. His unrepentent statements to his interrogators at Bad Nenndorf were to play an important part in his later trial, at which he was sentenced to death.
However, as the Nazi threat in Germany declined, by mid-1946 the CSDIC began to re-orientate its efforts towards the Soviet Union. As the Cold War set in, the work of the CSDIC came to play an important role. British intelligence emerged from the Second World War knowing very little about the Soviets.
Interrogations at Bad Nenndorf consequently became a crucial source of information. They provided information on a range of subjects, such as Soviet scientific research and technology, most importantly atomic research, and the Soviet intelligence services. They also provided, as one report noted in 1947, "as complete an Order of Battle for the Red Army" as was possible to obtain at the time. Several suspected Soviet agents were interrogated at Bad Nenndorf, providing "unassailable evidence of Russian espionage within the British Zone in Germany", as Stephens put it.
