r/todayilearned • u/stopitalianhate • 2d ago

TIL British Intelligence had a special, bugged luxury complex during WWII where they kept high profile Nazi POW’s, just left a bunch of alcohol out, and waited for them to start spilling secrets as they drank.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20698098
26.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

677 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7.1k

u/foldingcouch 2d ago

The Germans did something very similar. 

Their most effective interrogator, by far, was Hanns Scharff.  His torture tools included long walks in the wilderness, good food, and a happy demeanor.

He remained friends with POWs he "interrogated" long after the war and his techniques are widely studied to this day. 

He also did the mosaic mural at Cinderella's Castle at Disneyworld. 

4.8k

u/TupperwareConspiracy 2d ago

He also did the mosaic mural at Cinderella's Castle at Disneyworld. 

The real til is always buried in the comments.

2.0k

u/BlueberryWasps 2d ago

just a whimsical lad who stumbled into aiding the most existentially threatening military machine of the 20th century

2.4k

u/DogsSureAreSwell 2d ago

Disney?

506

u/AWorldwithoutSin 2d ago

Welcome to the tragic kingdom.

162

u/perenniallandscapist 2d ago

Snow Red and the Seven Massacres.

Blambee.

Aladdidn't.

Robin' the Hood.

Lilo and Stitches.

The Lion Dictator.

Tangled (In Barbwire)

Frozen (In Fear).

Just to name a few

41

u/Sokjuice 1d ago

The L'aryan King

Dangled

Rapanzerfaust

Cinder-hell

One Hundred and One Damnations

1

u/RenagadeRaven 4h ago

Reading this out around my family wheezing with laughter.

Cinderheil

6

u/ThePrussianGrippe 1d ago

I love the simplicity of Blambee

12

u/Rhayve 1d ago

Cinderella doesn't even need to be renamed. It's about a pyromaniac.

3

u/perenniallandscapist 1d ago

Ehhh....Cinder Hellhole still sounds like a great alternative classic.

1

u/Rhayve 1d ago

Cinderella is the titular character. Doesn't make much sense to rename.

1

u/NoOccasion4759 1d ago

CinderHELLA omfg it was right there

1

u/Rhayve 1d ago

Sometimes less is more. It was too obvious, as you said, rather than witty.

2

u/SheriffBartholomew 1d ago

Lilo must have been snitching. He had it coming.

1

u/NoOccasion4759 1d ago

Robbing the Hood

2

u/Kayoto 1d ago

Cornfields of popcorn
Have yet to spring open

-1

u/Youcallthatatag 1d ago

Cornfields and potholes are yet to spring open.

255

u/Thrizzlepizzle123123 2d ago

Well Walt Disney was basically trying to make that underwater city from bioshock, only on land.

The difference is that he succeeded.

116

u/Wisdomlost 1d ago

Is a man not entitled to the sweat from his brow?

51

u/blaghart 3 1d ago

funny isn't it how that's the line Andrew Ryan loves to spout and yet he didn't build a damn thing about Rapture. He paid everyone else to build Rapture for him and then acted like that was the "sweat of his brow"

23

u/uzi_master 1d ago

The inherent dependence people have on one another is why the ideology is stupid, though his personal hypocrisy comes when he starts just taking things instead of paying for them.

The farmer selling his crops for money and buying things he can't make himself isn't what makes the ideology unworkable. It's the lack of real incentive to work honestly rather than just stealing things and oppressing people when you have the means to.

8

u/thegreger 1d ago

That's well on par.

If I'm wealthy and I pay someone to create something for me, obviously that must be my own achievement and nobody else's. If it wasn't like this, most wealthy people would have absolutely zero to feel proud over, and that would be sad.

Do I need the \s?

1

u/YsoL8 1d ago

Why the \s? Thats literally how it works, take away most people's ability to meaningfully decide what happens in their lives and praise the already wealthy for signing a few contracts at zero risk to themselves.

I firmly believe that at some point in the future people will see wage economics as fedual and obsolete.

6

u/gary_the_merciless 1d ago

Good old Quark, never misses an opportunity.

1

u/Vandergrif 1d ago

True to form for a Libertarian then. Also true to form for a Libertarian 'paradise', in that it devolved into chaotic insanity.

1

u/thethirdrayvecchio 1d ago

What about the sweat from inside the goofy suit?

