Donovan's Devils

by Albert Lulushi

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  Another controversy that arose almost immediately after the Dieppe raid revolved around the treatment of prisoners captured during the raid. Rumors circulated after the war that upon retreating from the beaches the Commandos had shot in cold blood German prisoners whom they could not carry back to England. No proof has surfaced to substantiate these rumors and the German authorities themselves did not allege that this occurred. However, almost immediately after the raid, the Germans raised complaints about the shackling of prisoners by the Commandos. A communiqué issued by the German government on September 2, 1942, said that British troops in Dieppe had received orders to tie the hands of captured Germans whenever possible so that the Germans would be unable to destroy their papers. British officers and men taken prisoners in the attack on Dieppe would be kept manacled unless the British government withdrew its order for the binding of German captives within twenty-four hours, the communiqué threatened. In its response, the British War Office declared that none of the German prisoners taken at Dieppe had been tied. It was making inquiries to find out whether such an order was issued and if one was issued it would be canceled.24

  An incident at the beginning of October 1942 exacerbated the issue. On the night of October 3, a dozen Commandos landed on the small Channel island of Sark, under German control at the time, to gather evidence that the Germans had deported British subjects for forced labor in Germany. They surprised five Germans sleeping in a hotel and decided to take them back to the boat and on to England for interrogation. According to the official report of the action, the Germans had been recalcitrant so the commandos tied their hands to hurry back to the boat to catch the tide. As they were doing this, one of the Germans attacked his guard and tried to raise the alarm. The Commandos killed four of the German prisoners before running to their boat.25

  The discovery of the dead men with hands tied behind their backs outraged the German leadership at the top of the Nazi and military hierarchies. The repeated Commando raids had so rattled the security along the European coast that Hitler, in a fit of rage, decided they had to stop. Goebbels, on the other hand, saw a great opportunity to create a psychological diversion to distract the attention of the German people from the bad news that was coming from the East. So, for the next several months a bizarre game of charges and countercharges was played out in radio broadcasts and official communiqués issued from Berlin and London regarding the treatment of prisoners of war.

  The first international convention for the treatment prisoners of war was drawn up in Geneva in 1864 and focused on providing for the care of wounded prisoners. That convention was amended several times until the version of July 27, 1929, which was in effect during World War II. The convention provided a captured officer or soldier, within necessary limits of restraint on movement, the same treatment as his rank or grade would receive under the army that was holding him prisoner. Enlisted men could be required to do a reasonable amount of work, in return for food, shelter, and clothing similar to those provided for the capturing forces. Prisoner officers were supposed to be paid the same sum of money given to their captor officers of like rank, and from that income must pay their own lodging, board, and other bills. The International Red Cross was the neutral agency designated to monitor the compliance with the convention requirements. Specific articles of the convention protected the prisoners of war from mistreatment, including the following:

  Article 2. Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Power, but not of the individuals or corps who have captured them. They must at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, insults and public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against them are prohibited.

  Article 3. Prisoners of war have the right to have their person and their honor respected …26

  Since the beginning of World War II, the Wehrmacht had waged the war in the East with cruel barbarity and with complete disregard of these conventions, justifying the atrocities in their mind with the idea that the Germans were fighting against an inferior race, which they had the God-given mission to liquidate and replace. In the West, however, despite atrocities against civilians, especially Jewish people, including looting, persecution, and shooting of hostages, mistreatment of prisoners of war had been tempered up to that point “by the desire, so strong in the German soul, to appear to the rest of the world correct and proper.”27 The Germans by and large and certainly the Western Allies had respected the rights afforded to the prisoners of war by the Geneva Convention.

  However, as the New York Times pointed out at the time, “The Geneva Convention, accepted by both Great Britain and Germany, provides for the treatment of prisoners after they were in safe custody but it does not deal with conditions during military action or in other circumstances where it is a question of the captors’ lives or those of the captives.”28 Commandos definitely operated in this gray area and were taught simple and expeditious ways to handle prisoners during their missions. The syllabus for a close combat training course provided the following instruction on how to search a prisoner: “Kill him first. If that is inconvenient, make him lay face to the ground, hands out in front of him. Knock him out with rifle butt, side or butt of the pistol, or with your boot. Then search him.”29

  To secure a prisoner who needed to be kept alive for some time for questioning or intelligence collection, the syllabus instructed the students to “knock him out, place him face down on the ground, and [using fifteen feet of cord that all Commandos carried on them] tie his hands behind his back, lead the cord round his throat, back to his wrists, round both ankles, back to his wrists.” Once the prisoner was tied up, he would be gagged. “Almost anything would do to stuff his mouth—turf, cloth, a forage cap, etc. For something to tie over his mouth, strips can be torn from the prisoner’s clothing.”30 In this context then it is easy to understand how German prisoners captured during the Dieppe raid or at Sark would have been tied up or killed.

