The Scourge of the Swastika Read online

1 Special detachment of the Sicherheitsdienst.

  2 See Chapter IV.

  1 Generalfeldmarschall von Leeb and thirteen other former high ranking officers in the German Army and Navy were tried by a United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg from 30th December 1947 to 28th October 1948. The charges alleged their participation in numerous crimes against prisoners of war and the civilian population of the occupied territories.

  One of the accused, Generaloberst Blaskowitz, committed suicide in prison on 5th February 1948, during the trial. Of the remainder, two were acquitted, whereas eleven were convicted of the counts charging war crimes and crimes against humanity and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment from two years’ up to life imprisonment.

  1 Special Detachments.

  CHAPTER III

  WAR CRIMES ON THE HIGH SEAS

  AT the outbreak of war between England and Germany in 1939, it had been settled practice for over three centuries that an enemy merchant ship might be captured by a warship of the other belligerent and brought into port so that a Prize Court could, in appropriate circumstances, condemn the vessel and its cargo.

  A neutral vessel might likewise be stopped and searched for contraband, and if found with contraband it was subject to seizure and confiscation by the Prize Court.

  It was also established international practice, amounting to a usage of war, that save in the case of vessels sailing in previously declared ‘war zones’ the destruction of a vessel, if permissible at all, could only take place after capture except where visit and search was forcibly resisted.

  It was presumed that when ships were sailing in convoy they were forcibly resisting visit and search by the enemy’s warships, and they were, therefore, liable to be sunk on sight: but no merchant ship which was not sailing in convoy might be sunk without being warned to stop and submit to visit and search.

  The breaches of this well-established international maritime law were so frequent in the First World War that it was considered most desirable that the position should be restated and this was done in Article 22 of the London Naval Treaty of 1930 between the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan.1

  Article 22 provided that:

  (I)

  In action with regard to merchant ships, submarines must conform to the rules of International Law to which surface vessels are subject.

  (II)

  In particular, except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, or of active resistance to visit and search, a warship, whether surface vessel or submarine, may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel without having first placed passengers, crew, and ship’s papers in a place of safety. For this purpose the ship’s boats are not regarded as a place of safety, unless the safety of the passengers and crew is assured in the existing sea and weather conditions by the proximity of land or the presence of another vessel which is in a position to take them on board.

  These rules were clear and unequivocal and there could be no valid excuse for not understanding them, but it was manifest within a few hours of the outbreak of the Second World War that the Germans intended entirely to disregard them, for on the evening of 3rd September 1939, SS Athenia, outward bound for America, was sent to the bottom by a German U-boat with the loss of about one hundred lives.

  The Nazi Party paper, the Volkische Beobachter, in its issue of 23rd October 1939 carried this glaring headline: ‘Churchill sank the Athenia.’

  Below a picture of the ship the following appeared:

  The above picture shows the proud Athenia, the ocean giant which was sunk by Churchill’s crime. One can clearly see the big radio equipment on board the ship. But nowhere was an S.O.S. heard from her. Why was the Athenia silent? Because her captain was not allowed to tell the world anything. He very prudently refrained from telling the world that Winston Churchill attempted to sink the ship through the explosion of a time bomb. He knew it well but he had to keep silent. Nearly 1,500 people would have lost their lives if Churchill’s original plan had turned out as the criminal wanted. Yes, he longingly hoped that the 100 Americans on board the ship would find death in the waves so that the anger of the American people, who were deceived by him, should be directed against Germany as the presumed author of the deed. It was fortunate that the majority escaped the fate intended for them by Churchill. Our picture on the right shows two wounded passengers. They were rescued by the freighter City of Flint and, as can be seen here, turned over to the American coastguard vessel Gibb for further medical treatment. They are an unspoken accusation against the criminal Churchill. Both they and the shades of those who lost their lives call him before the tribunal of the world and ask the British people ‘How long will the office, one of the richest in tradition known to Great Britain’s history, be held by a murderer?’

