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How did the cultural and linguistic background of German and Austrian Jewish refugees
contribute to the allied counterintelligence against Nazi Germany?
Nicole Murray
Global History 12
Mme. Y. Smith
3 January 2018
Murray 1
In the 1930s all the way to the end of World War Two, saw an abundance of Jewish
people fleeing from the Nazis relocated to the United States for various reasons, and in varying
fashions. A large number of those refugees were men who were eager to fight with the United
States Armed Forces after the country joined the war. Though initially it was very difficult for
those men to join, as they were oftentimes subjected to a lot of discrimination and were labeled
enemy aliens and were therefore not permitted to enlist, and placed in non-combatant roles once
they were drafted, eventually the United States government came to realise that they had a very
useful advantage against Germany. The cultural and linguistic background of German and
Austrian born Jewish refugees in America, during World War II, aided greatly in gathering
counterintelligence against Nazi Germany. Their knowledge of the language, psychology &
geography of their home countries aided them in developing effective Prisoner of War
interrogating strategies; reading maps, and using their knowledge of local landmarks to navigate
hazardous unknown territory to the American troops; using their personal history of growing up
in the area to connect with, and get into the mindset of their former friends turned enemies, as
well as using the German language with their unique dialect to intimidate or even to falsely
When in a time of war, knowing what the enemy is going to do next is key, and the
people that know that information, are the enemy. Interrogating prisoners of war remains one of
the quickest ways to gain access that information but communication is hard when the people
being questioned speak another language. Fortunately someone had the brilliant idea to create a
special training base for people who already knew useful languages: Camp Ritchie. German and
French were among the top requested languages, and many of those able bodied who knew
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German were Jewish refugees. After being fast-tracked to being granted US citizenship, the now
Jewish American soldiers went through rigorous training, all designed to test their critical
“As far as I know, the United States of America was the only country to trust refugees
from enemy countries enough to train and use them for intelligence purposes. I was also
fortunate to have many who were knowledgeable about Germany. [...] To me, interrogation was
not only a science that could be learned, but also an art that must be practiced to be perfected. I
found that much of what we had learned during our training at Camp Ritchie was not
The use of native German speakers was an asset to the United States Armed Forces, as it was
clear to the German prisoners of war that they were dealing with men who had familiarity with
the local customs and who possessed linguistic competence. To some POWs, they were
impressed by the US soldiers’ language abilities and felt more at ease knowing that their captors
experienced life in Germany and could accurately translate and transfer their information in
hopes of better treatment. The Jewish Refugees found that the former was a very helpful and
beneficial tactic for both the interrogator and the questioned, however not all cases were so
welcoming. In many cases the fact that they spoke German so well actually intimidated or even
frightened the POW. Several of the captured German soldiers guessed that they were being held
and questioned by Jews who had fled the Nazis, this lead to the soldiers being quite anxious to
remain on the good side, or at least, not the bad side, of their detainer. There was however, many
Nazi soldiers who guessed that they were in the same room as Jewish individuals and were quite
In one case, a group, including a few very pro-Nazi, pro-Hitler soldiers, was forced to
surrender. Upon learning that they were taken by those with Jewish soldiers, who lived in
Germany, among their ranks, including Sergeant Kurt Jacobs and Technician Fifth Grade Murray
Zappler, and were even forced to be in a fairly small, claustrophobic room with them while they
were being questioned, they either became enraged and angry or refused to talk, and instead sat
stoically only reciting the required information that one is required to declare upon being
captured, as set by the Third Geneva Convention at that time1: surname, given names, rank
and/or regimental number. Soon after the small victory, another troop of Nazi soldiers came and
freed the prisoners of war and took the US soldiers as prisoners of war. The very zealous Nazi
soldiers that had been captured informed their liberators that they had been apprehended by
Jewish escapees of Nazi occupied occupied, and the US soldiers mentioned were questioned and
were promptly shot and killed by a volley of rifle shots on December 20 1944, under the
command of Wehrmacht Hauptmann (equivalent to Captain) Curt Bruns, saying: “Jeuden haben
kein Recht, in Deutschland zu leben.”. Jews have no right to live in Germany. The killing of
POWs is an act that constitutes a war crime and Hauptmann Bruns was later tried and executed
by firing squad on June 9 1945, the same way that Jacobs and Zappler were killed. Though
incidents like that occured, for the most part, the implementation of the specially trained soldiers
Unknownst back at the US Army training base Camp Ritchie located in Maryland, at the
time, the German Jews were already building upon what they learned, and discarding unuseful
tactics based on their experience in the field, but especially, based their knowledge of Germany
1
Revised later in 12 August 1949 to include: data of birth and army, regimental, personal or serial number.