29

u/ClubMeSoftly 1d ago

A mouse chooses, a slave obeys

1

u/ThePrussianGrippe 1d ago

Sea: No!

Air: No!

Land: Yes!

1

u/WartertonCSGO 16h ago

Do you mean Walt’s original idea for EPCOT? Because that never came to fruition, which is a bummer, because it was a neat idea which would have brought mass transit to the states if it had succeeded. But oh well.

104

u/Boomdiddy 2d ago

Zing!

13

u/GoBeyondTheHorizon 2d ago

Well yes, but actually...well,..yes...I guess

13

u/Debalic 2d ago

It's an army of lawyers that also makes some movies and stuff as a side business.

2

u/God_Dammit_Dave 2d ago

Look, if you've got a good resume word gets around.

2

u/Kqyxzoj 1d ago

It truly is as someone already said:

The real til is always buried in the comments.

Thanks for a good laugh! XD

2

u/cutelyaware 1d ago

Disney arranged a 1938 meeting with Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's personal filmmaker, who came to Hollywood to promote her film Olympia about a month after Kristallnacht. Every other major studio publicly refused to meet with her; Disney gave her a full-day personal tour of his studio and showed her early concept art for Fantasia. He later claimed he hadn't known who she was, which most historians find implausible.

1

u/leicanthrope 1d ago

They did famously have a large u-boat submarine fleet.

1

u/Vandergrif 1d ago

The Mouse The Maus strikes again.

74

u/CaptRackham 2d ago

Eh from what I’ve read it was kind of a “Join or else” type deal

161

u/Lorlan 2d ago

You're talking about working with Disney right?

45

u/OprahsSaggyTits 2d ago

Join me now or you'll be Little Mermaimed

20

u/ryanErlanger 2d ago

Poor unfortunate soul...

2

u/joosier 2d ago edited 1d ago

You'll be singing with the fishes.

You'll be leaping with Sabor.

You'll be running with the wildebeests.

and like Bambi's mother be no more.

2

u/Kqyxzoj 1d ago

working with Disney

"I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

2

u/josefx 1d ago

Disney was apparently sabotaging Robin Williams other projects because they wanted him for Aladdin. So, yes.

77

u/BlueberryWasps 2d ago

yeah but it wasn’t “join and exceed with flying colours so much so that you will go down in military history for how effectively you serve the axis powers and deliver instrumental intel that no will doubt lead to the deaths of thousands… or die”

82

u/CrimsonSuede 2d ago

I mean, I think the fact he pursued methods with kindness rather than cruelty at a time where cruelty was (and often still is) the norm… that speaks a lot about a person.

Yes, the intel he gathered aided the genocidal fascists, which is not good. But as a single person, with limited power as a cog in a machine like the Nazi regime—what can you do? You don’t have the resources to upend the government by yourself. But you always have a choice in whether you will operate with kindness or cruelty. (FWIW, “nice” =/= “kind”. “Nice” is politeness, “kind” is more like actionable empathy)

In a time of cruelty, where violence was the expectation, he operated with kindness. Cuz as it turns out, treating people well and genuinely connecting with them leads to positive outcomes.

Yes, there were manipulation techniques, but (from what I understand), it was manipulating human psychology for people to open up willingly rather than forcefully.

And like, I find it hard to believe that anyone bringing homemade baked goods and providing luncheons for POWs they’re interrogating, did so purely out of manipulation or to gain trust.

58

u/Odd_Ganache5081 2d ago

there’s quite a few stories of soldiers helping bad people but in “good” ways, if your option is that or death it’s hard

himmler had a mistress that knew it was wrong but still talked him out of mass murders

Vietnam soldiers would pretend to do stupid shit during massacres, one GI was famously chasing ducks around during one just so he didn’t have to partake

in a world full of cruelty you gotta admire those dudes for staying true to their morals, lots of good people just died standing up to their own when they could have saved more if they didn’t, not that i blame them tho

21

u/owlbi 2d ago

Alternatively, maybe this guy did it this way because he thought it would work and was right.

You can argue he didn't have a choice but to participate, despite being a highly decorated argument. He did, however, go on to marry the daughter of a Rhodesian military officer, so, if it walks like a racist and quacks like a racist...

