Odd WW2 Fact

[Mad McCann]

It certainly happened to Napoleon's army when they tried the same thing a while before.......!

A lesson apparently lost on some in high places today...

[Horsetan]

A lesson apparently lost on some in high places today...

History has a habit of repeating itself, they say.

[bertiedog]

A lot of the forgery etc., that went on in the Officers, (Note Officers) POW camps was not the creation of complete forgeries but the alterations to documents that were obtained from the Guards in the camps. Most of the camp guard were virtually non combatants, nick named the Stomach Brigade by the Germans, unfit or unsuitable for front line service. Even Colditz was run by a schoolmaster.

 

The Poles found that they could be bribed to provide papers and cash, and the British soon used the same methods. The expertise in altering the papers was mainly gathered by practice, and just a handful of "experts". The Officers found there were more able forgers in the Army's other ranks, and at Colditz other ranks were employed by the Germans to go into the camp each day from a hutted camp for other ranks in the town. The prisoners soon found men who had experience of forgery and gave the work to them to do. A prized find was a forger who could, in the term then,"write a Bank of England note", and he became the mainstay of efforts to make escape materials. As soon a settled in for the duration the British supplied materials via the parcels to the Officers and some aircrew carried devices and maps with them.

The one thing they could not fake was the German currency, too complex, and it had to come from the guards by bribery. The prisoners acquired radio parts, cameras, film, coins, batteries, cloth, and paint and dyes from the guards as well.

 

In the 1960's I worked with an ex Colditz prisoner and he outlined the life there a bit better than the books and films, it was pretty grim at the end of the war. His main memory of the last days were the guards all trying to remind the prisoners of the favours they had done for them in hope of not being shot by the advancing US troops

[PhilJ W]

Wasn't there another criminal who was incarcerated in the Channel Isles when the Germans invaded who ended up as a double agent?

[Clearwater]

I think wartime SOE had more to do with the underworld than most parts of the armed forces. Lots of transferable skills, in modern jargon, to running the types of campaign envisaged when Churchill ordered "set Europe ablaze"

 

On officer PoW camp forgeries, having seen a few on museums, these are often fairly rough forgeries but then they were designed for use in wartime black out conditions in a world where printing and documentation is nowhere as crisp as it is today.

 

Yes documents were smuggled in - some properly printed forgeries via MI9 in 'loaded' parcels intercepted by prisoners. I have, however, read that some prisoners were wary about using such obviously professionally forged documents as it increased the risks to them of being accused of being a spy with the penalties that entailed. Worth noting that this would have been prior to both the 'Great Escape' and d-day which pretty much ended wholescale escape attempts.

 

I visited both Colditx and Stalag Luft 3 a couple of years ago. Seeing some of the sites of the escape makes you realise quite what cojones some of these had. You can follow Neave's route past the guardroom, down the stairs. You can go into the cellars where Reid and Co crawled through a ridiculously tiny hole. According to our guide, a party they'd shown around a few weeks prior to us of young army officers proved they could get through the hole...

 

David

[Horsetan]

A lot of the forgery etc., that went on in the Officers, (Note Officers) POW camps was not the creation of complete forgeries but the alterations to documents that were obtained from the Guards in the camps. Most of the camp guard were virtually non combatants, nick named the Stomach Brigade by the Germans, unfit or unsuitable for front line service. Even Colditz was run by a schoolmaster.

 

The Poles found that they could be bribed to provide papers and cash, and the British soon used the same methods. The expertise in altering the papers was mainly gathered by practice, and just a handful of "experts". The Officers found there were more able forgers in the Army's other ranks, and at Colditz other ranks were employed by the Germans to go into the camp each day from a hutted camp for other ranks in the town. The prisoners soon found men who had experience of forgery and gave the work to them to do. A prized find was a forger who could, in the term then,"write a Bank of England note", and he became the mainstay of efforts to make escape materials. As soon a settled in for the duration the British supplied materials via the parcels to the Officers and some aircrew carried devices and maps with them.

The one thing they could not fake was the German currency, too complex, and it had to come from the guards by bribery. The prisoners acquired radio parts, cameras, film, coins, batteries, cloth, and paint and dyes from the guards as well....

