German POWs Sent To Luxurious Estate In The 1940s Didn't Realize The Major Catch
No matter what it looks like, a prison is still a prison. That’s something that high-ranking Nazi generals forgot between 1942 and 1945, when they were sent to an experimental Allied Forces prison, the Trent Park House. The POWs were given plenty of freedom while they were captives on the property. What they didn’t realize was that the Allied Forces were getting something in return for the POW's captivity...
Settling In
Over the years, about 3,000 Nazi soldiers came through the Trent Park House, and 59 lived there continuously. Those being held at the facility could wander about freely — there were no cells or prison bars. At least, not literally.
Parties To Prisoners
This home was previously owned and remodeled by Sir Philip Sassoon, who was known for being witty and for hosting elaborate parties on the estate. He died in 1939, and the house was turned into a facility to support the Allies in WWII.
Relaxing Environment
In Trent Park, they could read, play pool, table tennis or regular tennis, take English classes, and buy plenty of beer and cigarettes. They were also paid in pound sterling every month. Artists were given art materials. It seems like a relaxing place.
Hearing It All
Of course, there was a reason for all the kindness to the prisoners besides general goodwill. All of the interactions in every corner of the massive mansion were being monitored in ways they never suspected.
Capturing Information
Specifically, British intelligence team CSDIC rigged the structure with microphones. They were in the walls, ceilings, toilets (gross), and basically in every other hiding place throughout the home. Then, operators who worked in Trent Park’s basement recorded anything they heard on acetate records. These basement-dwellers were special people.
Spying For The Allies
They were known as the Secret Listeners, and many of them were Jewish Germans who escaped their homeland as Hitler grew in power. Many originated from the army’s labor unit and transferred as a team to this intelligence mission. Their work was crucial.
Listening In
"Had it not been for the information obtained at this center," Lt. Col. St. Clare Grondona said, "it could have been London not Hiroshima that was devastated by the first atomic bomb." But the Secret Listener's job wasn't so simple.
Keep Talking
See, the naïve prisoners gave the Secret Listeners a wealth of useful information. They learned about new weapons, radio and radar techniques, and secret details about the management of the military and the Nazi regime. Sometimes, the prisoners weren't so cooperative.
Let Us Help
If the inmates were quiet for too long, trained conversationalists were brought in to help gain the trust of the other prisoners. The stakes were high, but they grew even more intense when you considered the strict codes listeners had to follow.
Zip It
The operators were each sworn to secrecy with the Official Secrets Act. If they revealed any of the information they were recording, they could be sent to jail for more than a decade. It’s a definite motivation to keep your oath.
It’s All Controlled
Other prisoners from Luftwaffe and U-boats were mixed Wehrmacht groups to bring variety to what the men discussed. Actors dressed as guards would enter and salute the officers as well. The details they obtained were horrifying.
Dark Secret
One of the prisoners, General Dietrich von Choltitz, admitted to General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma that he helped with “the liquidation of the Jews” in Crimea in 1942. This same man also refused to destroy Paris and instead surrendered it to the Allies, disobeying Hitler’s direct orders.
Sharing Their Roles
General Dietrich wouldn’t be the only officer to admit his involvement with the Nazi genocide of Jewish people. In dark corners of the spacious estate, groups of prisoners would quietly confess to terrible wartime atrocities.
Stacks Of Information
The Secret Listeners typed 10,000 pages that contained 64,427 conversations — it was the most successful intelligence gathering technique in all of WWII. Unfortunately, this mission isn’t very well-known.
Never Realizing
All of the secrets and ramblings of the unsuspecting German officers yielded plenty of valuable insights for the Allies. During their imprisonment, none of the inmates ever suspected they were being manipulated to talk.
One Of Many
The Trent Park House wasn’t the only location that was a specialized information-gathering facility. Agents were in Bletchley Park when ULTRA deciphered the German Enigma code, for instance. The Western Approaches Command Center in Liverpool was another major site.
Unsung Heroes
Part of the reason the work at Trent Park never became public knowledge was because the workers were still being held to the Official Secrets Act. Most of them never spoke publicly about how their work greatly assisted the Allied forces.
After The War
Trent Park became a training college after WWII. Eventually, it was designated as the Middlesex University campus, but this ended in 2013. The estate and grounds remained empty until 2015.
Save The House
Then, the company Berkeley Homes purchased the property. Residents were worried that the new owners were planning to tear down the historic structure and campaigned to protect the home.
Their Protests Worked
The building became a Grade II mansion, and the ground floor and basement were converted into a museum to tell the story of the Secret Listeners and everyone else who fooled the Nazis into openly talking, like Rose Valland.
Silent But Deadly
Rose Valland had perfected the art of hiding in plain sight. She worked closely with people she fundamentally despised and held her tongue as she watched injustices occur around her. She let others believe she was a benign, simple woman. But she was merely lying in wait.