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and the conditions in which the the enemy soldiers were in, which the picked up from hearing the
Nazi soldiers’ conversations and understanding the regulatory and strict environment the german
“ In my work as an interrogator, the fears of German POWs, and their unquestionable obedience
and instant reaction to sharp commands, were my greatest asset. These soldiers had lived a brutal
life. They were barked at by their superiors and faced severe punishment for every misstep.
These men expected the same treatment from us. Even if interrogators would have wanted to,
they could not have imagined the brutality that a POW anticipated and took for granted. Most
POWs had vivid imaginations and expected the worst. They had reason for it. They saw how
bestial their own people behaved in conquered territories, and may even have participated in
these excesses. They expected the same treatment from us and received the shock of their lives
when I talked to them in a calm voice. They were completely taken off guard and they wanted
Knowing that the Nazi soldiers were strictly disciplined, a fair few of the “Ritchie Boys”, instead
firmly kept a calm and courteous demeanor, using the formal form of address. Quite the opposite
of a few strategies they were taught to do during training: intimidate, be aggressive and use
reasonable amount of force, some trainees even receiving low marks in Interrogation at Camp
Ritchie if they did not act brashly. Offering luxuries like chocolate or cigarettes in exchange for
information was also a common tactic; as well as trying to find common interests, in order to get
the prisoners talking until they forgot that that were on the enemy side. Master Sergeant Werner
Angress, who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne Division, despite
having no parachute training whatsoever, joked once with a German Paratrooper who said that
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“paratroopers on both sides should pressure the International Olympic Committee to include
parachute jumping in the next Olympic Games.” (Henderson, 233). Sergeant Angress had no
shortage of prisoners lining up to be interviewed at that prisoner of war camp while he was
stationed there.
For those trained to be interrogators, keeping everyone calm and gaining information
without having to use force was the ideal scenario, but unfortunately that was not always the
case. More than one Ritchie boy felt that no other ploy would work except that of psychological
warfare or confrontational techniques. One soldier, who was part of an IPW (interrogating
torture; having his particularly rude and uncooperative prisoner dig his own “grave” and then
given the count of ten to speak or die. The soldier, who never intended to actually kill the man,
found that such an action was very destructive to one’s soul and swore never to go that far again.
Other acts of aggression or passive aggressiveness were much less extreme. Martin Selling, who
was incarcerated in Nuremberg Prison for six weeks and the transferred in the Nazi concentration
camp Dachau for another four weeks, before arriving to the United States, would occasionally
wonder aloud what the SS guards at Dachau would have done to him if he had met them with
such arrogance and rudeness. “‘At Dachau, we were slapped around or worse for much less, or
even for no reason at all.’” (Henderson, 211). Upon slipping the information that he had been in
Dachau, most prisoners would shut up and start answering his questions immediately. Selling, in
his book, also recalls of a particularly well spoken prisoner, asking in his most polite voice where
he had learned German flawlessly. Selling responded in a blunt manner: “In Germany, where I
also learned how to interrogate prisoners [by watching the SS] while I was in Dachau.” (Selling,
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74) The shock that came with the realisation that he was facing a former inmate of a Nazi
Concentration, resulted in the German prisoner lost control of his bowels right then and there.
