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Please enter a valid web address * About * Blog * Projects * Help * Donate * Contact * Jobs * Volunteer * People * Sign up for free * Log in Search metadata Search text contents Search TV news captions Search radio transcripts Search archived web sites Advanced Search * About * Blog * Projects * Help * Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape * Contact * Jobs * Volunteer * People Full text of "Protecting Powers: International Law " See other formats This article was downloaded by: [York University Libraries] On: 21 November 2014, At: 17:59 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3)H, UK The International History Review Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http:// www.tandfonline.com/loi/ rinh20 The Shackling Crisis: A Case- Study in the Dynamics of Prisoner-of-War Diplomacy in the Second World War S. P. Mackenzie ° * University of South Carolina Published online: 01 Dec 2010. To cite this article: S. PR. Mackenzie (1995) The Shackling Crisis: A Case-Study in the Dynamics of Prisoner-of-War Diplomacy in the Second World War, The International History Review, 17:1, 78-98, DOI: 10.1080/ 07075332.1995. 9640702 To link to this article: http:// dx.doi.org/ 10. 1080/ 07075332.1995.9640702 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. 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MACKENZIE The Shackling Crisis: A Case-Study in the Dynamics of Prisoner-of-War Diplomacy in the Second World War N THEORY, THE treatment of prisoners of war during the Second World War should have been governed by international law. As far back as the Hague Convention of 1907, all the states involved had agreed that prisoners of war ‘must be humanely treated’,! and most had gone on to ratify the Geneva Convention of 1929, which laid out in more detail what was expected of the captor state. Seriously sick and wounded prisoners along with non-combatant personnel were to be repatriated; high standards had to be maintained regarding food, shelter, hygiene, and working conditions for POWs; and Red Cross food parcels, as well as letters to and from prisoners, allowed to flow between states at war with one another. In order to ensure that this was, in fact, what happened in the event of war, the Geneva Convention included a set of rules, a de facto diplo- matic framework, allowing for each side to learn what was occurring in the enemy’s prisoner-of-war camps and, when necessary, engage in indirect negotiations. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a designated protecting power — a neutral state — were guaranteed access to camps to make sure provisions were being observed, privately listen to any complaints the prisoners might have, and pass reports to the other side. If there were perceived problems in the treatment of prisoners of war, the protecting power and the International Red Cross could serve as go-betweens and mediators between the two parties, thus allowing for a form of diplomacy even in the midst of war.? I thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding the research for this article. 1 Hague Convention with regard to Laws and Customs of War on Land, 18 Oct. 1907, quoted in Documents on Prisoners of War: Naval War College International Law Studies, ed. Howard S. Levie (Newport, RI, 1979), lx. 77. 2 See Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 27 July 1929, in Levie, Documents, Ix. 176-7; André Durand, From Sarajevo to Hiroshima: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva, 1984), pp. 252-8. The articles of the Geneva Convention The International History Review, xvut, 1, February 1995, pp. 1-220. CN ISSN 0707-5332 © The Intemational History Review. All Rights Reserved Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 79 Moreover, in the struggle between the western allies and the European Axis powers, the treatment of prisoners of war in practice tended to approximate theory. Both the International Red Cross and the protecting power (most often Switzerland) were allowed to inspect camps and make recommendations which were usually acted upon, and diplomatic negotiation through the Swiss and the ICRC led to four separate exchanges involving a total of over 32,000 seriously ill and wounded prisoners between 1942 and 1944.! The result was that prisoners of war in the West, though rarely happy with their condition, were at least reasonably sure of surviving until the end of hostilities. Conditions did vary, of course, depending on the place of captivity and the period of the war. In terms of food and creature comforts, for example, Axis prisoners held in the United States (the belligerent with the highest wartime living standards) were best off.2 Yet even among British prisoners of war in Germany, where Red Cross food parcels were an essential supplement to the generally inadequate rations pro- vided by a food-starved captor state, and where the period of captivity could be up to five years, the death rate totalled only 5.1%.* There was, however, nothing pre-ordained about this compara- tively satisfactory state of affairs: in the Russo-German and the Pacific Wars, observing the conventions was the exception rather than the rule. Of the Soviet prisoners taken by the Wehrmacht, approximately 3,300,000 died in captivity — about 57.5% of the total number.* Of the roughly three million German prisoners taken by the Red Army, around one million died.* Similarly, of the Allied prisoners of war. in Japanese hands, 24.8% of the British and 41.6% of the American prisoners did not return at the end of the war.® The camp conditions took account of the experience gained in the First World War, in which ad hoc diplomacy and agreements between belligerents had helped defuse potential crises: Richard B. Speed III, Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity (New York, 1990). 1 International Committee of the Red Cross, Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Its Activities during the Second World War (September 1, 1939—June 30, 1947): Vol. 1: General Activities [hereafter ICRC] (Geneva, 1948), ch. 9. 2 See Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America (New York, 1979); L. E. Keefer, Italian Prisoners of War in America, 1942-1946 (New York, 1992). 3 The death rate, used to compare conditions in German and Japanese camps, is taken from The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, comp. John R. Pritchard and Sonia Zaide (New York, 198t), vi. 12,868. 4 Theo J. Schulte, The German Army and Nazi Policies in Occupied Russia (New York, 1989), p. 1. 5 Werna Ratza, ‘Anzahl und Arbeitsleistungen der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen’, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkriegs: Band XV: Eine Zusammenfassung, ed. Eric Maschke (Munich, 1974), pp. 207, 224. 6 E. Bartlett Kerr, Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific, 1941-1945 (New York, 1985), appendix C; Tokyo War Crimes, vi. 12,868. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 80 S. P. MacKenzie that bred such statistics — acute hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter and warmth, coupled with extreme brutality on the part of guards and denial of Red Cross intervention — were, of course, in flagrant contravention of both the Geneva and Hague conventions.! International law as such, then, does not explain why prisoners in the West were treated relatively well. Why, if the conventions could be so easily discarded as rules for the treatment of prisoners of war elsewhere, did they continue to operate in the western war theatres? The aim of this article is to explore this question through the medium of the shackling affair, an international crisis over the treatment of prisoners of war in 1942-3 which might have — but, significantly, did not — result in the breakdown of diplomatic relations and relatively humane treatment of prisoners. * When the war began in September 1939, the International Red Cross requested assurances from the belligerent states that they intended to abide by the terms of the Geneva Convention. All replied in the affirmative and, in the early months of the war, both sides were careful to avoid blatant infringements as far as they were able.” Each possessed the basic physical means to live up to Geneva standards in terms of food and shelter. Even more important, all the nations concerned — though to varying degrees — accepted the basic philosophical assumption underlying the conventions: that captured enemy soldiers, or one’s own personnel who fell into enemy hands, were no longer combatants but simply fellow human beings who deserved to be treated as such. Indeed, it was precisely because this assumption was rejected by both sides on the eastern front and especially by the Japanese in the Pacific War, coupled with logistical problems, that prisoners of war were treated so badly. In ideological terms, the peoples of the Soviet Union were seen by the Nazis as racial inferiors, Untermenschen. Worse yet, they adhered to a basically antithetical political ideology — Bolshevism. Neither Hitler nor the Wehrmacht considered the conduct of war in the West similar to the nature of operations in the East. The former was a war between states fought for political ends; the latter was nothing less than an ideological cum racial crusade.2 The Germans 1 Neither the Soviet Union nor Japan had ratified the Geneva Convention; but both were theoretically still bound by the more general humanitarian provisions of the Hague Convention. 2 Durand, From Sarajevo to Hiroshima, pp. 401-4. 3 See Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York, 1991); J. Forster, ‘Das Unternehem “Barbarossa” als Oroberungs- und Vernichtungskrieg’, Das Deutsche Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 81 were portrayed by the Soviets in a similarly dehumanizing manner (a task made easier by the atrocious behaviour of German personnel towards both soldiers and civilians in occupied Russia). As one Red Army propaganda leaflet put it: ‘The officers and men in the green coats are not humans but wild animals,’ the kind of ‘mad dogs’ who deserved extermination rather than compassion.’ Neither Hitler nor Stalin, furthermore, displayed any sympathy for their own soldiers who had failed to fight to the death in a struggle which knew no limits.? The Japanese also rejected from the start the assumption that a captured soldier was a fellow human being with whom his captor could empathize. By the end of the 1930s, the Imperial Japanese Army had been inculcated with the idea that to surrender was a grave dis- honour to both family and Emperor: ‘Never live to experience shame as a prisoner,’ as the 1940 Army Field Service Code put it.> This meant that the over 200,000 Allied prisoners of war who surrendered in the early months of 1942, when their situation seemed hopeless, were regarded with contempt by their Japanese captors and treated accordingly.* The ideological situation was, of course, different in the West. Yet though the struggle might be initially more restrained, there appeared no guarantee that it would remain so under the stresses of an ex- panding conflict. The Second World War was, after all, a struggle in which every resource eventually came to be harnessed to the war effort and every possible means of vanquishing the enemy contem- plated; and thus over time, even in the West, grew increasingly antithetical in nature to a code of conduct implying restraint. As the war in the West expanded in scope and intensity, friction over the treatment of prisoners of war grew apace. Almost from the beginning, incidents involving poor judgement on the part of guards had resulted in inquiries and protests through the protecting power. Reich und der Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1983), iv. 416-7, 446; Keitel testimony, International Military Tribunal, Trial of the German Major War Criminals (London, 1949), xi. 33. 1 Red Army leaflets (translated), P[olitisches] A[rchiv des Auswartigen Amtes}, Vr.Kr. 81/5. 2 For German treatment of Soviet POWs see, e.g., Christian Streit, Keine Kamaraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941-1945 (Stuttgart, 1978). For Soviet treatment of German prisoners, see Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieg, bands I- VIII, ed. Eric Maschke (Munich, 1965-73). In response to inquiries from the ICRC, both sides claimed a willingness to treat prisoners humanely. It quickly became evident, however, that no such willingness existed. See ICRC, ch. 11. 3 Quoted in Charlotte Cart-Gregg, Japanese Prisoners of War in Revolt (St. Lucia, Queensland, 1978), p. 25. 4 See Kerr, Surrender and Survival; W. Wynne Mason, Prisoners of War (Wellington, 1954), chs. 5, 8, 12. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 82 S. P. MacKenzie Many such cases had been dealt with successfully through the mechanisms set in place by the Geneva code, but as the total number mounted and the war became more of a life or death struggle — with Britain in the air and Germany under the sea attempting to target the capacity and will of the enemy civilian population to resist — the mutual trust in the other side’s basic intentions regarding prisoners necessary for the convention to function effectively began to erode.! The first signs that the system might be cracking under the strain came in the wake of the hard-fought battle for control of Crete in May 1941, the British and German governments each bitterly accusing the other’s armed forces of having shot prisoners of war.” For the first time, and despite the fact that Article Two of the Geneva Convention specifically forbade reprisals against prisoners, a number of British prisoners were confined in two gloomy and dank underground forts ~ essentially dungeons — in Silesia in retaliation for the confinement of German prisoners in Fort Henry, Canada. This particular incident was solved once the prisoners had been removed from Fort Henry and the German authorities had been given proof that the nineteenth-century fortress was not a medieval hell-hole.> Still, a line had been crossed once, and might be again. In the autumn of 1941 came a further set-back. Since July 1940, the British and German governments had been negotiating the terms of an’ exchange of sick, wounded, and non-combatant armed forces per- sonnel through the ICRC and Switzerland. The need to communicate through third parties, and divergences of opinion over the best way of transporting the prisoners across the Channel, prolonged discussions, but by the late summer of 1941 all seemed set for an exchange proportionate to the number of prisoners held by each side. As a result of German military success in the first two years of the war, the number of British Commonwealth prisoners of war in the Reich was many times greater than the total number of German personnel held in camps throughout the British Empire. A proportionate exchange, therefore, would involve over 1,200 British prisoners returning home as against about 150 German. This had been accepted by both sides; but at the last moment, even as the selected prisoners were being 1 See Enemy Breaches of the Rules of Warfare, 3 Nov. 1942 [Public Record Office] CAB 66/30, WP (42)508; Imperial War Museum, Enemy Documents Series G1, MI/14/669, British Violations of International Law, 1939-1942. 