Bugging Hitler’s Soldiers is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2013.
It is an episode
of the long-running program Secrets of the Dead (season 12 episode 02).
The topic of this film is an interesting chapter in the long history of World War II.
Here are some basic facts about this film:
** Written and directed by Christopher Spencer
** Narrated by Jay O. Sanders
** Consultant: David Keys
** Run time: 53 minutes
This is the story about an ambitious and audacious intelligence operation that took place during World War Two.
A select group of German prisoners of war were transported to England where they did not end in prison or an internment camp.
Instead, they were housed in a stately home – Trent Park House – where they had access to radio and newspapers.
Some of the prisoners were high-ranking officers of the German army, and they thought they were being treated in this way as a sign of respect for their rank.
What they did not know was the fact that a branch of the British secret service MI 19 had prepared the house before the “guests” arrived.
The whole place was bugged, even some of the trees in the park were outfitted with microphones!
In the basement of the house, known as the M Room, a large group of “listeners” were waiting for any important topic that was discussed.
The German officers were among friends and they had no idea that the enemy was listening to every word that was being said.
Whenever something important was said, a listener would start a recording. Important conversations were recorded, transcribed and later translated into English. Why did MI 19 do this?
Here is the answer:
If we interrogate them, they will be reluctant to talk. We may get something out of them, but they may know much more than we can make them reveal. Let us try another approach.
We will leave them alone. We will let them talk to each other, and secretly listen to what they say. In this way we may discover more than by using a traditional method of interrogation. This experiment lasted until the end of the war.
When the war was over in 1945, MI 19 and the British government had to make a decision. Are we going to prosecute the prisoners of war and use their own words against them?
If we do this, we will have to reveal our source. We will have to reveal how we obtained this evidence. Are we ready to do this? The answer is no. We do not want the secret to be revealed.
As a result, no prisoner of war was prosecuted for war crimes based on what he had said during his stay at Trent Park House.
The documents were locked away in a secret archive and there they remained until a German historian – Sönke Neitzel - came across them by accident a few years ago. He was handed a package of almost 1,000 pages. The archive held another 49,000 pages.
But now the secret is out. Now we can all find out what these German officers talked about when they were talking to each other, believing they had total privacy. They did not realise that the enemy was listening to every word that was spoken.
The participants
Several persons are interviewed in this film.
Here are the
names of the participants:
** Helen Fry, author of The M Room (2012) (2013)
** Josh (or Joshua) Levine, a historian, author of Operation Fortitude (2011) (2012)
** Colonel Kevin Farrell, a military historian
** Sönke Neitzel, Professor of History at London School of Economics, author of Tapping Hitler’s Generals (2007) (2013)
** Fritz Lustig
(born 1919, emigrated to England 1939); he was a listener for MI 19 during the war
An on-screen message placed at the beginning of the film states:
“All the dialogue in this film was
spoken by German prisoners of war
between 1939 and 1945.
Nothing is made up.”
The prisoners of war
Several actors are used to re-enact some of the conversations that were recorded by the listeners during the war. Here are the names:
** Heinrich Kittel (1892-1969) - played by David Barras
** Dietrich von Choltitz (1894-1966) - played by Richard Freeman
** Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma (1891-1948) - played by Nicholas Farrell
** Ludwig Crüwell (1892-1958) - played by Rupert Frazer
** Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben (1894-1964) played by Peter Harding
The German officers did not agree on everything. Von Thoma represented the anti-Nazi line (he had never been a member of the party), while Crüwell represented the pro-Nazi line, who defended Hitler’s policies.
This division was regarded as a positive factor by MI 19, because the officers would argue with each other and in the heat of the moment important facts might be revealed.
The standard defence
After the war, most German soldiers defended themselves against accusations of atrocities and war crimes by using one of two arguments (or both of them):
The first argument - I did not know anything about the holocaust, about the genocide. If it happened, somebody else was responsible, perhaps the Waffen SS.
The second argument - If I ever did anything bad, I was merely following orders, and therefore I am not responsible for any negative consequences.
The conversations revealed in this film proves that both excuses were false.
The soldiers knew about the holocaust, about the genocide. They talked about it: what they had heard and what they had seen before they were captured.
When they did something bad, it was not always because they were following an order. In many cases, they were acting on their own initiative.
They violated the rights of their opponents, because they had the power to do so. They were responsible.
There are some flaws
This is an interesting film. Important facts about the war are revealed. But there are at least two flaws:
# 1. The budget. This operation is described as “ambitious” and “audacious.” But one adjective is missing here: expensive.
What about the budget? It must have been an expensive operation. How much money did MI 19 spend on it?
Bugging the whole place is one thing. But having a large staff of listeners working for several years, day in and day out, must have been quite costly.
Transcribing and translating thousands of conversations must also have been quite costly.
Given that many resources – manpower and money – were spent on this operation, it is only fair to ask:
What came out of it? Was it worth it? In which way was the information obtained from the bugging used in the war effort? We want to see a cost-benefit analysis.
The film does not say anything about the budget, and this is a flaw. I cannot understand how the producers can ignore this aspect of the operation.
As far as I can tell, the film only mentions one case where information obtained from the bugging was used in the war effort:
The British discovered how German planes could find their targets when they were bombing London and other English cities. A former pilot revealed that the Germans were using a radio beam.
When the British began to jam this radio beam, they were able to throw the German planes off course. In this way they saved lives.
# 2. The language. As stated above, the re-enactment of selected conversations is done by British actors who speak English! But this is a documentary film.
If there is a re-enactment, it should be as authentic as possible. The producers should have used German actors who speak German and their conversations should have been covered by English subtitles.
I think I know why this happened. I think the director is afraid of subtitles. He thinks the viewers will refuse to read subtitles. He decides the soundtrack must be in English, even though this is about German soldiers who are talking to each other.
I think the producers are wrong. Any person who wants to watch a film like this, is able and willing to read subtitles. There may even be viewers who can understand the original German conversations.
Why not stick to the German language? This would give the film more authenticity, make it more convincing.
If the director wanted the film to be realistic and to have a strong impact, he should have used German actors for the re-enactment. Using British actors who speak English was an unfortunate decision.
Conclusion
As stated above, this is an interesting film. The story of the bugging operation was buried in a secret archive for many years. Now the secret is out.
This film is good, but not great. There are some flaws which cannot be ignored. This is why I think it deserves a rating of four stars (80 percent).
REFERENCES
The M Room:
Secret Listeners Who Bugged the Nazis
By Helen Fry
(2012)
(2013)
Tapping Hitler’s Generals:
Transcripts of Secret Conversations 1942-1945
By Sönke Neitzel
(2007)
(2013)
The Walls Have Ears:
The Greatest Intelligence Operation of World War II
By Helen Fry
(2019)
(2020)
*****
Trent Park House
A special home for
selected German prisoners of war
during World War Two
*****
Seven German Prisoners of war
posing for a photo
in the park outside
Trent Park House
*****
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