Auspicious Beginnings
Valland was born in 1898 in eastern France. Her father was a blacksmith, and while her family wasn’t by any means well off, Rose was a precocious student, earning a scholarship to a teachers’ school. She had no idea this opportunity would later turn her into a national hero.
Moving Up
After graduation, she landed a job teaching drawing to high schoolers; however, she longed for something more, and so she went to grad school. By 1932, she was volunteering as an assistant curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum.
Stakes Heighten
In the early 1930s, people weren’t yet aware of the full extent of damage that Nazis were capable of. However, by 1941, all of France was under German occupation, and the stakes were made abundantly clear. It was this same year that Valland was given a highly unique opportunity.
Widespread Theivery
Rose was promoted to a paid position as the overseer of the Jeu de Paume. This would have been a thrilling career advancement for her, except by this time, German soldiers had started their widespread and systematic thievery of French art.
A Sanctioned Heist
The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce, or ERR, was the German crew jobbed with collecting — read: stealing — and relocating thousands of precious cultural artifacts from throughout France. The soldiers robbed indiscriminately, taking works from both publicly funded museums and private collections.
Brave Resisters
Germany had a strong chokehold on France, and it seemed nearly impossible to stand up to their forces. However brave members of the French Resistance didn’t let this stop them from doing what was right. And Rose found herself at the center of a very precarious situation.
On The Frontlines
The Nazis chose Jeu de Paume as their home base for sorting, storing, and ultimately re-homing much of the art that they’d stolen. Rose, as the museum’s overseer, was on the front lines of this, and witness to many of their actions. And she held a secret that would aid in their ultimate takedown.
A Hidden Talent
The soldiers, never once stopping to consider the possibility that Rose understood German, often spoke freely and indiscriminately around her. But she could understand German, as she’d picked it up years ago on trips to the country.
Secret Recordings
As she silently observed the Germans pillaging and redistributing these priceless works, Rose was secretly working against them. Each time she saw art come in and out of the museum, she surreptitiously recorded as much information as she could about the pieces. However, this wasn’t enough on its own.
A Seasoned Spy
Rose also made a habit of conversing with the German-employed truck drivers who came to pick up the art and bring it to nearby train stations for transportation. Through talking with these men, she procured secret information about the specific places where the art was going to.
The Co-Conspirator
However, Rose couldn’t do this important work alone. She collaborated closely with her friend Jacques Jaujard, director of the Musees Nationaux. Each piece of intel she received would be passed on to him — this was useful in a few unexpected ways.
Silent Rebellion
Because Rose let members of the Resistance know about which train cars were carrying art, soldiers didn’t inadvertently blow up a car carrying the precious artifacts. For four years, she practiced this silent rebellion, risking her life for little to no thanks. Then came August 1st, 1944.
The Biggest Theft Yet
Only a few weeks before Paris was liberated (though no one knew that yet), Rose discovered that a man named Baron Kurt von Behr, head of the ERR, was planning a huge shipment in the coming days; he wanted to take as much of the remaining art as possible out of France.
Priceless Works
These works included many modern pieces the Nazis hadn’t gotten to yet. Among them were paintings by famous artists such as Picasso, Degas, Modigliani, and others. This would be an irreparable loss, and Rose Valland knew she had to act. She secretly procured a copy of the shipping order and sent it along to Jaujard.
Race Against Time
Then, she caught wind of the train station the pieces were going to: Aubervilliers, on the outskirts of Paris. By August 2nd, 148 crates of work filled with 978 paintings had been loaded onto five cars. These were intended to be attached to another 48 cars carrying other confiscated possessions. Luckily, things would soon veer off course.
A Fortunate Hold Up
The train cars hadn’t been linked yet, and the train itself was running off schedule. Over a week later, on August 10th, the vehicle was finally ready to get going. However another issue had arisen: French railway workers were on strike.
Engine Troubles
Finally, two days later, the 53-car-long train was able to leave, though the severely overloaded locomotive broke down soon after pulling out of the station. Another 48 hours and the problem was fixed, but by now, it was too late.
Priceless Cargo
The Resistance succeeded in blocking the train’s path, leaving it stuck with all the precious cargo and unable to complete its trip to Germany. The French kicked the German soldiers off the vehicle and quickly stepped in to check out its cargo. There it was: all 148 boxes of priceless art.
An Unnecessary Delay
Thirty-six crates were transported to the Louvre. The rest of the nearly 150 crates, however, took two months to be brought to safety, an annoying detail for Rose. She didn't get a lot of time to malign this fact, however. After the war had officially ended, her life took a bizarre turn.
You've Got The Wrong Woman
Rose was arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Nazis, since she’d worked so closely with them at the museum. Her real co-conspirators, however, stepped up in her name, and she was quickly released when her true intentions were unveiled.
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