WWII-Era Abuse Reported

Prisoners were tortured and starved to death in a post-World War II interrogation camp run by Britain that housed former Nazis and others, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Guardian’s report cited documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act that described the suffering of some of the 372 men and 44 women detained at the camp in Bad Nenndorf, a spa town in northwest Germany occupied by the British after the war. The camp was closed in July 1947, the Guardian reported.

Many prisoners were former members of the Nazi party or of the SS, rounded up to prevent an insurgency, the Guardian said. Other detainees included businessmen and industrialists who had flourished under Adolf Hitler’s regime.

The documents detail an investigation by Inspector Tom Hayward of Scotland Yard.

The report included the result of an investigation into the death of one inmate, Walter Bergmann, 20, who had offered to spy for the British but came under suspicion because he spoke Russian.

“There seems little doubt that Bergmann, against whom no charge of any crime has been made, but on the contrary, who appears to be a man who has given every assistance, and that of considerable value, has lost his life through malnutrition and lack of medical care,” Hayward reported.

Prisoners told Hayward they had been whipped and beaten. Hayward wrote that he initially found the charges incredible but “our inquiries of warders and guards produced most unexpected corroboration.”

Hayward’s reports led to courts-martial of three men. Two were acquitted and the other was found guilty of neglecting inmates and dismissed, the newspaper reported.