As important as Bletchley Park: listening to the generals
Parallel to BP's codebreaking were three country houses, rigged for sound inside and in the grounds, where German generals were held and as they relax talked a lot. A short BBC News report as the last house left has an uncertain future:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35978418
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Nearly 60 captured German generals were held at Trent Park, their conversations secretly monitored and recorded. There were even microphones hidden in trees to catch their exchanges as they strolled through the extensive well-tended park....listeners had to keep an ear across everything the Germans said - from the moment they woke until they went to sleep.....at least 100,000 such conversations were recorded and transcribed in full and have been kept in the National Archives.
The BBC have relied on Dr Helen Fry, a historian, who has a book on the subject; there are many links including a 2013 PBS documentary:http://www.helen-fry.com/books/the-m-room/
Elsewhere, in London, there was a less genteel interrogation centre and a book is due out next year:http://www.helen-fry.com/books/the-london-cage/
On a historical point, what happened to the captured Italian generals, from Ethiopia and North Africa?
Makes one wonder if similar practices exist today. I do not refer to long-term detention and interrogation - which has been well documented.
The London Cage: The Secret History of Britain’s World War II Interrogation Centre
A review of Helen Fry's book in The Spectator entitled:
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The British interrogation methods that even Hitler found ‘ingenious; Helen Fry‘s The London Cage centres on master interrogator Alexander Scotland and his ways of making Nazis talk
Link:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/...und-ingenious/