In this issue, PETER speaks about the British POW camps and in particular, the situation concerning Berndt, the I.W.O. of U-570 under Rahmlow. You will remember that Rahmlow surrendered his completely intact Type VII-C U-boat to a Royal Air Force plane. The details were in our KTB some months ago. Here are some more facts from PETER.

Even though run largely by the British Army under the Army Ministry, the local and regional police fell under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Scotland Yard was also under the Home Secretary too ad below it the various police superintendents, district inspectors and local police chiefs. Just like American police chiefs are never keen to have the FBI messing around in their territory, the British police commissioners, inspectors, chief inspectors etc. resented strongly that the Army, Air Force or Royal Navy did run investigations and handled cases within their home bailiwicks!

When Berndt’s escape was noticed, the chief superintendent of the police, located in Carlisle, to the north, was immediately informed in the Scottish Lowlands District and the famous Greta Green, where many young people get married without the often excessive paper requirements mandatory elsewhere, is also close by. The local police district chiefs in Kendale and Keswick, both in the Lake District, were working under the Chief Inspector in Carlisle and looked towards Scotland generally rather than England.

I have visited Grizedale Hall for personal reasons in some other connections. English friends of influence drove me, as I get very nervous when driving on the left side in rental cars. They had also dug up Veigh for me, who since passed away. When I mentioned to him the project for Berndt to walk to Barrow-in-Furness, Veigh did not believe this at first and finally said that nobody would have entered there, as the security was so strong. The British had assumed that Berndt would make his way to the Glasgow area to become a stowaway, or to one of the ferry terminals for an escape to Ireland. But never U-570 in Barrow-in-Furness was their expectation.

But the British POW Administration in London was very upset about the escape and ordered the manhunt. It must not be permitted that German POWs get away. In fact, when studying the British files, it appeared clear that this case was the conclusive proof for the Army faction that wanted to ship all German and Italian POWs and civilian internees to Canada without delay. The camps there were already under construction, but there was an influential political section that opposed the moving of these people for various reasons, until this Berndt case occurred. It was tremendously inflated in importance. The British Army also wanted to be sure that there was no repetition of such an escape and impress upon the German POWs that escape was not possible for them and recapture a certainty. These guns fired around the camp served this purpose - to scare the Germans to stay put. Furthermore, there were also deer hunters and rabbit hunters in the wooded area who were firing away and were requested by the Army to do so freely, to give the POWs the impression that they had no chance to get away.

I perused both the British Army files and also the Scotland Yard police files on this, as there is so much false information in circulation regarding POWs. Look at the Werner Henke case!!! The body of Berndt was never returned to the POW camp, and buried in secret by the British Army, which caused another ruckus and fight with the police administration.

Once the transports to Canada got underway, thereafter only one man escaped - Oberleutnant der Luftwaffe Baron von Werra. He jumped out of a Canadian train between Montreal and Ottawa, crossed the US border (the US were still neutral early in 1941) and hitched to New York, got papers from the German Consul, traveled to Brownsville, Texas, crossed the Mexican border, took trains to Mexico City as he now had funds, was put on civilian airplanes flying to Brazil, changing planes to the Italian airline LATI and reached Rome. Immediately he was dispatched to Berlin, talked to Udet and Göring, and told them all about the RAF interrogation camp Cockfosters in London-Trent. Immediately the Luftwaffe opened up one new Stalag, Oberursel near Frankfurt, to copy these hidden listening devices just in time for the increasingly shot down British and Allied bomber crews. These young German POWs were seen as dangerous and in good physical shape, thus Canada was safer to keep them in line.