Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain

5. The Fate of Repatriation in Germany, Spain, and Beyond, 1947–1948

132 5 the fate of repatriation in germany, spain, and beyond, 1947–1948 The main actors in the history of Allied repatriation policy were the intelligence and diplomatic agents of the United States and the United Kingdom in Spain, the Spanish government, and the German colony. However, the occupation authorities in the U.S. zone of Germany, where all successfully repatriated Germans were sent, also played their part. Moreover, once a decision was made not to deport an individual, neither Spanish officials nor the German colony ceased their activities. Where, when, if, and how Germans moved around Europe did not change with the declining focus on repatriation in 1947 and 1948. Some who stayed in Spain grew weary and sought other places to live, such as Argentina; some who had been removed from Spain were released in Germany and sought ways to return to Spain or to travel to Argentina; some even remained in Germany. All of these movements are part of the history of repatriation of “obnoxious Germans” from Spain. repatriates in occupied germany The vast majority of those who returned to occupied Germany from Spain were sent to, or were transferred to, the U.S. zone of occupation . A very few who arrived on the British ship Highland Monarch were detained in the Neuengamme civilian internment camp in the British zone, while others were transferred to the U.S. zone. In the case of the Marine Perch, which sailed from Bilbao in June 1946, military guards on board came from the U.S. army force in occupied Germany and were accompanied by State Department of- ficials. Repatriates were then investigated by various authorities in Germany, who used transcripts of previous interviews conducted 133 Repatriation in Germany, Spain, and Beyond, 1947–1948 by U.S. embassy, consular, and intelligence officials in Spain, as well as documents found in Spain and in Germany. Generally there were three teams of investigators, one from the Allied Control Council’s Finance Division, one from the British Foreign Office, and one made up of representatives from both the U.S. State Department and U.S. Army intelligence. A basic intelligence interrogation for screening purposes was conducted upon arrival, and then the repatriate filled out the standard denazification questionnaire, the Fragebogen, which was given to all civilian internees in Germany. If all was fine, plans were made to release the repatriate from civilian internment; if not, interrogations by some or all of the various Allied agencies were scheduled. In practice , all internees from Spain were sent to the U.S. zone of occupation , so British interrogations beyond initial intelligence screenings were rare. The primary interrogators of intelligence and diplomatic personnel were members of the Office of the Political Advisor in Germany , led by the State Department. The two main interrogators were DeWitt Poole and Wendell Blancke, who concerned themselves with assessing Nazi Germany’s diplomatic and intelligence relationship with Franco’s Spain and with assessing connections developed by Nazi intelligence from Iberia, especially to the Western Hemisphere. In order to understand the relationship between Spain and Nazi Germany, the Allies interviewed not only repatriates but former diplomatic personnel who had returned to Germany before the war ended and often had not been interned. One such former diplomat was Ilse Koch, former secretary to the Luftwaffe intelligence unit in Madrid, who was repatriated on the Marine Perch in June 1946 and then released after initial interrogation in the British zone. While there, she was required to report to British authorities weekly while awaiting paperwork to allow her to rejoin her family in the Soviet zone. Koch was considered a lower-level bureaucrat and thus was not held, but the fact that she was officially interrogated by the British on August 24, 1946, before they would grant her permission to leave their zone demonstrates how extensive the operation was in occupied Germany, even in the case of someone not considered worth Hunting Nazis in Franco’s Spain 134 holding. Her testimony gave British intelligence a sense of the extent of the agent network in Spain run by Koch’s superiors. DeWitt Poole’s November 1945 visit to the Black Forest home (in the French zone of occupation) of former German ambassador to Spain (1943–44) Hans Heinrich Dieckhoff, provided useful information , even though the French, who did not participate in the repatriate program, had not interned him. Dieckho...