2 See [Public Record Office] FO 371/28885, W8788/297/49, W91613/297/49; Mason, Prisoners of War, pp. 61, 101; Alfred M. de Zayas, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945 (Lincoln, NB, 1989), ch. 15, n. 16. : 3 [Public Record Office] WO 366/26, f. 65. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 83 transported to their embarkation points on 1 October 1941, the German government — apparently on orders from the Fiihrer — suddenly announced that an equal number of prisoners must be retured by both sides. Having made news of the impending exchange public, the British government was infuriated by what it perceived to be a policy of negotiating in bad faith in order to embarrass its adversary. Negotiations broke off amid mutual recrimination.! Then, in late May 1942, during the battle of Gazala in Libya, the Afrika Korps captured an order issued to the 4th Armoured Brigade instructing guards to deny Axis prisoners food, water, and sleep until they had been interrogated by intelligence officers. This was contrary to the terms of the Geneva Convention, and the German High Command (OKW) publicly announced that, as of noon on 6 June 1942, British troops captured at Gazala would be deprived of food and drink unless the order was immediately cancelled. A crisis was avoided when the German authorities were informed promptly via the protecting power, Switzerland, that the offending order had not been authorized by higher command and would be withdrawn at once.? Though successfully resolved, the incident increased suspicions. Worse yet, the incident was followed in a matter of months by even more provocative actions. During the disastrous Anglo-Canadian raid on the French port of Dieppe in August 1942, the hands of Ger- man prisoners had been tied together in order to prevent their escape and blindfolds had been used; what was more, the order specifying such treatment fell into German hands. Whether or not tying prisoners’ hands in the battle zone was contrary to the Geneva Con- vention was, unfortunately, unclear: much depended on how the relevant articles were interpreted. From the German perspective, how- ever, it was unacceptably ignominious and, on 2 September 1942, OKW publicly announced that all British and Canadian prisoners taken at Dieppe would be shackled unless a full apology was forth- coming from the British government. The immediate response was a note through the Swiss government questioning the existence of an order to tie up prisoners, while stating that, if true, ‘any such order is to be immediately cancelled’ and categorically denying — without time for investigation ~ that German prisoners had been tied.? 1 ICRC, pp. 374-5; British message to German government, through Swiss, 8 Oct. 1941, PA, Vr.Kr. 94/1. 2 Thid. 3 Swiss legation note to German foreign office, 3 Sept. 1942, PA, Vr.Kr. 82/1; 2 Sept. entry in Official Statements by His Majesty’s Government on Shackling of Prisoners of War, Dec. 1942, CAB 66/30; encl. 22A, WO 32/10719. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 84 S. P. MacKenzie The revelation that, in fact, prisoners had been tied up and that the force commander, with the approval of Combined Operations Head- quarters, did issue orders to do so was embarrassing; but matters might have ended there if tensions had been allowed to dissipate over time. Within a matter of weeks, however, further instances of ill-treatment were discovered. By August 1942, word had reached Berlin of the conditions German officer prisoners aboard the SS Pasteur had been forced to endure while en route from Egypt to South Africa earlier in the year. The lieutenant-colonel in charge, apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown, had suspected that the prisoners were about to stage a mutiny. He had therefore ordered a thorough search of all clothing and personal items to uncover plans and weapons. In the process, the prisoners, including two generals, had been forced to give up their clothing, razors, and other personal items — many of which were stolen or misplaced by the South African soldiers going through them.! Worse yet, during a British commando raid on the Channel Island of Sark on the night of 3 October, prisoners had been taken and their hands tied together to prevent them from destroying their papers. Some had tried to make a run for it, and had been shot — leaving bodies with their hands tied together and bullet holes in the back to be found by the garrison authorities after the commandos had departed.? Coming on top of earlier friction, these incidents proved to be decisive. Even before the Channel Island raid, British officers confined at Oflag IXA at Spanenberg had been stripped of soap, razors, and other personal items in response to the Pasteur incident, pending a British apology and reparations to the prisoners concerned.? The events on Sark drew an even stronger response, being seen by both Hitler and senior members of OKW as a flagrant example of British duplicity and underhandedness. On 7 October, Hitler issued a highly secret order that flew in the face of international law: in future, captured commandos — though legally combatants by virtue of the British uniforms they wore — were to be ‘slaughtered ruthlessly’. At the same time, OKW publicly renewed its threat to shackle all the prisoners taken at Dieppe unless the British government made an open 1 See B[undes]a[rchiv]-M[ilitar]a[rchiv], OKW/153; Report by Maj.-Gen. Schmitt on events aboard the Pasteur, 28 Mar. 1943, Imperial War Museum, enemy documents collection, 1/965- 1/971 and Declaration of the German Supreme Command concerning the measures taken at Oflag LXA Spanenberg, 30 Sept. 1942, Casdagli MSS; WO 366/26, f. 65; FO 370/3748, f. 16. 2 Encl. 22A, para. 5, WO 32/10719. 3 Declaration of the German Supreme Command, Casdagli MSS. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 85 admission of guilt and apologized unreservedly within twenty-four hours.1 Previous German accusations had, as shown, generally been met with protestations of innocence and efforts to appease on the part of the British. Owing to the number of incidents during the previous year, however, the willingness of British authorities to back down in the face of enemy threats had diminished considerably. For the first time, moreover, the danger of retaliation appeared so great — given the impossible time limit and the demand for a public apology — that the war cabinet became directly involved in prisoner-of-war diplomacy. Meeting on 8 October to agree on the best response, the. war cabinet found itself confronted with the belligerence of its chairman, the prime minister, Winston Churchill. From his quite compelling perspective, the commandos had done nothing for which an apology should be made. The prisoners they had taken had been legitimately fired on whilst trying to make a run for it; reprisals such as the Germans threatened, however, were specifically banned in the Geneva Convention. Taking a fighting stance, Churchill was able to convince his colleagues that the German demand was nothing but an attempt to assume a spurious position of moral superiority in the eyes of the German populace and the international community. A reply was therefore drawn up which stated that the British government ‘will not countenance any orders for the tying of the hands of prisoners of war taken in the- field’, but which also contained the following warning: ‘should the German Government persist in their intention, His Majesty’s Government will be compelled, in order to protect their own prisoners of war, to take similar measures upon an equal number of enemy prisoners of war in their hands.’