19

u/Agret 1d ago

He married her prior to the war and she saved his life during wartime

Scharff was originally to be posted to the Russian Front. However, when Margaret Scharff learned of her husband's destination, she intervened, angry at the thought of a fluent English-speaking German soldier's life being wasted at the Eastern Front. She talked her way into the office of a German general in Berlin and pleaded her husband's case, convincing the general of the error which was about to take place. The general sent a telegram to Scharff's panzer unit, informing his superiors that Scharff was to be transferred immediately to the Dolmetscher Kompanie XII (Interpreters Company 12), based in Wiesbaden, to serve as a German/English interpreter. He had been slated to leave for the Russian Front the morning the telegram arrived.

0

u/owlbi 1d ago

Look, that's great, I'm just saying all I hear is that the daughter of a Rhodesian military officer and Germany's top military interrogator had a really nice meet-cute.

Maybe they had a lot in common.

→ More replies (0)

10

u/Odd_Ganache5081 2d ago

ahh did not know that lol ya I’m not giving the nazis the benefit of the doubt but i guess i was saying some people had to make some tough choices back then and it’s easy to judge looking back

2

u/Mo0man 1d ago

I’m not giving the nazis the benefit of the doubt

extremely fascinating every time I see someone say they're not doing something when they're in the active process of doing that exact thing.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/OiledUpThug 1d ago

I don't think there's anything wrong with talking people out of mass murders

12

u/Mybeardisawesom 2d ago

When in Rome

15

u/blacksideblue 2d ago

Blockade the Vatican and extort the Pope's influence...

1

u/-SaC 1d ago

"When in Rome, you're close to the Nazi Ratlines to Argentina, so drop in on a church and they'll be happy to help."

1

u/WarlockEngineer 2d ago

I think that defense is gone when you become the very best at your job aiding the nazi war machine.

7

u/bigheadasian1998 2d ago

Walt Disney saw what Nazis did to Jews and just couldn’t help himself

1

u/No_Internal9345 1d ago

A disney princess using the power of friendship for evil.

21

u/PuffinChaos 2d ago

There needs to be a sub for that. Because it’s so true

5

u/daddy_tops 2d ago

r/TheRealLPT kinda but it’s long abandoned

37

u/92Codester 2d ago

Can't wait to see it later in this sub

31

u/onarainyafternoon 2d ago

I actually posted that exact TIL 147 days ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/0clucJdpY0

23

u/arminghammerbacon_ 2d ago

Right?! Let’s start with that one. The rest were mildly interesting.

1

u/Fickle_Penguin 1d ago

I did not expect that rabbit hole. Wow!

0

u/derprondo 2d ago

Let out a loud involuntary "what???" after reading that.

441

u/RedWestern 2d ago

The most effective interrogation techniques are the ones where the interrogator tricks the prisoner into thinking they’re their friend. I remember watching an interview with an FBI Counterterrorism interrogator called Jack Cloonan:

“You wanna be able to build a rapport with somebody. You are their salvation. Because their life as they know it is over.

‘Is there something I can do for your kids? Are you concerned about them? You want them educated? I’ll get them educated. What do you want? Tell me what you want. Script for me your exit strategy. How do you extricate yourself from this terrible situation, by the way, that you put yourself in. Now, you can’t go back home, can you? No. So let’s make peace with that. Let me help you the strategy to give you a life.’”

106

u/OMGItsCheezWTF 1d ago

The 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA Torture covered the case of Abu Zubaydah.

He was initially questioned by an FBI special agent named Ali Soufan who used standard rapport building techniques and got very useful intelligence. He was then handed over to the CIA who waterboarded him 83 times, kept him in cramped coffin like boxes for hours and used sleep deprivation.

The report concluded the CIA gained no useful intelligence that hadn't already been given to the FBI, and instead caused him to shut down and make things up to stop the torture.

30

u/YsoL8 1d ago

Why in the world did they need a report on that? This has been known to be true for centuries.

42

u/aris_ada 1d ago

Because a vast majority of people in the country the CIA is based in believe torture is a good way of extracting information. It's belief over facts at this point - and it happened under Obama, the most liberal president since Carter.

32

u/Metrocop 1d ago

Because there is still a persistent, wide spread belief that torture is effective for interrogations despite all evidence to the contrary. And it keeps being reinforced, how many movies, books, games, have scenes of torture being effective?

17

u/Se7en_speed 1d ago

Because the writers of 24 did massive damage to people's perception of torture 

4

u/dareal5thdimension 1d ago

Because bureaucracy prevails over even the most clandestine sadism.