  Fine words of humbug and bravado from the nation which has since had to answer at the bar of history for a dozen million murders.

  The facts were very different. SS Athenia was torpedoed during the late hours of the evening of 3rd September 1939 by the U-30, commanded by Oberleutnant Lemp, who was killed in action later in the war. No warning shot was fired. The U-boat waited until darkness before surfacing. One of the crew who had witnessed the sinking was made to sign a declaration under oath that he would ‘erase from his memory all the happenings of the day’.

  As soon as the sinking became known, Admiral Raeder and the German Admiralty officially denied that any U-boat could have been in the area concerned at the time of the attack.

  Admirals Raeder and Dönitz both knew in the middle of September 1939 that it was Oberleutnant Lemp’s submarine which had sunk the Athenia, for Lemp himself reported the occurrence. An attempt was then made to make it appear that the submarine commander had mistaken the ship for an armed merchant cruiser on patrol. Dönitz said that he had told all his submarine officers to keep a sharp look out for such vessels but had not told them what type of vessel might be so used or mentioned the names of any particular ships.

  It is most improbable that there was any truth in the suggestion that the U-30 had sunk the Athenia in mistake for a merchant cruiser, for an order of 22nd September 1939 had laid it down that in all cases the practice was to be that the ‘sinking of a merchant ship must be justified in the War Diary as due to possible confusion with a warship or an auxiliary cruiser’. This directive was issued five days before U-30 returned to base at Wilhelmshaven so that it was clearly in Dönitz’s mind to make this excuse at least five days before he had the opportunity to question Lemp about the incident.

  It was also significant that no disciplinary action was taken against the commander. OKM1 ‘considered that a court martial was unnecessary as the captain had acted in good faith’. In any event, Dönitz himself took the view that a court martial would only acquit Lemp and ‘would entail unnecessary publicity and loss of time’.

  In the War Diary kept by the Chief of the Submarine Command the following entry was made for 27th September 1930: ‘U-30 comes in. She had sunk: SS Blairlogies and SS Fanad.’ Furthermore, U-30’s log book was forged. The first page was removed and a new one substituted. The forgery was not as carefully done as German thoroughness would have led one to expect. Whereas the dates on the original pages of the log were all in Roman numerals, those on the first and substituted page were in Arabic figures. All reference to the sinking of SS Athenia was duly omitted from the forged page.

  The Athenia was sunk less than twelve hours after the declaration of war between Germany and Great Britain. The Germans had not waited long to let the world know that she intended to disregard the Protocol of 19362 and revert to her piratical practices of the First World War.

  But there was worse to come.

  At the commencement of the war Dönitz was commander of the U-boat arm of the German Navy. This was the principal weapon of the fleet, and millions of tons of Allied and neutral shipping were sunk by his submarines during the course of the war.

  With Dönitz in cont
rol it was not reasonable to expect that the U-boat commanders would be over scrupulous in their methods of submarine warfare. He was the most ardent of Nazis and was described in the 1944 edition of the Diary for the German Navy as always ‘a leader and inspiration to all the forces under him.’ His public utterances prove his fanaticism, and that he successfully indoctrinated his subordinates with his own beliefs is demonstrated by the ruthless policy of unrestricted submarine warfare carried out by them throughout the war.

  A memorandum prepared in October 1939 by Admiral Raeder and the German naval war staff entitled Possibilities of Future Naval Warfare clearly defined the course set for naval strategy. After stating that the most ruthless methods would have to be adopted in the attack on British sea communications and that it was desirable to base all action taken upon existing International Law, the document went on to point out that any other measures which were ‘considered necessary from a military point of view, provided a decisive success can be expected from them, will have to be carried out even if they are not covered by existing International Law. In principle, therefore, enemy resistance should be based on some legal conception even if that entails the creation of a new code of naval warfare.’ The end, once again, was clearly to justify the means.