The Germans had their own forgers. If you can get hold of the DVD of Die Fälscher, that may give you a hint of their own misery.

[bertiedog]

Yes ... Chapman, one "Eddie" Chapman code named ZigZag, who worked for the Germans and then the British. A cinema feature film was made about him, but was highly fictionalised. He worked for the Intelligence services after the war, but slipped into some dubious business deals etc., as he had been involved with before the war. He credited himself with a lot of spy operations that have not been covered by others. He certainly knew Ian Fleming, whose own career in the service led to the James Bond stories, and parts of his character may have been inspired by Chapman.

[alfsboy]

There is a lot of dubious dealings with enemies and  business .IBM and the SS ,GM and Opel ,Ford.Krupp and fuse patents etc.Patents were paid in both directions at least in the first war .ITT had a very dubious relationship with the Nazis .

[luckymucklebackit]

Germany almost invaded Switzerland in WW2. The plan was called Operation Tannenbaum (Operation Christmas Tree). I can't remember why they didn't actually invade.

 

There is an interesting Wikipedia page on the role that the railway systems played in the Holocaust, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_train

 

"Switzerland was not invaded because its mountain bridges and tunnels between Germany and Italy were too vital for them to go into war.  Also, the Swiss banks provided necessary access to international markets by dealing in pilfered gold.  There were 18,000 Jews living in Switzerland at the onset of World War II.  The country did not turn over their own Jews to the Germans, but according to eye-witness, allowed the Holocaust trains (aware of them since 1942) to use the Gotthard Tunnel on the way to the camps.  Most war supplies to Italy were shipped through the Austrian Brenner Pass.  There exists substantial evidence that these shipments included Italian forced labour workers and trainloads of Jews in 1944 during the Nazi occupation of northern Italy, when a German train passed through Switzerland every 10 minutes. The need for the tunnel was complicated by the RAF having bombed and disrupted services through the Brenner Pass, as well as a heavy snowfall in the winter of 1944–45"

 

Jim

[Clearwater]

On the subject of German currency, there's the tale of the SS coming into a camp, they were not usually guarding pow camps but in classic interservice rivalry and politics invited themselves in to "show how it was done." Seeing it was hot and thirsty work, some enterprising prisoners set up a stall selling hooch for hard currency!

[Bernard Lamb]

I first went to Colditz with the future SWMBO in 1972. At that time it was a mental hospital and just had a small room preserved as a museum.

We managed to get in and were given a short tour. The inmates were quite an eye opener in some cases. One of the towers was without a roof and was full of pigeons with muck every where.

The whole place was in a very bad state. The railway was still in use and we arrived by train from Leipzig.

Later I met a chap called Charlie and he spoke good English with a very dated posh accent. He had been a guard in Colditz and had learnt English from the prisoners.

Some time after the wall came down we went back and the castle was then being restored. SWMBO had a meeting with the Mayor and this was held in the castle and while she was discussing business I was taken on a tour of the site. Although the view of the front appears as a vertical cliff it is possible to reach the main court yard by a zigzag road to the rear. Quite a difference from around 20 years before. The museum had bee extended and  a lot of the exhibits had been written up. We have been back several times since and these days part of the castle is a very smart Youth Hostel and the whole town is much improved from when I first knew it..

Bernard

[jjb1970]

Well the Germans certainly came unstuck when they invaded Russia! Its hard to imagine how it could have got any worse for the invading troops. Ill equipped for the weather (nothing worse than being seriously cold to demoralise anyone, even highly trained troops). If the supply line is effectively cut off, there could only be one outcome.

 

The thing I find somewhat inexplicable about the German unpreparedness for the first Russian winter was that even if everything had gone well for the German armed forces in 1941 they still had to operate in a Russian winter. Sometimes it is justified on the grounds that they expected to have won before winter and so be garrisoned in towns and cities. However even in a best case scenario they would have faced defending a front line, mopping up operations and a need to keep their troops warm in winter as well as providing winter fuels, lubricants, winterised transport etc. The complete lack of preparations for the winter, which was hardly a surprise, really challenges the idea of German general staff planning brilliance.

[petethemole]

Nearly 20 years ago I knew an elderly gentleman in Somerset who had served in special forces/SOE, trained in explosives and demolition. Post-war he had used his training as a safe cracker and wheelman in 50s/60s London, never getting caught.