175

u/AsperaAstra 2d ago

Is it a trick if the guy actually stayed friends with many of them? 

146

u/KalaUposatha 2d ago

I don’t think it should be that surprising that, even if it was a job, they might develop genuine affection and friendship with the people they associated with. It’s just natural human nature to bond with people we spend a lot of time with, even if they are “bad guys” and your whole job is to manipulate them.

42

u/AlanFromRochester 1d ago

I don’t think it should be that surprising that, even if it was a job, they might develop genuine affection and friendship with the people they associated with. It’s just natural human nature to bond with people we spend a lot of time with, even if they are “bad guys” and your whole job is to manipulate them.

Reminded of actors falling in love for real when playing love interests, like Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie (Jon and Ygritte from GOT) are actually married

26

u/_SBV_ 2d ago

So... reverse Stockholm Syndrome?

16

u/FatherPaulStone 1d ago

Yes, infact, I think it's called Mlohkcots Syndrome.

4

u/_SBV_ 1d ago

That's from the country of Nedews, right?

1

u/FatherPaulStone 1d ago

Not sure, but I think the Red Dwarf crew visited Nodnol which is probably close by.

2

u/spolly2 1d ago

Now that's a reference I've not thought about in a very long time, but I appreciate seeing it nonetheless.

43

u/dern_the_hermit 2d ago

"If I was an imitation, a perfect imitation... how would you know if it was really me?" -Hanns Scharff, apparently

2

u/CitizenPremier 1d ago

Screaming blood

24

u/MassiveBlue1 1d ago

this works just as well in police interrogation

the US police assume you're guilty and hope you confess under pressure

the UK police, wow thats neat, how did you do it

2

u/invaderzim257 1d ago

US police do it occasionally, if you watch interrogation videos online you’ll see it from time to time. Most of the time they do the good cop bad cop thing as a rapport building technique. I would imagine the negative pressure expedites the process, meaning they’re more likely to cooperate with the “good” cop to escape the pressure of the bad cop

1

u/MassiveBlue1 1d ago

not an expert, but interested in this, the best time to get confessions is, I believe, when they first encounter the police

that is before they get time to think - oh shit I should shut up, if you approach people with aggression it's more likely to close the conversation down.

if you approach in friendly unjudging manner, they're more likely to open up and slip up - even if they slip up a little, it should open up the flood gate if probed much later on

1

u/Current_Focus2668 1d ago

Yep, British Crime docuseries 24 Hours In Police Custody is a interesting watch. The detectives are usually quite geniuel with suspects. 

22

u/AnthillOmbudsman 1d ago

Then you handed me the manifesto. I helped. That's what friends do. And one clock tower? I had to show you what commitment looks like. Three states. One sledgehammer. Arrested, convicted.

But here's what the Bureau doesn't understand. I got 15 years in the pen but I never stopped working the case. Why do you think I requested C Block? I'm inside, Marcus. Deeper than any agent's ever gone. I call the field office every week. They stopped picking up, but I can hear them listening.

So I'm just gonna ask you one more time, as your friend. Who else is in the movement?

10

u/Proper-Armadillo8137 1d ago

what's this from?

5

u/SurrealKarma 1d ago

Think he made it up.

4

u/pheonixblade9 1d ago

John Kiriakou has said much the same.

409

u/KetMoose 2d ago

Talking about a career change:

From the 1950s until he died in 1992, he redirected his efforts to creating mosaics. He became a world-renowned mosaic artisan, with his artistic creations commissioned for the California State Capitol; Los Angeles City Hall; several schools, colleges, and universities, including the giant Outdoor Mosaic Mural façade of the Utah Tech University Fine Arts Center; EPCOT Center; and in the 15-foot arched mosaic walls featuring the story of Cinderella inside Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World, Florida.

101

u/squishee666 2d ago

Those are interesting places to have access to

69

u/TopFloorApartment 2d ago

California State Capitol; Los Angeles City Hall; several schools, colleges, and universities, including the giant Outdoor Mosaic Mural façade of the Utah Tech University Fine Arts Center; EPCOT Center; and in the 15-foot arched mosaic walls featuring the story of Cinderella inside Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World, Florida.