  The course of submarine warfare against Allied and neutral merchant shipping followed the ruthless pattern set by Admiral Raeder’s observations. From the first, the merchant ships of belligerents and neutrals were sunk without warning and apart from some exceptions no attempt was made to rescue passengers or crew. Later in the war, when a system of proclaiming operational danger zones had come into force, submarine attacks without warning still continued outside those zones.

  The first sinking of a neutral merchantman by a German submarine without warning was on 30th September 1939 when the Danish steamer Vendia bound for the Clyde in ballast was torpedoed. Two perfunctory warning shots were fired by the U-boat but these were followed almost immediately by the firing of the torpedo which sank her, although the ship’s captain had already signalled that he would comply with the submarine’s orders regarding search, but had not had time to abandon ship.

  Before the end of November the sinking of neutral shipping in similar circumstances had become the general practice. On 12th November a Norwegian ship named Arne Kjode was sunk by a German submarine in the North Sea. No warning of any kind was given. The vessel was a tanker and was proceeding from one neutral port to another. The captain and four of his crew were picked up by another vessel after spending many hours in open boats. The submarine commander himself made no attempt to rescue the Norwegian crew.

  In January 1941 Hitler announced that every ship whether in convoy or not ‘which appears before our torpedo tubes’ would be torpedoed. From the threats which preceded this announcement it would appear to have been intended principally for American consumption, and when it aroused much condemnation on the other side of the Atlantic the Germans contended that the order referred only to ships which entered the ‘war zone’.

  That a ship was outside the war zone was no guarantee of immunity from unlawful attack, as the sinking of the City of Benares on 17th September 1940 clearly proved. This ship was a liner of 11,000 tons and carried one hundred and ninety-one passengers of whom nearly a hundred were children. She was sunk outside the ‘war zone’ without warning and two hundred and fifty-eight passengers, including seventy-seven children, lost their lives. The attack took place in shocking weather, hail and rain squalls and a big sea running. She was torpedoed at about 10 p.m. and in the confusion due to darkness and the gale four of the ships boats capsized on being launched, and others were swamped later by heavy seas. Many of the children died from exposure.

  The toll of innocent victims of German ‘ruthlessness’ mounted throughout that first winter, crews and passengers drifting for days in open boats in the teeth of an Atlantic gale; clinging to rafts until they dropped off into the water one by one, their fingers too numb with cold to grip the rail longer; crews machine-gunned from the submarine while still lowering the boats, or afterwards when drifting aimlessly about on the oily sea.

  Was this then the ‘ruthless’ new code of naval warfare ‘born of military necessity’ which Admiral Raeder mentioned in his 1939 memorandum? Those whose memories could go back to the grim days of 1917 knew that at least it was no novelty.

  The torpedoing of the British steamer Sheaf Mead on 27th May 1940 with the loss of thirty-one of her crew was characterized by the extraordinarily callous behaviour of the submarine commander towards many of the crew who, after their ship had sunk, were clinging to spars and upturned boats.

  The commander’s name was Kapitänleutnant Ochrn and his vessel U-37. The chief engineer of the Sheaf Mead gave this description of him: ‘Young, about twenty-eight, well built. He had fair hair and was rather good looking. He spoke good English with a very deep voice.’

  From the following entry in this young man’s diary1 on the date in question he appears to have enjoyed himself.

  27th May.

  1252

  Steamship sighted, steering west, about 5,000 tons. Speed 10 knots. Start tracking.

  1444

  Boat now in position ahead of steamer. Dived. Swell hinders depth-keeping and observation … at full speed, keeping abreast … only a short time now before we fire … the distance is narrowing. Tube ready—shall I or not? The gunnery crews are also prepared…. Hurrah! a gun at the stern, an AA gun perhaps. FIRE! It cannot miss. Periscope up, observation…. Hit scored aft 30. Distance 320 metres. Stern sinks considerably. The crew jump into the boats. Her bow rises. I have a look round.