> The following day, the German authorities announced that 1,376 Canadian and British prisoners were now wearing manacles, and stated that if any action was taken against German prisoners, three times this number would be shackled on 10 October. Having issued their threat, the war cabinet felt compelled to shackle an equal number of German prisoners. The enemy responded predictably and, by 10 October, over 1 Warlimont testimony, Nuernberg Military Tribunal, Trials of War Criminals before the Nuemberg Military Tribunals (Washington, 1946-9), xi. 127; encl. 22A, para. 5, WO 32/10719; Keitel and Jodl testimony, Trial of the German Major War Criminals, xi. 25, xv. 404-5. For the highly negative German public reaction to the news of Canadian troops shackling German prisoners at Dieppe, see Marlis G. Steinert, Hitler’s War and the Germans: Public Mood and Attitude during the Second World War, trans. Thomas E. J. de Witt (Athens, OH, 1977), p. 164. 2 Under ordinary circumstances, POW affairs were handled by the foreign office in conjunction with the Imperial Prisoners of War Committee in the war office. 38 Oct. 1942, CAB 65/28, 126(42)2. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 86 S. P. MacKenzie 5,§00 Canadian, British, and German prisoners of war were wearing real or substitute manacles.! The stage now seemed set for another round of reprisal and counter-reprisal. Though the war cabinet as a whole was betraying signs of uncertainty, Churchill himself, according to the diary of the permanent under-secretary at the foreign office, Sir Alexander Cadogan, was still in ‘a silly fighting mood’. When the adjutant- general, Sir Ronald Adam, tried to convince the prime minister to reverse the policy, he met with a frosty response — ‘I left hurriedly.” In Germany, meanwhile, an equally combative stance was being taken in light of what appeared to be British duplicity in denying that Wehrmacht personnel had been mistreated. ‘Our policy’, the state secretary, Ernst von Weizsacker, wrote, ‘is a gamble on the weakness of nerves of the other side.’* When Switzerland (the protecting power for both Britain and Germany) and the ICRC, both by now thoroughly alarmed, offered to mediate the dispute, neither side appeared willing to make the first move. Over the next few weeks, however, the potential consequences of further escalation began to impinge on official thinking in both London and Berlin: whatever the rights or wrongs of the case, prisoners of war in enemy hands would continue to be helpless pawns in retaliatory moves, pawns who ultimately might begin to suffer very seriously indeed. A similar crisis over the treatment of captured U- boat crews during the First- World War, after all, had come dangerously close to escalating out of control and had caused consider- able discomfort for groups of prisoners on both sides.° More recently, unconfirmed reports in June 1940 of surrendering German airmen and paratroopers being shot had prompted Hitler to threaten to shoot between five and ten French prisoners for every German killed: a threat which likely would have been carried out and which would 19 Oct. 1942, CAB 137(42). Given the numbers involved, both sides initially had some difficulty in finding enough handcuffs and chain to go round and made do for a time with rope and twine. See, e.g., In Enemy Hands: Canadian Prisoners of War, 1939-45, ed. Daniel G. Dancocks (Edmonton, 1983), pp. 44-5; Werner Rings, Advokaten des Feindes: Das Abenteuer der politischen Neutralitat (Dusseldorf, 1966), pp. 99-100. 2 Entry for 12 Oct. 1942, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938-1945, ed. David Dilks (London, 1971), p. 483. 3 [Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives,] Adam MSS, viii. ch. 9, p. 4. 4 Letter, 11 Oct. 1942, Die Weizsdcker-Papiere, 1933-1950, ed. Leonadis E. Hill (Frankfurt, 1974), Pp. 304-5. 5 Encls. 33A, 51A, WO 32/10719; ICRC, pp. 368-9; telegram 189, 9 Oct. 1942, PA, Vr.Kr. 82/1 and Ritter note, 12 Oct. 1942, PA, St.S., Krieigsgefangenfragen, bd. 1. 6 James F. Willis, Prologue to Nuremberg: The Politics and Diplomacy of Punishing War Criminals of the First World War (Westport, CT, 1982), pp. 17 ff Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 87 have generated reciprocal action had not the French been on the verge of defeat (and therefore hesitant to respond at once) and if the ICRC had not been able to show that German prisoners of war were, in fact, being treated well.! For those concerned about where the shackling crisis might be going, the harsh logic of such episodes served as a sobering reminder of what might happen to those in enemy hands. Concern and growing doubts in official circles, moreover, were heavily reinforced by the unwillingness of allies to support further action. In London, it quickly became evident that the Dominion govern-~ ments were worried that the crisis might escalate to the point where it would adversely affect more and more prisoners and, within days of the first round of shackling, were informing London of their strong desire for a negotiated solution.2 The Canadian government was particularly concerned. In order to live up to its threat to match the first German reprisal, the British government on 8 October had asked that prisoners of war held in Canada be shackled. As London had already made its warning public, Ottawa acceded to the British request; but over the following days made it clear that it was not at all happy with how the crisis was being handled. The majority of prisoners in chains in Germany were, after all, Canadians; and fears concerning their welfare were only heightened when a riot broke out in a camp near Bowmanville, Ontario, after guards attempted to shackle the German inmates. ‘The British’, the prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, confided in his diary on 10 October, ‘have bungled the business terribly.’> Official com- munications were more polite but adamant in refusing Churchill’s wish to match the number of prisoners the Germans had now shackled.4 The Dominions had at least made known their objections privately. The United States was less discreet. Though Washington had not been approached to provide support, there was concern in the White House that the shackling crisis might place future American prisoners of war in jeopardy. In press conferences, the president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the secretary of state, Cordell Hull, made it clear that 1 Marcel Junod, Warrior without Weapons (London, 19st), pp. 156 ff; FO 371/25164, W7843/ 424/49. 2 Canada to D[ominions] O[ffice], 9 Oct. 1942, CAB 66/50, f. 148; encl. 29A, Gov’t of South Africa to Union High Commissioner (London), 10 Oct. 1942, Australia to DO, 11 Oct. 1942, New Zealand to DO, 12 Oct. 1942: WO 32/10719. 3 10 Oct. 1942 [Public Archives of Canada], King Diary. 4 Ibid., 12 Oct. 1942; Massey to Attlee, 10 Oct. 1942, CAB 66/30; Vincent Massey, What’s Past is Prologue (New York, 1964), pp. 324-5. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 88 S. P. MacKenzie the government of the United States would abide by the letter of the Geneva Convention and not involve itself in reprisals.! In Germany, meanwhile, the foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, was discovering that the major Axis partners were equally disinclined to support further action. In the second week in October, Ribbentrop had contacted the German ambassador at Rome about the possibility of a joint Axis policy on the shackling issue. The idea was to make the British concede defeat when faced with a general threat to prisoners of war in Axis hands and allow Germany to declare a moral victory. Unfortunately, the Italian government saw things differently. With 260,000 Italians prisoner in British hands, as against far fewer British prisoners in Italian hands, Italy would be at a disadvantage if it got involved in reprisals. Specifically, Mussolini was worried about the effect of reprisals on the morale on the home front, and the German ambassador was informed that Italy in effect would be able to do nothing.? Ribbentrop had greater hopes for co-operation with Japan. Unlike the Italians, the Japanese held well over 200,000 Allied prisoners of war, while the Allies held only a handful of Japanese. Yet the Japanese, as the German ambassador at Tokyo reported, were clearly not interested in getting involved in an escalating cycle of reprisals — especially once it was clear that Italy would stay out. Though treating its own prisoners with contempt, and quite willing to overlook the welfare of Japanese prisoners in enemy hands, the Japanese govern- ment was nevertheless concerned that adopting publicized reprisals (unlike the brutal treatment of prisoners of war in Japanese camps from which the ICRC and protecting powers were barred and which therefore remained only rumoured for many months) would place the large number of Japanese civilians interned in North America at risk. Officially, Berlin was informed that reprisals would be ‘contrary to the Bushido spirit’.° Beyond loose agreements to present a united propaganda front to the world — and even this did not hold true for the United States — neither Britain nor Germany had gained any tangible support from its major partners. Meanwhile, pressure was being exerted to pursue some form of mutually acceptable climb-down. * ok Ok 1 Halifax to FO, 28 Oct. 1942, CAB 122/232. 2 Mackensen to Weizsacker, 14 Oct. 1942, PA, St.S., Kriegsgefangenfragen, bd. 1. 3 Affidavit of Alfred E. Kretschmer (German military attaché, Tokyo), Trial of the German Major War Criminals, xi. Defense Document 1,520, p. 27,436; Ribbentrop to Ort, 16 Oct. 1942, Ott to Ribbentrop, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26 Oct. 1942, PA, St.S., Kriegsgefangenfragen, bd. 1. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 89 In London, the Canadian high commissioner, Vincent Massey, and his personal assistant, George Ignatieff, continued to press the war cabinet to avoid provocative actions and pursue a negotiated solution. Senior military officers such as Ronald Adam remained ambivalent at best, while reports from the home intelligence section of the ministry of information indicated that the public was growing steadily more anxious over the fate of prisoners of war.! In Berlin, Helmuth von Moltke and other humanitarian-minded members of the international law section of the Abwehr endeavoured to persuade Ribbentrop that what Germany was doing was probably illegal and certainly counter- productive in relation to the future welfare of prisoners of war in enemy hands.” There were, however, difficulties in bringing about a reversal of policy. Despite pressure from the Canadian government to break the impasse through unilateral action — that is, to cease shackling German prisoners as a means of persuading the German authorities to do likewise — Churchill was evidently still reluctant to make the first move.> Ribbentrop, taking his lead from the Fiihrer, continued to take what a Swiss representative described as an ‘obdurate’ stance. Despite an apparent willingness to discuss ICRC intervention, Hitler’s refusal, when doubts were voiced by moderates within OKW, to modify the secret commando order was a clear indication that he was still in a vengeful frame of mind.* By November, however, moves were afoot in London to break the impasse. Frustrated by Churchill’s resistance, the Canadian govern- ment decided to take radical action. Like the other Dominions, Canada had since the beginning of the war agreed that the welfare of Commonwealth prisoners of war in enemy hands should be overseen by the foreign office and a branch of the war office in London (the Imperial Prisoners of War Committee). The shackling crisis, however, had severely strained Ottawa’s faith in this system — certainly as far as putting the fate of Canadian prisoners in the hands of a strong-minded British premier whose judgement was notoriously fickle. With the strong support of Massey in London, Mackenzie King and his senior 1 Home Intelligence weekly report no. 115, 17 Dec. 1942 [Public Record Office, Ministry of] INF[ormation] 1/292; Adam MSS, viii. ch. 9, p. 4; Massey, What’s Past, pp. 324-5. 2 Ger van Roon, ‘Graf Moltke als Volkerrechtler im OKW’, Vierteljahrshefte fiir Zeitgeschichte, xviii (1970), 267; letters 12 Oct., 10 Dec. 1942, Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya, 1939-1945, ed. and trans. Beate Ruhm von Oppen (New York, 1990), pp. 253, 267, n. 3. 325 Oct. 1942, CAB 65/28, 145(42)4; encl. 106A, Canada to DO, 24 Oct. 1942, WO 32/10719; 113A, 24 Oct. 1942, FWCA/M (42) 12; Massey, What’s Past, pp. 325-6; W[illiam] L[yon] M[ackenzie] K{ing] report on conversation with Malcolm Macdonald, 6 Nov. 1942, King Diary. 4 Encl. 167A, WO 32/10719; ICRC, p. 369; Tokyo War Crimes, xi. 132-5. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 go S. P. MacKenzie ministers had decided by the fourth week of the crisis that indepen- dent action would have to be taken. Canada would unshackle its own Germans in the hope of generating reciprocal action in the Reich. ‘Churchill will not like this,’ Mackenzie King noted in his diary, ‘but he is wrong in the point of view he is taking.”! Announced in a cable dated 2 December, the proposed action had a salutary effect on war cabinet resolve. Churchill, in the view of at least one minister, had so far tended to dominate decisions on the shackling issue by sheer force of personality.2 At a war cabinet meeting on 3 December, however, despite his argument that ‘the action proposed by the Canadian Government was very unlikely to result in the German Government unshackling British prisoners,’ the majority of those present agreed that it would be ‘most unfortunate’ if an open rift developed — and that therefore Britain ought to follow Canada’s lead. As a face-saving device, the Swiss should be secretly asked to propose to both sides that their prisoners should be unshackled on a particular date — at which point, hopefully, the Germans would follow suit in retreating from a dangerous position.’ In Germany, meanwhile, there were signs that the doves were gaining the upper hand. On 28 November, prisoners of war in Oflag IXA were informed that their personal items would be returned to them, even though — at least officially — the tone of the British response and offer of recompense for the Pasteur prisoners was said to be inadequate.* Even more significant was the decision within OKW at the start of December to unshackle all prisoners over Christmas.