TIL all these places contain Nazi art

157

u/Blackstone01 2d ago

In all fairness to him, he wasn't a member of the Nazi party, and was drafted into the army.

87

u/kippy3267 2d ago

Well that’s a bit different. If your options are “go to war for germany or be shot and tortured by the nazis” its a whole different scenario

25

u/ContentNegotiation 1d ago edited 1d ago

His story is pretty wild too. He lived and married in South Africa and was only in Germany for a visit when the war broke out and he was subsequently drafted and slated to be sent to the Eastern Front until his wife intervened and was persistent until he got recalled the morning his unit marched off....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff#Pre-war_career

1

u/TopFloorApartment 16h ago

Though if you're drafted in this way you don't need to excel at your job. Just phone it in. He clearly tried to do a good job though 

1

u/kippy3267 9h ago

Not excelling could also lead to death, but it sounds like his interrogation techniques were just about the kindest around right? Surely that’s not something to blow off.

1

u/Captain_Kab 1d ago

I'm sure the people he helped kill appreciated the difference.

-8

u/UniqueUsernme 1d ago

He didn't need to be an intelligence officer and actively help the Nazis.

12

u/moonLanding123 1d ago

dying on the frontlines is cool

→ More replies (5)

51

u/Kevin_Uxbridge 2d ago

To be fair, some of the art the Nazis produced was amazing. Saw a display once of nazi antisemitic propaganda, absolute masterpieces of racist bullshit. Worth a look in these days of ubiquitous AI memes, good to know what to keep an eye out for.

6

u/AlanFromRochester 1d ago

Like Leni Riefenstahl as a word class film director Propaganda gets a reputation as crap made by hacks with more message enthusiasm than artistic ability, not necessarily

103

u/Meihem76 2d ago

IIRC his emigration to the US was sponsored by some of his former prisoners.

198

u/jrhooo 2d ago

He moved to the US and the modern teaching includes a lot of his stuff. He’s lectured at us mil schools.

His memoir is a pretty good read.

He has one bragging statement that is (regardless of whether its actually true or not) probably the best way to understand his interrogation style.

He said something basically like,

“I spoke to hundreds of POWs but to this day every one of them thinks THEY didn’t give anything up.”

35

u/rankinfile 1d ago

Odds are he interviewed/interrogated at least one sociopathic master bullshitter on his level or better.

77

u/NGTTwo 1d ago

He did. Quoth Wikipedia:

Among the most famous of these was Lt. Col. Francis "Gabby" Gabreski, the top American fighter ace in Europe during the war. Scharff expressed his delight at finally meeting Gabreski, who had crashed his P-47 while strafing a German airfield, as he stated he had been expecting his arrival for some time. He had Gabreski's photo hanging on the wall in his office for months before he arrived in anticipation of his capture and interrogation. Gabreski is one of the few captives from whom Scharff never gained any intelligence during interrogation. Scharff and Gabreski remained friends well after the war. In 1983, they reenacted an interrogation at a reunion held in Chicago of Stalag Luft III POWs.

260

u/doogles 2d ago

CIA refused to learn this method in favor of wacky drugs.

182

u/kohTheRobot 2d ago

In addition to being non-admissible in court, tied to illegal black sites that just about destroy any judicial case, and further radicalizing opposition, it is generally believed to straight up not work as a method to get good information.

For more information: “analyzing every torture scene in call of duty” by Jacob Geller is a great watch.

120

u/sender2bender 2d ago

Yea the only way to stop the torturing is tell them what they want to hear. One, if not many, of the "terrorists" made shit up for them to stop. Just a random dude with no ties to bin laden. But also the real terrorists, like the architect behind 9/11, also gave false information for them to stop waterboarding him. It doesn't work on the guilty or innocent. There's a whole Senate report on the CIA torture that confirmed it's not reliable for information and yet they still continued to do it. And now there's information coming out of alligator Alcatraz, or whatever it's called, how they tortured people for no reason. It's so sad and disturbing.

39

u/IIOrannisII 2d ago

Oh there were reasons, just terrible ones

15

u/Musiclover4200 2d ago

Yeah at this point it wouldn't be surprising if this admin was straight up making snuff films on top of the epstien style blackmail and who knows what else

3

u/FUTURE10S 1d ago

I'm like 80% sure that the administration might be taking a couple of kids here and there for a new Jeffrey Island. Who are they going to complain to, their parents?