  On October 8, 1942, the German radio announced that shackles had been placed on British prisoners of war captured at Dieppe, in retaliation for the tying of German soldiers’ hands by members of the British raiding party at Sark. The British response over the BBC radio pointed out that taking reprisals against prisoners was expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention and that an equal number of German prisoners of war would be manacled and chained unless the British prisoners were released from their chains within forty-eight hours. The British Government denied again that prisoners had been tied up or that orders had been issued authorizing such action.

  The next day, Canada announced that in reprisal for the shackling by the Nazis of 107 officers and 1,269 noncommissioned officers and men captured in the Dieppe raid, the Canadian authorities had shackled an equivalent number of German prisoners there. One of the difficulties had been to decide how to bind the prisoners. Handcuffs used for dangerous criminals had been ruled out and “jails and courthouses throughout the country had to be ransacked for foot shackles that would permit some liberty of movement.”31

  On October 16, the German High Command took the war of reprisals against prisoners a step further by announcing that any treatment of German war prisoners that was inhumane or against international law, as it was happening in Russia “will from now on be atoned for by the entirety of prisoners taken by Germany without regard to their nationalities.”32 It became clear that Britain could not win the retaliation game against the Nazis. The Germans would counter their next move with yet another move that raised the stakes, further mistreating or even shooting the prisoners. The Allies took the issue off the table in mid-December when Great Britain and Canada announced that they had removed the chains from German prisoners in reply to a proposal from the Swiss government. The German propaganda limited itself to announcing that the German authorities were giving the proposal the “friendliest consideration,” according to Berlin radio.33

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  The world did not know at the time that in his rage against
the Commando raids, Hitler had ordered measures the brutality of which made the debate about shackling prisoners of war look like a harmless argument among academics. On October 18, 1942, Hitler issued a direct order, a Führerbefehl, which began by stating that the enemies of Germany, in their commando operations, were using methods of warfare outside the scope of the Geneva Conventions. “From captured documents, it has been learned that they have orders not only to bind prisoners but to kill them without hesitation should they become an encumbrance or constitute an obstacle to the completion of their mission. Finally, we have captured orders which advocate putting prisoners to death as a matter of principle.”34 The order announced that Germany was going to resort to the same methods and the German troops would annihilate these groups of saboteurs and their accomplices without mercy wherever they found them. After that introductory recital, the order continued as follows:

  3.) Therefore, I order that: From now on all enemy troops encountered by German troops during so-called commando operations in Europe or in Africa, even if they appear to be soldiers in uniform or demolition groups, armed or unarmed, are to be exterminated to the last man, either in combat or in pursuit. It matters not in the least whether they have been landed for their operations by ships or planes or dropped by parachute. If such men appear to be about to surrender, no quarter shall be given them—on general principle. A full report on this point is to be sent to the OKW [Ober Kommando der Wehrmacht, High Command of the Armed Forces] in every single case for publication in the Wehrmacht communiqué.

  4.) If individual members of such commandos, acting as agents, saboteurs, etc., fall into the hands of the Wehrmacht through different channels (for example, through the police in occupied territories), they are to be handed over without delay to the Sicherheitsdienst [Security Service]. It is formally forbidden to keep them, even temporarily, under military supervision (for example in prisoner of war camps, etc.).

  5.) These provisions do not apply to enemy soldiers who surrender or are captured in actual combat within the limits of normal combat activities (offensives, large scale seaborne and airborne landing operations). Nor do they apply to enemy troops captured during naval engagements, or to aviators who have bailed out to save their lives during aerial combat.

  6.) I will summon before the tribunal of war all leaders and officers who fail to carry out these instructions—either by failure to inform their men or by failing to act in accordance with this order.

  Signed, Adolf Hitler35

  The original order was promulgated in twelve copies to the top echelons of the Wehrmacht and to Himmler, the Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police. On the same date, Hitler issued an explanation of his “sharp order for the annihilation of enemy sabotage troops.” In this explanation, Hitler pointed out that commando and sabotage operations by the enemies of Germany had been extraordinarily successful in the disruption of rear communications, intimidation of groups working for Germany, and destruction of important war plants in the occupied areas. Hitler also pointed out that enemy troops engaged in such missions ran no danger of suffering really serious losses, since, should worst come to worst, they could surrender and claim the status of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. The explanation continued as follows:

  If now the German war effort is not to suffer the most severe damage through such procedure, then it must be made clear to the enemy that every sabotage troop without exception is mowed down to the last man. That means that the prospect of escaping here with life, is exactly equal to zero. It can therefore not be permitted under any circumstance that explosion, sabotage or terrorist troops merely place themselves and are captured [sic], to be treated according to the rules of the Geneva Convention, but they are to be totally exterminated under all circumstances.