Recognising that many of their techniques were relatively ineffective against some of the
higher ranking officers or the really stubborn prisoners, a handful of members in IPW teams
decided to get creative. One of the more common strategies, when faced with an officer who
frequently overlooked lower ranked men, was for the inquirer to switch out his enlisted-grade
insignia (normally some kind of sergeant) to that of at least equal rank to the officer being
questioned. Under any other circumstance, enlisted men who pretended to be officers would
interrogating prisoner of war teams were permitted to continue this approach. A notably difficult
situation, was one in which a Sergeant Fred Howard (born in Berlin as Manfred Ehrlich) was
tasked in finding out “supply map coordinates for new a ball-bearing factory outside
Schweinfurt” from German soldiers who had grown up there, and most likely had family and
friends working in the factory. Those who were asked for any information, automatically stopped
talking, even those who were previously talkative and cooperative, knowing that the information
would be used to bomb their hometown. Aware of how important getting the information was,
Howard, teamed up with Günther “Guy” Stern (another German Jew) to talk about the last tactic
that might get the information, “Use of Fear”, what were these guys more afraid of than anything
else? “Easy” Guy replied. “Sieg oder Sibirien.”. Victory of Siberia. The german soldiers were
taught that to be captured by the Soviets was worse than death. Opposing Howard’s idea to
“import a Ruskie!”, Stern, and a slightly disappointed Howard got to work creating their fictional
“mad Russian” Commissar Krukov, a liaison officer to their American allies. Stern playing
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Krukov, using exchanged uniforms and confiscated Soviet medals and souvenirs from the
captured German, and Howard playing the “nice American soldier”. Their good cop/bad cop
routine, often breaking even the most hardened and defyant prisoners. (Henderson, 293)
The men who were sent to learn at Camp Ritchie were not only educated in interrogation
but also many different forms of navigation and cartography, as well as creating reports and
deciphering seized written intelligence. As a training exercise the recruits would be dropped off
in an unknown place in the heart of the woods with a small compass and a map in an unfamiliar
foreign language. They were then expected to lead their team back to the meet up spot marked on
their map before eleven at night to catch the jeep ride back to base, or they would have to make
the long twenty-five mile trek back to to camp, which was not such a unheard of occurrence.
They were not supposed to ask local residents for directions but lots students would when they
became really lost. The instructors were aware that students did such a thing and let it slide as it
aided the students develop the ability to solve such problems when they were deployed out in the
field. Developing their navigation expertise, and capability to accurately convey directions
became a vital skill when on the battle ground. Before the invasion of Omaha beach, Victor
Brombert, a master sergeant born in Germany and raised in France, was assigned to talk to a
large group from the 2nd Armoured division about what they might encounter after moving
inland after landing in France. Because he wasn’t familiar with the region around Calais, the
shortest distance across the English Channel, and the area which Hitler and his informers though
mostly likely for an Allied invasion, Sgt. Brombert instead decided to paint a detailed verbal
picture of the town where he had once vacationed for an entire summer, Normandy. Later, when
informed of their landing site, some of the officers present for that presentation, as well as his
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own men declined to believe that Brombert had not been secretly briefed by someone high up at
After the war, men who were trained at Camp Ritchie were tasked with translating letters
of surrender (Henderson 336) and worked as translators at various trials around Europe against
Nazi war criminals, including the Nuremberg Trials. All of their knowledge, previously known
and specially learned, and courage2 as well as their determination to see Germany, and their other
home countries, freed from Hitler’s grasp, created a strong-willed force to be reckoned with. By
English-speaking only individuals, they gave the United States and the Allies a upperhand and
knowing the movements of their enemies, enabling their force to deliver surprise attacks, target
important factories and other structures and generally be prepared for what was to be faced.
(2,130 words)
2
Guy Stern was tasked with questioning prisoners of war right after seizing Normandy. Not knowing that one
artillery shot is usually followed by many others, he yelled at his prisoner, who slammed himself to the ground and
who previously was not saying anything except his name and rank, “Krieg deinen verdammten Arsch hoch und
antworte auf meine Fragen, du Feigling!”, or to “raise your damned ass and answer my questions!”. The prisoner,
somehow thinking that Stern’s foolish action was bravery, began to answer the questions. (Henderson 186)