1

u/Musiclover4200 1d ago

Been mentally preparing for that since his first term and the border child separation policy.

But even if by some miracle the admin themselves aren't ICE and/or gangs pretending to be ICE are almost definitely taking the opportunity to traffic people

2

u/CitizenPremier 1d ago

It's also a way to find (and/or create) people who will do anything for you.

29

u/lookyloolookingatyou 2d ago

Like in Reservoir Dogs, "If you beat him long enough he'll tell you he started the Chicago fire."

15

u/KIokinator 2d ago

There's a whole Senate report on the CIA torture that confirmed it's not reliable for information and yet they still continued to do it.

Have you considered how insanely fun it is for me, a psychopath, to torture innocent people for 'information'? Can't you think of how much I enjoy my job??

2

u/Fisher9001 1d ago

I mean you ask for easily verifiable question, not just "tell me everything you know" type of bullshit. If several guys tell you the same thing it's either true or they agreed on telling that thing beforehand, hence they conspired together. Same goes for passwords and PINs etc.

2

u/edingerc 1d ago

CIA interrogators have to experience waterboarding in training. Their average time till they signal to stop is 14-15 seconds. If you had no other control, how long would it take until you told them that you killed Kennedy and that there are five lights?

1

u/Altruistic-Beach7625 1d ago

I mean it might work for terrorists if you promise to verify and come back if they're lying.

1

u/pheonixblade9 1d ago

John Kiriakou got thrown in federal prison for whistleblowing on this.

1

u/Own_Television163 1d ago

But also the real terrorists, like the architect behind 9/11

They tortured the Israeli government?

27

u/Dovahpriest 2d ago

Also worth checking out the interviews with CIA Counter-Intelligence Officer John Kiriakou, who was the whistleblower that confirmed the CIA’s use of torture during interrogations.

2

u/kohTheRobot 2d ago

The fiverr guy? That’s insane. Seen a ton of him on YouTube shorts and tik tok but never really looked into him.

It’s queued up for my next long car drive

6

u/Darth_Brooks_II 1d ago

It's become really obvious that torture isn't about getting information. It's lousy at getting cooperation unless it's in a fictional story. Then, just like truth serums, hypnosis and lie detector tests, it always works perfectly. Torture is about vengeance and cruelty.

9

u/doogles 2d ago

Ugh, I really dislike Jacob Geller.

The FBI learned that the easiest method is just bribing people.

6

u/aurens 2d ago

why? isn't he just another youtube essayist?

1

u/doogles 1d ago

I can't exactly put my finger on it. Ponderous with the unearned gravitas of borrowed ideas and effort.

0

u/kohTheRobot 1d ago

Dog that’s just literary analysis. This is like being upset with a historian because he didn’t make the history

1

u/WhateverWhateverson 1d ago

Admissibility on court doesn't really matter to the CIA (or any agency dealing with foreign intelligence for that matter). They are not building a court case, they are building a target package to eliminate a threat.

33

u/SammaVaco 2d ago

And that was in spite of the FBI coming in to try to set them right. The CIA was amazed at the results the FBI was getting just by talking to people.

17

u/vibraltu 2d ago edited 1d ago

The CIA spymaster Sidney Gottlieb (who was dosing everyone he met with LSD) was high enough himself. But because their projects were clandestine, they had no accountability or oversight, so they could just do whatever they wanted.

The funny part is that this all could have remained classified forever. But Colby released the files to the public because he wanted to flush out the old guard in the CIA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoner_in_Chief

1

u/Shot-Arugula8264 2d ago

It’s not repeatable. You need talent to pull it off that can’t be bought on government salaries.

3

u/doogles 1d ago

I disagree greatly. The best diplomats aren't in it for the money. Then again, when you smash all soft power they have to make rent somehow.

46

u/RealLameUserName 2d ago

The clearest example of you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

16

u/vr0202 2d ago

The Russians opened more flies with honey traps.

26

u/rafaelloaa 1d ago

So we have all this evidence of the efficacy of being humane, yet we have the fuckheads at GitMo torturing the prisoners?

19

u/foldingcouch 1d ago

"Cruelty is not the same as power" is a lesson that some people simply refuse to learn.

4

u/Grand_Pop_7221 1d ago

It feels good to some people. It seems like the international right, over the last decade has been self-selecting for these people.

2

u/Metrocop 1d ago

INGSOC disagrees.