[richard i]

In ww1 Britain needed binoculars for its officers, the best were made in Germany and that was where the British army had been supplied from before the war.

The Germans had no access to rubber as that was controlled in the UK empire.

A deal was made, rubber for binoculars, I some how feel that no rubber would have slowed Germany more than fewer sets of binoculars for the British, certainly once trench warfare was in Ernest .

[bertiedog]

The Germans had their own forgers. If you can get hold of the DVD of Die Fälscher, that may give you a hint of their own misery.

In blatant appalling Nazi double standards, the German forgers used to print UK money, ( mainly never traced) in the war by the German authorities were all Jewish printers, who were given no choice but to work on the forgeries......The paper was the problem for the Germans but they found out the bank of England used Czech rag cloth to mix with other fibres and two of the printers knew how to make the right paper. The plates were perfect and had properly generated serial numbers to a formula known to the German Authorities.

 

Till recently it was said that the Bank of England would have to honour them as they where impossible to tell from the real thing. But it seems science has moved on and they can be detected. The main type printed was the White Fiver, which was changed in design ASAP after the war to try to stop cashing in the forgeries. The gold standard of forgery was said to be whether a forger could "write a fiver" by hand. Needless to say, the white fiver was worth a whole lot more then than now!

 

The other well known double standard was Reichsmarschall Goering's favourite restaurant in Munich, run by a Jewish family, who had protection from him. Many other authorities realised they were Jewish, and tried to arrest them, only to have red hot calls from Berlin from Goering telling them to leave them alone or else!!!.

 

Stephen

[bertiedog]

An odd connection with railways and Hitler, he had decided that in the event of invasion of the UK, he would follow in a few weeks, and planned to use Bridgnorth as his tactical headquarters, as it had good road and rail connections, ........did he like the Severn Valley?it seems the HQ would have been used to invade Ireland, both north and south, but that was one plan too far!

 

Stephen

[Horsetan]

In blatant appalling Nazi double standards, the German forgers used to print UK money, ( mainly never traced) in the war by the German authorities were all Jewish printers....

 

Not all of them were.

[Jongudmund]

Have you been talking to someone from Bridgnorth, Stephen? Think they might have been pulling your leg there.

[bertiedog]

Have you been talking to someone from Bridgnorth, Stephen? Think they might have been pulling your leg there.

Came up in the lectures and material used by Galland in TV talks about German intentions after invasion, and Bridgenorth was confirmed in material in the form of invasion  proposals recovered from the East German Archives in the 1990's. Gallands accounts made more of the Air invasion plans than the paperwork, but they basically agreed. Hitler was reported to want to use Buckingham Palace and Windsor Palace as Government offices after initial operations were over. He expected Scotland to resist longest, as air operations would be difficult.

The assumption was the British  Royal family would have been removed to Canada on invasion. The final push would have been invasion of Ireland, where Hitler expected a lot of support, but it  was a bit miss placed as it would have deeply offended the US, who were still neutral at that point.

 

Stephen

[bertiedog]

Re Bridgenorth report of sale of paperwork in 2005 (Reference to 30 years previous was to Galland's biography).

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4195939/Hitler-wanted-sleepy-Bridgnorth-to-be-Nazi-HQ-after-the-invasion-of-Britain.html

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20592917

[iL Dottore]

Returning to Switzerland, and why they weren't invaded, apart from the fact that the Swiss population were (and are) heavily armed with every adult male having completed mandatory military service and then kept active in the reserves, apart from the fact that every pass and tunnel in the country had been mined and rigged for demolition (and would have been blown, rendering Swiss passes and tunnels useless for any invader), there is also the fact that more than a few top ranking Nazis kept their ill gotten and often looted gains in Swiss banks. Invading Switzerland would have meant exposing such assets to the Nazi authorities who were (when they wanted to be) very harsh on looters and "war profiteers".

 

Interestingly, when she was young and idealistic, Mrs iD volunteered for the Swiss army (she was an ambulance driver) and she informed me that not only are the mountains of Switzerland still riddled with military tunnels, bolt holes and underground fortresses, but that all Swiss passes and tunnels are still set up so that they can be set up to be primed for demolition in a very short time.

