Confronting Captivity: Britain and the United States and Their POWs in Nazi Germany

Notes

notes abbreviations ABC American-British-Canadian ADM Admiralty AGWAR Adjutant General, War Department AIR Air Ministry AOOH Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters CAB Cabinet CO Colonial Office CRC Combined Repatriation Committee DO Dominions Office ETO European Theater of Operations ETOUSA European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army FO Foreign Office FRUS U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers GRDS General Records of the Department of State INF Ministry of Information JIC Joint Intelligence Committee KV Records of the Security Service M.M. Military Mission MR Map Room Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library NACP National Archives, College Park, Maryland OCOS Office of the Chief of Staff ODPO Office of the Director of Plans and Operations OPD Operations Division, U.S. Army General Staff PHPS Post Hostilities Planning Section PREM Prime Minister Private Office PRO Public Record Office, Kew, England PWX Prisoners of War Executive Branch of the G-1 Division, SHAEF RG Record Group RIAUSMMM Records of the Interservice Agencies, U.S. Military Mission in Moscow ROPMG Records of the Office of Provost Marshal General RWDGSS Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs SSAGD Special Staff Adjutant General’s Division TS Treasury Solicitor WO War Office 288 notes to pages 1 – 9 introduction 1 Wild, Prisoner of Hope, 269. Wild was a chaplain with the British army when he fell prisoner to the Germans at Dunkirk in May 1940. Allowed to exercise his ministry as chaplain during his captivity, he was freed in January 1945 and arrived back in England in April 1945, after which he started ‘‘scribbl[ing] down into old notebooks all that I could remember about five years as prisoner’’ (11). 2 Ibid., 271. 3 PRO, FO916/1183, C. E. King, SHAEF, Political Office, British, to PWD, 30 May 1945; statistics of U.S. POWs, see below, chap. 3. On the difficulties involved in arriving at accurate numbers, see Nichol and Rennell, The Last Escape, app. 4; Vourkoutiotis, Prisoners of War and the German High Command, 5–6. 4 Churchill, Their Finest Hour, The Grand Alliance, The Hinge of the Fate, Closing the Ring, and Triumph and Tragedy; Burns, Roosevelt; Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins ; Stimson and McGeorge, On Active Service in Peace and War; Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull; Eden, The Eden Memoirs; Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe; Montgomery, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein; North, The Alexander Memoirs; Arnold, Global Mission; The Memoirs of General the Lord Ismay. 5 PRO, WO208/3242, message from the prime minister to the prisoners of war, 3 August 1941. 6 See, e.g., Moore and Fedorowich, Prisoners of War, 8; Mackenzie, ‘‘Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees,’’ 302–3, 308. 7 On German treatment of Soviet POWs, see Streim, Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener; Streit, Keine Kameraden; Bartov, The Eastern Front, 106–41; Werth, Russia at War, pt. 6, chap. 10; Schulte, The German Army, chap. 8; Förster, ‘‘The German Army,’’ 15–29; Fried, ‘‘The Fate of Soviet POWs,’’ 203–25; Junod, Warrior without Weapons, 202–7; Müller, ‘‘Die Behandlung sowjetischer kriegsgefangener ,’’ 283–302. 8 For a study on German policy toward British and American POWs based on German archival sources, see Vourkoutiotis, Prisoners of War and the German High Command. 9 Prisoners of War Bulletin (published by the American National Red Cross for the relatives of American prisoners of war and civilian internees) 2 (November 1944). 10 NACP, RG 59, GRDS, Decimal File, 1945–49, ‘‘American Prisoners of War in Germany ,’’ prepared by Military Intelligence Service, War Department, 1 November 1945. chapter one 1 Umbreit, ‘‘The Battle of Hegemony in Western Europe,’’ 278–304; Gilbert, The Second World War, 75–83; Atkin, Pillar of Fire. 2 Ray, The Night Blitz; Maier, ‘‘The Battle of Britain,’’ 2:374–407. 3 PRO, FO369/2562, American embassy to London, nos. 1892, 1883, 2 February 1940; each report covered seventeen aspects of camp life: General Description (Location, Buildings, Grounds, Security Measures, Air Raid Chambers); Capacity and Personnel; Interior Arrangements (Quarters, Bedding, Heat, Light); Bathing notes to pages 10 – 15 289 and Washing Facilities; Toilet Facilities; Food and Cooking; Medical Attention and Sickness; Clothing; Laundry; Money and Pay; Canteen; Religious Activity; Recreation and Exercise; Mail; Welfare Work; Complaints; and General Impressions . Three British officers who had succeeded in escaping from POW camps before the Dunkirk evacuation confirmed...