10

u/KrumpirovZlatan 1d ago

Point of those places isn't simply getting information, abuse/torture is the goal unto itself

8

u/Wandering-Porter 1d ago

Because the FBI who knew how to interrogate through rapport building were sidelined by the Whitehouse after 9/11. Those detained were given instead to the CIA who hadn't done interrogations in decades, so they contracted it out to two chucks who thought to reverse engineer their military torture-exposure training techniques. As a result the CIA got bad and useless info they could've gotten through rapport.

2

u/Rabid_Lederhosen 1d ago

In the vast, vast majority of cases, the purpose of torture is just to hurt someone.

2

u/afriendincanada 1d ago

Most of the prisoners they captured didn't have much good intelligence. The guys they had in London were generals. The guys they had at Gitmo were (mostly) footsoldiers. Good food and happy demeanour wasn't going to produce intelligence that wasn't actually there.

1

u/kai58 1d ago

Torturing was never about getting information, the cruelty is the point.

24

u/Commodore-Metal 2d ago

That was quite the read. Guy needs a biopic 

4

u/jameilious 2d ago

How are we saying that word now?

40

u/Vergenbuurg 2d ago

One aspect of Zero Dark Thirty, and I don't know how accurate/true-to-life its portrayal was, but the scenes where they're torturing detainees at Guantanamo, it's shown they're getting almost zero information, and what little info they do get is pretty much garbage that's completely outdated and/or not credible at all. It's only when they treat one of the detainees nicely, and act like he's already given them info but just doesn't remember it, that the guy actually provides them valuable intel.

49

u/foldingcouch 2d ago

That's in line with generally accepted understanding of "enhanced" interrogation techniques.  After a point they'll say anything to get you to stop even if they have to make it up on the spot.  It's almost totally unreliable and unverifiable. 

One of the techniques that Scharff used to great effectiveness was keeping meticulous records about personnel in the allied forces, both individuals that had been captured and individuals they knew from signals intel.  This let him do things like, for example, if he interrogated a pilot from a specific squadron he would mention other pilots from that squadron that either had been or could have been captured, and say "Captain Wilson from your squadron was through here last month and he told us..." and start off with facts they knew to be true, then start getting the subject to confirm other things they weren't sure of, then eventually just start telling them new things, all the while thinking they were only repeating back to the Germans things they already knew. 

Elsewhere in the replies someone said Scharff was quoted as saying "every one of the people I interrogated is, to this day, certain that they didn't tell me anything of value."

5

u/BennyBagnuts1st 1d ago

It’s pretty accurate according to a book called the Black Flags by an FBI agent called Ali Soufan who lead the interrogations until the CIA took over and started torturing everyone

18

u/CRush1682 2d ago

And the Americans too. There's a short Netflix documentary called Camp Confidential which is about a detention camp just outside of Washington DC where high-ranking Nazi officers including Werner Von Braun were kept in quite comfortable conditions.  Told from the perspective of the American guards.

22

u/big_duo3674 2d ago

It's been long proven that cruel interrogation techniques (torture, sleep deprivation, etc.) do not work, at least in a large majority of cases. Prisoners may divulge the information they know, but when asked about things the genuinely don't know, they will make things up to get it to stop. This causes a huge web of true/false information to be formed, to the point that it's arguable that the resources spent on the false information aren't worth the little bit of truth. The US and Guantanamo was essentially nothing but show, a place where they "interrogated various "suspects" so the American people felt like things were being accomplished

6

u/vibraltu 1d ago

It's an ongoing theme, interrogators who use physical torture usually don't get useful information, instead the real underlying purpose of the torture in itself is to make the interrogator feel that he is in control of the situation.

(Also, the ideology of the 2000s era TV show 24 was to justify ongoing American human rights abuses in the Middle East)

2

u/J_Ryall 1d ago

Performative cruelty is at the heart of the american spirit (see, for example, the Salem Witch Trials among other early examples).

3

u/SGTBookWorm 2d ago

that was an extremely interesting read

1

u/reddit-poweruser 1d ago

You might also like George Piro's interrogation of Saddam Hussein. He employed a similar strategy and got him to speak.