 

The Swiss may be neutral but they aren't pacifists. Not only are they well trained and keep their weapons with them at home (one of Mrs iD's uncles - an officer - had both his service pistol and a mortar kept at home), but the Swiss have long provided mercenaries to Europe in roles as diverse as the Swiss Guard in the Vatican and even fighting for the British during the Napoleonic wars (look up De Watteville's Regiment).

 

The Swiss? Cheese eaters?, certainly; "surrender monkeys"? certainly not!

 

iD

[kevinlms]

Returning to Switzerland, and why they weren't invaded, apart from the fact that the Swiss population were (and are) heavily armed with every adult male having completed mandatory military service and then kept active in the reserves, apart from the fact that every pass and tunnel in the country had been mined and rigged for demolition (and would have been blown, rendering Swiss passes and tunnels useless for any invader), there is also the fact that more than a few top ranking Nazis kept their ill gotten and often looted gains in Swiss banks. Invading Switzerland would have meant exposing such assets to the Nazi authorities who were (when they wanted to be) very harsh on looters and "war profiteers".

 

Interestingly, when she was young and idealistic, Mrs iD volunteered for the Swiss army (she was an ambulance driver) and she informed me that not only are the mountains of Switzerland still riddled with military tunnels, bolt holes and underground fortresses, but that all Swiss passes and tunnels are still set up so that they can be set up to be primed for demolition in a very short time.

 

The Swiss may be neutral but they aren't pacifists. Not only are they well trained and keep their weapons with them at home (one of Mrs iD's uncles - an officer - had both his service pistol and a mortar kept at home), but the Swiss have long provided mercenaries to Europe in roles as diverse as the Swiss Guard in the Vatican and even fighting for the British during the Napoleonic wars (look up De Watteville's Regiment).

 

The Swiss? Cheese eaters?, certainly; "surrender monkeys"? certainly not!

 

iD

All that, yet they manage to NOT shoot each other in ever increasing numbers, unlike a much larger country to their far West!

[Horsetan]

All that, yet they manage to NOT shoot each other in ever increasing numbers, unlike a much larger country to their far West!

Yes, the Swiss even managed to pacify the (mostly Kosovan) Albanians who settled in CH as refugees. Nowadays they do nothing more dangerous than play for the Swiss national football team which, conversely, has become far more dangerous since Albanians started playing for it!

[bertiedog]

An oddity of the war that rarely gets mentioned in connection with the Home Guard and trusted over aged military personnel, is not just the guerilla fighting duties behind enemy lines that the Home Guard where expected to do, but the clandestine issue to specially chosen staff, of weapons and lists of people who after the invasion were to, putting it brutally, be assassinated, if they showed any aspect of working for the Germans or collaborating. They were issued with hand guns and machine guns and packs of ammunition, that were to be buried carefully, to be dug up as they were needed. It was made clear such work was suicide. Some very trusted people were assigned to try to work with the Germans at their own risk, and take an opportunity to kill as many as possible. In that position they would have been targets to other agents and they knew this, but still volunteered. For this reason all the agents never knew who the others were for security.

 

Senior trusted Officers were also issued with lists of people to deal with anyway, as the people concerned had expressed support for the Nazis. These lists were updated regularly and withdrawn and destroyed in case any names slipped out. In the end no action under this system was needed, and it would have only been started as a desperate measure after invasion.

 

I knew about it because my step father was one of the people chosen for what was potentially a suicide mission, and he let it slip what he knew of the plan after it was talked about in general details on the radio. Just like Bletchley Park it was assumed that nothing would ever be told, but secrets have a way of surfacing in the media.

 

Stephen

[bertiedog]

Re Bridgenorth report of sale of paperwork in 2005 (Reference to 30 years previous was to Galland's biography).

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4195939/Hitler-wanted-sleepy-Bridgnorth-to-be-Nazi-HQ-after-the-invasion-of-Britain.html

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20592917

With reference to Bridgenorth it was only chosen as an advanced tactical position for Hitler, his personal choice was Blenheim Palace as official residence for himself after the war was over. He was quoted as wanting to live there for long periods alternating with his German homes.( Albert Speer Diaries and book).