  1554

  Surface—Stern under water. Bows rise higher. The boats are now on the water. Lucky for them. A picture of complete order. The bows rear up quite high. Two men appear from somewhere in the forward part of the ship and rush along the deck towards the stern. The stern disappears. A boat capsizes. Then a boiler explosion, two men fly through the air limbs outstretched … then all is over. A large mass of wreckage floats up. We approach to identify the ship. The crew have saved themselves on wreckage and capsized boats. We fish out a buoy, no name on it.

  1648

  I ask a man on the raft. He says, hardly turning his head ‘Nix name’. A young boy in the water calls, ‘Help, help please.’ The others are very composed. They look damp and tired. An expression of cold hatred is on their faces…. On to the old course.

  Having sunk his quarry the submarine commander cruised round the area for half an hour. Two men stood on deck with boat hooks to keep off the ships boats. The crew, too, remained on deck taking photographs of the survivors but said nothing. The submarine later submerged without offering the survivors any assistance.1

  In January 1940 the High Command of the Armed Forces had issued a directive to the effect that the Navy was henceforth authorized to sink by U-boats all vessels in waters near enemy coasts in which the use of mines was possible, and U-boat commanders were told to adapt their behaviour and employment of weapons to give the impression that the hits were caused by mines.

  Instructions regarding the abandonment of the crews of sunk merchant ships first appear to have been issued in May 1940. Standing Order No. 154 of the U-boat Command contained the following:

  ‘Do not pick up men or take them with you. Do not worry about the merchant ship’s boats. Weather conditions and distance from land play no part.1 Have care only for your own ship … we must be harsh in war. The enemy began the war in order to destroy us, so nothing else matters.’

  When the United States of America entered the war and Germany was forced to face the fact that there would now be a large increase in tonnage available for immediate use and an almost inexhaustible ship-building capacity, more drastic orders still were given. U-boat commanders were enjoined not merely to abstain from rescuing crews but to exterminate them.

  Less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Hitler had an opportunity of explaining this new phase to t
heir ambassador in Berlin. He said that no matter how many ships the Americans built, lack of suitable crews would be their main problem and that it was his intention that all merchant ships would be sunk without warning. Germany was fighting for her very existence and humane feelings could not enter into it. He would give the order that U-boats were to surface after torpedoing and shoot up the lifeboats. According to the shorthand note which was taken of this exchange of views, ‘Ambassador Oshima heartily agreed with the Führer’s comments and said that the Japanese too were forced to adopt these methods’.

  In the following September a Top-Secret order was issued to all U-boat commanders from Dönitz’s headquarters.

  No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing the crews of ships sunk. This includes picking up persons in the water and putting them in lifeboats, righting capsized lifeboats, and handing over food and water. Rescue runs counter to the rudimentary demands of warfare for the destruction of enemy ships and crews…. Be harsh, bearing in mind that the enemy takes no regard of women and children in his bombing attacks on German cities.

  On the same day as the above order was despatched this entry appeared in Dönitz’s War Diary.

  The attention of all commanding officers is again drawn to the fact that all efforts to rescue members of the crews of ships which have been sunk contradict the most primitive demands for the conduct of warfare for annihilating ships and their crew.

  The commander of the 5th U-boat Flotilla at Kiel,1 Heinz Möhle, considered that the order was ambiguous and sought clarification from a senior officer on Dönitz’s staff. The intention of the order was explained to him by two examples. The first concerned a U-boat in the Bay of Biscay. It was on patrol when it sighted a rubber dinghy carrying the survivors of a British plane. As the submarine was on an outward mission, fully stocked and provisioned, there could be no question of taking the aircraft crew on board. The U-boat commander, therefore, gave the dinghy a wide berth and continued his patrol. When he reported the circumstances on his return to base he was told that as he was unable to bring the survivors back for interrogation he should have sent them to the bottom so that they ‘would not live to fight another day’.