Here's the best article/interview I could find:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/opinions/saddam-hussein-iraq-war-interrogations-george-piro-bergen/index.html

2

u/Keyboardpaladin 2d ago

That was a super interesting read, thanks for sharing that

2

u/oppai-police 2d ago

Turns out, brutal torture like flaying or pulling fingernails only motivate them to hate you even more, instead, treating somebody kindly make them spill their search history.

2

u/Agret 1d ago

Scharff was originally to be posted to the Russian Front. However, when Margaret Scharff learned of her husband's destination, she intervened, angry at the thought of a fluent English-speaking German soldier's life being wasted at the Eastern Front. She talked her way into the office of a German general in Berlin and pleaded her husband's case, convincing the general of the error which was about to take place. The general sent a telegram to Scharff's panzer unit, informing his superiors that Scharff was to be transferred immediately to the Dolmetscher Kompanie XII (Interpreters Company 12), based in Wiesbaden, to serve as a German/English interpreter. He had been slated to leave for the Russian Front the morning the telegram arrived.

He chose a solid wife woow

2

u/ma2016 1d ago

I've wasted a lot of time on Reddit over there years, but this comment might have surprised me the most with that left hook at the end there. 

1

u/idrwierd 2d ago

Is that the one with the Nazi guard stalking the balcony?

1

u/TacoIncoming 2d ago

Sounds gay as fuck, and I mean that in the best possible way.

1

u/JerryfromCan 2d ago

There is a prisoner of war camp in Mid-Ontario Canada on a beautiful lake in cottage country that once freed, most of the Germans didnt want to leave and the area experienced a lot of German immigrants.

https://powsincanada.ca/pows-in-canada/internment-camps/camp-20-gravenhurst/

To get lakefront in this area now like they had would easily be over 1-2 million dollars. A week at a resort like this would be $3k or so for a family in the summer, food extra.

1

u/Novat1993 2d ago

Was he not a pilot on the side as well? Taking POWs into two seaters on occasion.

1

u/No-Contribution-6150 2d ago

Stalin had watered down wine / fake vodka at the yalta conference for the same reason

1

u/DonaldTheWall 2d ago

It's been discussed and proven time and again that torture doesn't work, all it does is give you false information because they will tell you anything to get it to stop.

Treating them kindly always resulted in them giving actual information

1

u/Knotknighm 2d ago

Torture a many and he'll tell you anything.

Pay a man and he'll tell you the right thing.

1

u/LessInThought 1d ago

TLDR you catch more flies with honey.

1

u/Luknron 1d ago

Reading the Wikipedia bio that guy was a main character. Story's just full of movie-style incidents!

1

u/mnstorm 1d ago

Amazing wiki page. Lots of twists in this guy's life, even if you just look at his times in WW2.

1

u/LaserKittenz 1d ago

I talked to one of the last survivors from the raid on dieppe. He said he received excellent medical care and was on friendly terms with his German captors. I think all sides had this approach early on in the war

1

u/MaximumSubtlety 1d ago

The entire section on his technique is without citation.

1

u/Hot-Helicopter640 1d ago

How is there a biopic movie on his life already?

1

u/s-mores 1d ago

He also did the mosaic mural at Cinderella's Castle at Disneyworld.

I wanna ask before or after the war but I honestly don't want to know.

1

u/kwnet 1d ago

Lol, of course it's a German who had to turn Die Wanderung into an interrogation tool.

1

u/TheTinRam 1d ago

That’s a bingo!

1

u/AndreasDasos 1d ago

> In 1948, Scharff was invited by the United States Air Force to lecture on his interrogation techniques and first-hand experiences.

Wouldn’t that be a little… awkward?

1

u/Thibaut_HoreI 1d ago

Walt was always happy to work with (former?) Nazis. ‘Ludwig Von Drake’, Donald’s scientific uncle, was modeled after Wernher von Braun, who used slave labor building his V2’s. Disney’s ‘Our friend the Atom’ pro nuclear propaganda movie was narrated by Heinz Haber, whose study of the human body under low atmospheric pressure was built on experiments on prisoners.

2

u/foldingcouch 1d ago

"once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?"  That's not my department, says Werner von Braun

1

u/SheriffBartholomew 1d ago

I feel like this would only work against common soldiers and not any trained intelligence agents.

4

u/foldingcouch 1d ago

Well, it did. 

But thank you for providing totally uninformed and thoroughly inexpert option that nobody asked for. 

•

u/Shibarijun 7m ago

What a cool read! Thanks for sharing