Listening to prisoners

[davidbfpo]

Amidst all the 'INT' terms today I don't recall simply listening to them. Today the BBC has an article on British intelligence (MI6 aka SIS) listening to captured German generals in WW2:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20698098

The author, a historian, refers to:

British intelligence got the most amazing stuff in bugging the conversations. Churchill said of Trent Park that it afforded a unique insight into the psyche of the enemy. It enabled us to understand the mind-set of the enemy as well as learn military secrets.

"If it wasn't for this bugging operation, we may well have not won the war".

The records were released in 1999 and:

...the bugging was the first time the British overheard admissions that the German army had taken part in the atrocities and mass killing of Jews and were guilty of war crimes.

"The army had always denied it and that was believed for the last 65 years. What the transcripts show us now is that the German army - with the SS - was complicit in war crimes.."

Finally, all the equipment was US-made.

One wonders if this tactic was repeated post-1945, let alone more recently.