Did torture work for Gestapo?

[ThomasG]

Did SD and Gestapo experts consider torture an effective interrogation tool? What kind of results did they achieve when using torture to interrogate prisoners?

[David Thompson]

ThomasG -- You asked (1)

Did SD and Gestapo experts consider torture an effective interrogation tool?

I've never seen any declassified or published attempt to collect this information. Certainly, some of the Nazis who escaped Europe after WWII ended, like Klaus Barbie, were able to obtain employment serving as internal security advisors to despotic regimes in the Middle East and Latin America.

(2)

What kind of results did they achieve when using torture to interrogate prisoners?

From my reading, many of the victims gave up names of persons. Whether the named persons had actually done anything criminal is hard to say, because the Nazi regime didn't put them on trial. The usual practice in Nazi-occupied western Europe for dealing with the individuals named by victims of torture appears to have been indefinite detention in concentration camps under the "Night and Fog" program in 1942-1943, with murder by death squads added as an alternative in the 1944-1945 period.

In the field of espionage, generally, the German Abwehr seems to have been more successful in "turning" enemy agents than either the SD or Gestapo. This is just an impression I've gotten from my own reading, however. Other readers may have more to add.

[Kanadon]

Torture works for everybody. Why would it be any different for Germans.

[ThomasG]

Torture works for everybody.

Does it? Lots of people are claiming that in Guantanamo it didn't work. Did Gestapo waterboard prisoners?

[UMachine]

Torture works for everybody.

Does it? Lots of people are claiming that in Guantanamo it didn't work. Did Gestapo waterboard prisoners?

Guantanamo was not serious torture.

[Kanadon]

Torture works for everybody.

Does it? Lots of people are claiming that in Guantanamo it didn't work. Did Gestapo waterboard prisoners?

I doubt those lots of people have access to top secret documents. As for what kind of torture Gestapo used, I don't know. It is very hard to find authentic info on this, because it's very easy to make stuff up and people will surely believe it, since it involves evil Germans.

[David Thompson]

because it's very easy to make stuff up and people will surely believe it, since it involves evil Germans.

Kanadon - Please stay on topic and avoid insulting overgeneralizations about nations. Our readers are looking for sourced information on the subject being discussed. You should already be aware of the rules here from these prior warnings and deletions:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1284125
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1284985
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 0#p1284990
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 3#p1287823
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2#p1285012
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2#p1288562
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 6#p1300106

[Kanadon]

Excuse me, but I just don't see where my insults were. Evil and nazis (Germans of that era) are synonyms for today's public, therefore people are bound to believe biased information about them, if it suits the stereotype. It's not my generalisation.

[David Thompson]

Evil and nazis (Germans of that era) are synonyms for today's public, therefore people are bound to believe biased information about them, if it suits the stereotype. It's not my generalisation.

You used it, and it falls within this prohibition of the section rules:

Posts containing insulting generalizations about nationalities, ethnic groups, societies or religious groups and practices are not permitted here. This includes remarks about collective responsibility.

H&WC Section Rules
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962

You are doing a disservice to our readers by underestimating their intelligence and learning. Please don't repeat the mistake.

[David Thompson]

An off-topic post from Kanadon was deleted by this moderator, pursuant to previous warnings -- DT.

[phylo_roadking]

Regarding the comments on waterboarding, IIRC it was M.R.D. Foot who mentioned that cold-water dunking to the point of asphyxiation...repetitively...was indeed a standard element of their repetoire.

[tonyh]

Torture works for everybody.

Does it? Lots of people are claiming that in Guantanamo it didn't work. Did Gestapo waterboard prisoners?

Guantanamo was not serious torture.

Ummmmm......I'm sure it's a great laugh.

Until you've through the waterboarding torture (or any of the other torture's used in Gitmo), I don't think you are remotely qualified to make such a remark.

As to the original question. I've no doubt that torture works (even for the Germans) in most cases and that elements within the Gestapo considered an effective measure. The question is and always has been, how reliable is the information gained from torture?

If it didn't work, the American's wouldn't be gagging at the bit to make it seem acceptable.

[phylo_roadking]

The question is and always has been, how reliable is the information gained from torture?

100%... Why? Because it's testable; if it's low-level intelligence...the plane doesn't land/guns aren't found/people aren't where you're told they're going to be - so what have you really lost? Nothing.

And if it's higher-level intelligence - you never act on...or never SHOULD act on...a single piece of information. It should be corroborated against other sources etc.

[South]

Good morning Thomas G.,

I'm not even attempting to answer your question; just to mention a good background book - at least I think it's good quality - to develop a foundation so as to get your question answered:

"VICTIMS OF TERRORISM", edited by Frank M. Ochberg and David A. Soskis, one of a series of books in the Westview Special Studies in National and International Terrorism, Boulder, Colorado, 1982, ISBN: 0-89158-463-3.

This book has a chapter titled "A Case Study:Gerald Vaders". This gives background on the environment during a terrorism event. Vaders was the Dutch newspaper editor seized by the South Muluccans on a train enroute to Amsterdam.

Another chapter is titled "The Meaning of Stress".

There's a chapter on "The Stockholm Syndrome: Law Enforcement Policy and Behavior".

In a chapter titled "The Effects of Captivity", by Leo Eitinger, page 74 has:

"Deprivation of freedom may be exacerbated by a high degree of physical restraint. The Nazis systemically tortured ceertain victims by means of confinement in the so-called 'Stehbunker', a cubicle so small that it was impossible to lie down or even sit down properly."

The next paragraph:

"Another only less slightly disagreeable Nazi torture forced prisoners to stand between two rows of electrically charged barbed wire for at least 24 hours, usually to reduce their powers of resistence before an interrogation.

Both above quotes from page 74.

Eitinger and the 2 editors are psychiatrists.

..........

I'm an Asia-ologist and from my Asia studies I consider = starvation = a form of torture. Was starvation used in WWII Europe?




Warm regards,

Bob

"What is to give light must endure burning." Viktor Frankl

[jola]

Was starvation used in WWII Europe?

In Auschwitz main camp's block 11(old numbering 13) there were standing cells and starvation cells. In the case below starvation was not used as torture to gain information but as an execution method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe

On 17 February 1941 he was arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison, and on May 28 he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670.

In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's barracks vanished, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in Block 13[7] (notorious for torture), in order to deter further escape attempts.[8] (The man who had disappeared was later found drowned in the camp latrine.) One of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

Here is one of the cells and some of the men and boys starved to death: