The WWII interrogator who used kindness over violence (war, Russian, Germans)

[Baldrick]

For those that are unaware of Obergefreiter Hanns Scharff I would highly recommend you look him up. This is a very good article and well worth a read.

BBC History - The WWII interrogator who used kindness over violence

Much of the debate about the interrogation of suspected terrorists has been about whether the methods used, such as waterboarding, could be described as torture. Historian Julian Putkowski examines how a German Luftwaffe interrogator used persuasion rather than punishment to get prisoners of war to talk.

[Dd714]

Originally Posted by Baldrick

For those that are unaware of Obergefreiter Hanns Scharff I would highly recommend you look him up. This is a very good article and well worth a read.

BBC History - The WWII interrogator who used kindness over violence

Somewhat interesting but really a non-issue. Western Allied prisoners, specifically downed air crews, were treated relatively well once they got into the hands of the Luftwaffe, who handled the POW camps. Contrast this however with captured Russian forces - who were usually sent to the same concentration camps as the jews and subsequently died of desiese or starvation.
Between both the western Allies and Germans - torture was not common for the obvious reason that if one side did it, the other side would as well (contrast that to today's conflicts - where, if captured by islamic insurgents, our soldiers can expect to be subject to power drills and eventual decapitation, with there corpses being dragged through a street). On the other hand, their are various strategies to obtain information - this is merely an alternative "good cop, bad cop" type strategy. I am sure after meeting the nice little nazi, then the airman was exposed to the threat of the "bad cop". They don't discuss this in the article, obviously because of the slight political bend to it.