  The announcement, which is to appear in the Armed Forces Report (“Wehrmachtbericht”) will say quite briefly and laconically that sabotage, terror, or destruction troops were surrounded and mowed down to the last man.36

  After threatening to call to the strictest account all officers who failed to carry out his order “with all energy,” Hitler concluded his explanation as follows:

  Should there be a purpose in sparing one or two men for reason of an interrogation, the latter are to be shot immediately after their interrogation.

  Signed, Adolf Hitler37

  A number of German officers followed this Führerbefehl almost immediately after it was issued. General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, commander of all German forces in Norway, distinguished himself for applying the Führerbefehl energetically in Norway. The first victims of the Führerbefehl were nine members of a British Commando team captured in September 1942 after sabotaging a hydroelectric station in Glomfjord. After the issuance of the Führerbefehl, the German military handed them over to Sicherheitsdients (Security Police or SD), which transferred them to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in extreme secrecy. The British Commandos were executed with a shot in the neck there on October 22, 1942. Fourteen members of an English sabotage team who landed by glider near Egersund, Norway, on November 20, 1942, were captured and shot after interrogation, even though they were all in British uniforms. Three more sabotage units were captured in December in Norway and were executed after interrogation. On March 30, 1943, ten Norwegian navy personnel, who had participated in a raid by cutter, were captured at Toftefjord, Norway. SD applied the Führerbefehl against them and the incident was reported as follows in the Wehrmacht Report of April 6, 1943: “In Northern Norway an enemy sabotage unit was engaged and destroyed on approaching the coast.”38

  However, Hitler’s order was not followed blindly everywhere. When Field Marshal Edwin Rommel, commander in chief of the Panzer Army, Africa, received his copy of the order in North Africa, he ordered it burned at once because he felt the order was contrary to a soldier’s morals.39 On February 11, 1943, the Naval War Staff felt it necessary to promulgate another memorandum on the subject to clarify “some misunderstanding” as to the proper interpretation of the Hitler order. The memorandum made it clear that all commanders and officers who neglected their duty concerning the order ran the serious risk of court martial penalties. This memorandum stated that it was Hitler’s view that the military sabotage organization in the East and West would have portentous consequences for the entire German war effort and that shooting of uniformed prisoners acting on military orders must be carried out even after they have surrendered without a fight and asked for pardon.40

  Thus, going into 1943, special operations and commando actions in Europe had proven capable of drawing Hitler’s ire with their successful hit-and-run tactics. It is in this tense environment that new players from the Office of Strategic Services entered the battlefield.

  CHAPTER 3

  The OSS Operational Groups

  The successful landing of American-led forces in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942 coincided with the resounding victory of the British-led forces at the second battle of El Alamein. In this Egyptian coastal town sixty miles west of the port city of Alexandria, the British Eighth Army had stopped Rommel’s Panzer Army’s eastward advance toward the Suez Canal in July 1942. After refitting, resupplying, and building up their forces, the British went on the offensive on October 23, 1942. Under the decisive leadership of newly appointed commanders General Harold Alexander and Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, the Allies broke out of El Alamein on November 11 and began a 1,600-mile chase of the remnants of the Axis troops all the way to Tunisia. Pushed on all sides, the German Afrika Korps and their Italian allies in Tunisia surrendered on May 12, 1943.

  After the demise of the Axis forces in North Africa, the Allies began preparing for the next campaigns in continental Europe, beginning with the invasion of Sicily and then the Italian mainland. Fomenting native resistance and creating uncertainty in the Axis rear areas was part of the strategy for the new campaigns in which Donovan believed the OSS had a key role to play. As early as December 1941, he had worked on plans for recruitin
g, training, and inserting guerrilla units in hostile territory. In August 1942, shortly after the establishment of the OSS, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved in principle the formation of these guerrilla units. On December 23, 1942, a directive from the JCS authorized the OSS to “proceed with the organization and conduct of guerrilla warfare,” subject to the approval of the wartime theater commanders. The official history of the OSS calls this “the conception of OGs.”

  From the beginning, Donovan structured the OGs as military units staffed only with military personnel. Colonel Russell J. Livermore became the first commanding officer and continued as chief of OG operations throughout the war. A prominent New York lawyer with a distinguished record in World War I, Livermore tried unsuccessfully to re-enlist shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was a close friend of Donovan’s, who appointed him as civilian chief of the New York branch of the COI early in 1942. In June he was commissioned as a major and went to Washington where he devoted his entire time to evolving the concept of special harassing operations, which became the OGs.

  The existence of military units within the OSS—a civilian organization in itself—caused a lot of consternation in the War Department, which viewed with deep-seated disapproval the existence of military forces outside the regular armed forces structures. Nevertheless, by early 1943 Donovan had convinced General Eisenhower, then commanding officer of the North Africa theater of operations, of the value that the OGs could bring in the upcoming battles. On February 3, 1943, Eisenhower requested several operational groups in his theater to be used as organizers, fomenters, and operational nuclei in enemy-held areas.