® The British and Canadian governments made public affirmations of their acceptance of the (orchestrated) Swiss proposal to each side that prisoners of war should be unshackled in the middle of December,° but the German authorities, although paying close attention, remained non-committal. The foreign office reply, in two notes dated 12 December, stated that a commitment by the British not to tie prisoners’ hands on the battlefield was a necessary pre-condition to 123 Oct. 1942, King Diary. 2 Report on conversation with Malcolm Macdonald, 6 Nov. 1942, ibid. 33 Dec. 1942, CAB 65/28, 164(42)3; Ottawa to DO, 2 Nov. 1942, Mackenzie King to Churchill, 3 Nov. 1942, WO 32/107913. : 4 See 28 Nov. 1942, Casdagli MSS; WO 366/26, f. 65; FO 370/3748, f. 16; encl. 319A, foreign office to Berne legation, 25 Nov. 1942, WO 32/10719. 5 Encl. 224A, Norton to Eden, 4 Dec. 1942, WO 32/10719; Ritter memo, 24 Dec. 1942, PA, Vr.Kr. 82/1, R 31922. 6 Encl. 264A, London to Berne, 15 Dec. 1942 and 240A, Berne to London, 8 Dec. 1942, WO 32/10719; 7 Dec. 1942, King Diary. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis gI acceptance of the Swiss proposal.! As if to underline the point, British and Canadian prisoners were reshackled the day after Christmas despite Swiss requests that the reprisal be left in abeyance.” Faced with alarming indications from the Swiss that Germany was toying with the idea of breaking off formal communications on the matter, yet still unwilling for military reasons to give a blanket guaran- tee that prisoners would never be bound on the battlefield, the war cabinet in London, in consultation with the Canadian government, spent the first weeks of the new year debating the wording of the formal British reply to the German statement. There was little hope in either capital, however, that anything less than total capitulation before German demands — something even the Canadian government was unwilling to accept — would end the shackling. If Hitler decided to renounce the Geneva Convention, then no amount of diplomatic activity would stop him.? Like the German statement of 12 December 1942, therefore, the British response, delivered through Switzerland on 18 February 1943, was little more than a restatement. Not surprisingly, this was found to be unsatisfactory in Berlin — matters only being made worse by outrage over the use of Jews as guards for German prisoners in a camp in Palestine. Living conditions in the newly established Stalag 319 in Cholm, Poland, were made very harsh in retaliation,* and in reply to the latest British statement on the shackling issue, Hitler ordered Ribbentrop to respond that it merely confirmed ‘that the danger of German prisoners being shackled by British or Canadian troops will continue to exist in future’. Ominously, the message ended with a warning that London and Ottawa ‘alone bear responsibility if measures of reprisal exercised on the German side against British and Canadian prisoners of war continue in force’.> Yet the German position was, in fact, rather more flexible than it seemed. Now that the enemy had given up shackling, one of the central reasons for chaining British and Canadian prisoners of war had disappeared. What was more, between November 1942 and March 1 Berlin to Berne, 10, 12 Dec. 1942 and Ribbentrop to Ritelen, 22 Dec. 1942, tel. no. 3948, PA, Buro St.S., Kriegsgefangenfragen, bd. 1; 24 Dec. 1942, PA, Vr.Kr. 82/2, zu R 31922. 2 30 Dec. 1942, CAB 65/28, 174(42)3. 3 4 Jan. 1943, CAB 65/33, 1(43)6; 18 Jan. 1943, CAB 10(43)4; 25 Jan. 1943, CAB 16(43)5; 27 Jan. 1943, CAB 18(43)2; 5 Feb. 1943, CAB 24(33)1; 8 Feb. 1943, CAB 26(43)3; encls. 319-3A, 3B, Berne to London, 19 Jan. 1943, WO 32/10719. 4 WO 366/26, f. 65. 5 Encl. 357A, Berne to London, 17 Mar. 1943, WO 32/109719; tel. 568, Berlin to Berne, 10 Mar. 1943, Hewel note for Ribbentrop, 18 Feb. 1943, tel. 383, Berne to Berlin, 18 Feb. 1943, PA, Buro St.S., Kriegsgefangenfragen, bd. 1, RAM 39/43. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 92 S. P. MacKenzie 1943, the western allies had taken over 100,000 German prisoners in North Africa, which, among other things, made the number of captives on each side less uneven than it had been when the crisis began and probably focused greater attention on the welfare of captured Germans — particularly the newly incarcerated seriously ill and wounded. Those within OKW who had doubted the wisdom of the reprisal policy from the start were able to make a much stronger case: the successful negotiation of an exchange of prisoners would be unlikely if Germany continued to shackle enemy prisoners. Even Ribbentrop, apparently, was won over to the position that the shackling would have to be abandoned.! Hitler himself, however, remained obdurate. When OKW sug- gested in April 1943 that the shackling order be enforced less strictly in order to facilitate negotiations over the affair and over the exchange of prisoners, he rejected the idea.” This forced those in favour of ending the affair to pursue their goal circuitously. From the start, not all camp commandants had been particularly zealous in carrying out the shackling order; and, from early in the new year, shackling, in most cases, was allowed in practice (though not in theory) to become largely symbolic. Fewer and fewer prisoners were actually being shackled, and it was known that those who still were had learned to pick the locks. Significantly, the protecting power and ICRC repres- entatives were allowed to observe and report these developments to the authorities in London.? There were other signs of a desire for compromise. In March 1943, the German foreign office at last replied in the affirmative to a Swiss government proposal (made in March 1942 but put on hold in both London and Berlin in order to deal with the shackling crisis) that negotiations begin again with a view to an exchange of sick and wounded British and German prisoners.* Some weeks later, after it had been ascertained by ICRC delegates that Italian prisoners had been substituted for Germans in the camp guarded by Jews in Palestine, the retaliatory camp in Cholm was shut down.> Within the British foreign office, these moves were perceived as efforts to defuse the situation quietly, and it was agreed in the war 1 Trial of the German Major War Criminals, xv. 367; encl. 420A, Berne to London, 6 Aug. 1943, WO 32/10719. ; 2 OKW to foreign office, 21 Apr. 1943, PA, Vr.Kr. 82/3. 3 Encl. 338A, Berne to London, 17 Feb., 345A, same to same, 21 Feb. 1943, WO 32/10719; 22 Feb. 1943, CAB 65/33, 33(43)2; note, 12 Oct. 1943, PA, Botschafter Ritter, 2/7. 4 Berne to Berlin, 26 May 1942, PA, Vr.Kr. 94/2 and Ritelen to Albrecht, 30 Dec. 1942, 94/3; CAB 65/34, $6(43)8. 5 ICRC, p. 371; WO 366/26, f. 65. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 93 cabinet in April that this time Britain should agree to an exchange of sick and wounded prisoners without worrying about numerical equality among the different types of personnel. The subsequent negotiations were tedious and time-consuming, but made progress. It seemed possible that if an exchange could be successfully carried out, then the shackling — symbolic or otherwise — would finally cease. Churchill, still annoyed that Hitler had forced the Allies to back down, in July broached the idea to his war cabinet colleagues of trying to regain the initiative by warning Berlin that ‘unless within a specified time the German Government gave satisfactory assurances that the shackling of British prisoners had been discontinued’, London would promise to ‘shackle German officers after the war for a corresponding number of man-hours’. When this plan was formally discussed in the war cabinet on 2 August, it quickly became evident that Churchill would receive absolutely no support. It was clear that the Dominions would be opposed, and both the foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, and the minister of war, P. J. Grigg, well briefed by their staffs, made the crucial point that any such démarche would transform symbolic shackling in German camps into the real thing. Perhaps recalling that his refusal to reconsider the decision to treat U-boat crews as criminals in the face of German reprisals against British: prisoners of war had been one of the secondary issues used by opponents successfully to demand his removal from the admiralty in May 1916,> Churchill announced that ‘in view of the doubts which had been expressed, he would not press his suggestion at the present time.” By the summer of 1943, from the perspective of the Swiss govern- ment in its role as protecting power, the time seemed right for a new initiative to bring the crisis to an end. On 17 August, the Swiss ambassador at Berlin approached the German foreign office with what was characterized as an ‘unofficial suggestion’ from the Swiss foreign minister, Marcel Pilet-Golaz. An end to the shackling would benefit the treatment of prisoners of war on both sides, and would facilitate the exchange negotiations. What was more, there need be no formal declaration implying any loss of face — the Swiss minister could simply report to London, through Berne, that the shackling had ceased.* 1 Encl. 338A, Berne to London, 17 Feb., 345A, same to same, 21 Feb. 1943, WO 32/10719; 20 Apr. 1943, CAB 65/34, 56(43)8; Swiss embassy to foreign office, 7 May 1943, PA, B.St.S, Kriegsgefangenfragen, bd. 1, Ua 55 694 and PA, Vr.Kr. 94/2, 94/3. 2 19 July 1943, CAB 65/35, 101(43)2. 3 Willis, Prologue to Nuremberg, pp. 19-21. 4 CAB 109(43)3; encl. 412A, brief by Lt.-Col. H. J. Phillimore, 31 July 1943, WO 32/10719. 5 Steengrecht to Weizsacker, 17 Aug. 1943, PA, B.St.S., Kriegsgefangenfragen, bd. 1, nr. 390. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 94 S. P. MacKenzie Anxious to expedite the exchange of wounded, Ribbentrop adopted this idea as his own, his only concern being to make abso- lutely sure that the British and Canadians had lived up to their declaration that no German prisoners of war were being tied.! In the third week of October 1943, after months of negotiation, an exchange of $,195 British and 5,765 German prisoners took place by ship through the ports of Gothenberg, Barcelona, and Oran.? By this point, even Hitler had come to the conclusion that there was nothing further to be gained through shackling, and that as long as the matter was handled quietly and informally — without press coverage or an official renunciation of the German position — then shackling should cease.3 Hence, without any fanfare, orders were issued by OKW to cease all shackling of British and Canadian prisoners on 22 November. The ICRC was informed beforehand and, by 4 December, its delegates in Berlin were able to pass on the news to London that this was, in fact, the case.* As in Germany, the government made efforts to restrain the press from playing up the news.° * kK * Tacit agreement to let the shackling issue die a natural death did not mean the end of Anglo-German friction over the treatment of prisoners of war. As the war grew more intense, so too did the natural urge to retaliate against enemy captives. The fierce fighting in Normandy in the summer of 1944, for example, generated charges of battlefield atrocities against British and Canadian prisoners by Waffen SS units, while the civilian casualties resulting from RAF area bombing of German cities in the latter stages of the war generated a growing reluctance on the part of Nazi Party officials to protect bomber crews landing by parachute from being torn apart by the mob. There was, as well, an order from Hitler to shoot the seventy-six prisoners who broke out of Luft Stalag III near Sagan in March 1944.’ 1 Ritter to Albrecht, 30 Aug. 1943, PA, Botschafter Ritter 2/7, nr. 322. 2 ICRC, pp. 379-80; Folke Bernadotte, Instead of Arms (London, 1949), pp. 29-30. 322 Nov. 1943, PA, Botschafter Ritter 2/7, nr. $34. 4 Encl. 433A, Berne to London, 23 Nov., encl. 435A, same to same, 4 Dec. 1943, WO 32/10719. 5 Encl. 450A, Guidance Memorandum for Editors, 16 Dec. 1943, WO 32/10719. 6 Zayas, Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, pp. 116 ff. These killings in turn led to impromptu battlefield reprisals by individual Canadian soldiers. See Senate of Canada, Proceedings of the Standing Senate Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs (Ottawa, 1993), 9A: 107-10; 10: 40-1. Such actions do not appear to have been reported to the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau: Zayas, Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, passim. 7 Brauchitsch testimony, Trial of the German Major War Criminals, ix. 2, xi. 34, 38; Jodl testimony, Xv. 313; Biichs testimony, xvi. 47-8; Office of the United States Chief Consul for Prosecution of Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 95 In the early months of 1945, Hitler even seriously considered a proposal from his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, that the thousands of Allied aircrew currently in prisoner-of-war camps be executed as a reprisal for the catastrophic effects of the firestorm bombing of Dresden, and even appeared to be on the brink of abandoning the Geneva Convention entirely. ! The shackling affair, however, had shown both the British and the German authorities in concrete terms what hitherto had only been a theoretical (though likely) scenario: that retaliation directed against prisoners of war would be reciprocated. In light of this, both sides took a more cautious line in subsequent potential crises. Though the Fiihrer and senior Nazi Party figures such as Goebbels and Martin Bormann were more willing to place German prisoners at risk than was the war cabinet in London to jeopardize the welfare of British prisoners, it is highly significant that even the actions mentioned above did not produce anything resembling the kind of escalatory cycle of reprisal and counter-reprisal characteristic of the early stages of the shackling affair. Recognizing that Hitler was likely to risk more harm to prisoners than the western allies would be prepared to match, the British government, careful always to consult the Commonwealth govern- ments (and, when necessary, Washington) to generate an agreed response, deliberately avoided provocative action. When evidence of the shooting of commandos and news of the killing of fifty of the escapees from Luft Stalag III leaked out, no retaliatory action was taken beyond public protests and warnings directed at the specific perpetrators (as opposed to the German government) that their unlawful actions would not be forgotten.? The German military authorities, meanwhile, in concert with the German foreign office, did their best to limit retaliation against Allied Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, 1946-8) iv. 1676-PS, pp. 187-8; Arthur A. Durand, Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story (Baton Rouge, LA, 1988); Steinert, Hitler’s War, pp. 202 ff. There was, to be sure, a good deal of hypocrisy in Nazi outrage over area dombing, since it was the Luftwaffe that had first targeted civilians back in 1939-40. The British authorities had always done their best to protect shot-down German bomber crews from ipontaneous civilian attacks, and at no time sanctioned lynching (unlike Bormann, who, in a sircular to senior Nazi Party officials, condoned such action). See Trial of the German Major War Criminals, xx. 96; Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, iii. 102. | 8 Mar. 1945 entry, The Goebbels Diaries: The Last Days, ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper (London, 1978), p. 78; Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, trans. C. Fitzgibbon (London, 1952), p. 437; Trial of ‘he German Major War Criminals, ix. 2, 239, XV. 313, XVi. 47-8, xx. 96, ili. 239; Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, 1676-PS, iii. 057-PS, p. 102, iv. 187-9. » 19 June 1944, CAB 65/42, 80(44)8; P. J. Grigg statement, 404 House of Commons Debates, ‘Deb.) 5s, col. 619; Stimson to Leahy, in Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War, p. 258. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 96 S. P. MacKenzie prisoners of war and to ameliorate its effects. Hitler himself wanted to keep news of his orders to shoot surrendered commandos and the recaptured Sagan prisoners a secret, presumably to protect Germans in Allied hands; and though refusing actually to rescind the commando order, and furious over the bombing of cities and strafing attacks by Allied fighters, he was eventually dissuaded from renouncing the Geneva Convention and taking revenge for Dresden by senior military and foreign office members who stressed that this would undoubtedly place German prisoners of war in jeopardy. The Allies might not reciprocate to the same degree, but they might take some less extreme counter-measure among the hundreds of thousands of German personnel in prisoner-of-war camps. Even when Hitler insisted that the Wehrmacht allow German civilians to beat to death those who parachuted into Germany during air raids, the armed forces high command could respond with what the OKW chief of operations staff, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, characterized as ‘a sort of passive resistance’ involving burying the order in red tape and continuing to ship surrendered airmen to the comparative safety of prisoner-of-war camps.! The only potential crisis which could not be controlled was the Sagan affair, largely because Reichsftihrer SS Heinrich Himmler acted on Hitler’s orders before OKW and the foreign office had a chance to intervene. Even in this case, the authorities had tried (though with little chance of success given the number of dead prisoners) to cover up the actions of the Gestapo so as to avoid retaliation.” On the single occasion when OKW actively supported retaliatory action against British prisoners after the shackling affair had ended — when reports arrived of the spartan living conditions for German officers in Camp 306 in Egypt led to similar conditions being imposed on the inmates of Oflag VIIB and Stalag 357 in January 1945 — the matter was handled without public fanfare and was merely an 1 Jodl testimony, Trial of the German Major War Criminals, xv. 284, 418-20; Jahrreis testimony, xvi. 47; Winter testimony, xvi. 63; Speer testimony, xvii. 32; Fritzche testimony, xvii. 317, xiii. 274-6; Wagner testimony, xvii. 355-6; Steengrecht testimony, x. 84, iv. 259-60; Teilnahme des Ob.S.M. an der Fiihrerlage am 19.2.45, 20 Feb. 1945, BA-MA, OKM/g5; Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. R. and C. Wilson (New York, 1970), p. 544. For red tape over the question of killing Allied airmen, see Terrorflieger items, BA-MA, OK W/962z. It should be noted, however, that the figures involved in this may well have exaggerated the extent of such ‘resistance’ to Hitler at the Nuremberg Trial. 2 WO 366/26, fF. 68-9; Westhoff testimony, Trial of the German Major War Criminals, xi. 193 ff; G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (New York, 1947), p. 246. In this case, it was Hitler and the security authorities who orchestrated the cover-up. OKW thought it unlikely to succeed given the enormity of the crime. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 The Shackling Crisis 97 inconvenience for the prisoners concerned.! The British government protested through the protecting power yet, despite pressure in parliament, continued to avoid taking any counter-action against German prisoners.? kk O* The shackling crisis, in short, had forced both sides to consider the practical consequences of what might be termed the ‘mutual hostage’ factor. Tensions had risen to the point where the future of the Geneva Convention, and with it the well-being of prisoners of war in enemy hands, appeared bleak. Having adopted confrontational tactics and engaged in a cycle of reprisal and counter-reprisal which saw the shackling of over five thousand British, Canadian, and German prisoners of war and generated a crisis which threatened to escalate further — perhaps involving action against prisoners of allied nations and harsher action — both sides found themselves on the brink of disaster. As the resolution of the affair in 1943 and the course of subsequent prisoner-of-war diplomacy shows — including the successful completion in May and September 1944 of two more major prisoner exchanges? — the evolution of the shackling crisis demonstrated beyond a doubt that harsh treatment of prisoners on one side could and would produce harsh treatment on the other. The lesson was clear. In a situation in which both sides were concerned about the welfare of prisoners of war in enemy hands — a function of viewing the struggle in essentially political rather than absolute racial cum ideological terms, so that the enemy remained human (and thus capable of humane conduct) — then, in spite of related or unrelated provocations, there were limits to the extent to which the Geneva code could be abandoned with impunity. In and of itself, an international code of conduct agreed to in peacetime was a poor defence against the pressures of total war — as illustrated by the progressive abandonment of limitations on submarine and aerial warfare. However, assuming that the conflict was still essentially a political struggle, then concern over the fate of prisoners of war in enemy hands could and did serve as an essential buttress to the letter of the law. What the shackling crisis had done was serve as a warning of what could happen if the mutual-hostage factor was ignored. The shackling crisis was crucial in reminding both sides of this likelihood. In the context of the war in the West, therefore, it was 1 Diary of F. J. Stewart, 15 Jan. 1945 and FSS files, H/22/111, annex 1, p. 3: Imperial War Museum; BA-MA, OKW/143. 2 407 House of Commons (Deb.) $s, col. 2,069; 409, $s, col. 1,667. 3 ICRC, p. 380; PA, Vr.Kr. 94a/2, 94a/3, 94a/4, 94/4, 95/1-2. Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 17:59 21 November 2014 98 S. P. MacKenzie an important turning-point in the diplomacy surrounding the treat- ment of prisoners of war. If one can trace a growing impatience and desire to retaliate in the first years of the war, the realities the shackling crisis highlighted can be seen to have induced a much more cautious and flexible approach to prisoner-of-war diplomacy in the latter years — especially (though by no means exclusively) on the Allied side. By the end of the war, the International Red Cross had been forced to conclude that, as its president, Max Huber, put it, ‘practical success depends not only on legal reciprocity, but also on one national interest balancing with the other’.! University of South Carolina 1ICRC, p. 35.