'Gentlemen, the cheese is all gone!' British POWs, the 'great escape' and the Anglo-German agreement for compensation to victims of Nazism

Contemporary European History

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 23-43

  Schrafstetter, Susanna ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA LINCOLN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950288713     PISSN: 09607773     EISSN: 14692171     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0960777307004262     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. Daily Telegraph, 22 Dec. 1967
2. On the 'Great Escape' see, e.g., Paul Brickhill, The Great Escape (New York: Norton, 1950)
3. Arthur Durand, Stalag Luft III: the Secret Story (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988)
4. Anton Gill, The Great Escape: The Full Dramatic Story with Contributions from Survivors and Their Families (London: Review, 2002)
5. George Millar: Horned Pigeon: The Great Escape Story of WWII (London: Cassell, 2003)
6. Roy Gregory and Philip Giddings, The Ombudsman, the Citizen and Parliament (London: Politico's: 2002)
7. Roy Gregory and Peter Hutchesson, The Parliamentary Ombudsman. A Study in the Control of Administrative Action (London: Allen & Unwin, 1975) offers a very detailed account of the affair, but the analysis focuses almost entirely on the case's significance for the office of ombudsman and the ministerial machinery
8. For the Luxembourg Agreement see (among others) Shlomo Shafir, Ambiguous Relations: The American Jewish Community and Germany Since 1945 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), 159-78
9. Peter Münch, 'Zwischen "Liquidation" und Wiederaufbau. Die deutschen Juden, der Staat Israel und die internationalen jüdischen Organisationen in der Phase der Wiedergutmachungsverhandlungen', Historische Mitteilungen, 10 (1997), 81-111
10. Ronald Zweig, German Reparations and the Jewish World. A History of the Claims Conference (Portland: Frank Cass, 2001)
11. Yeshayahu Jelinek, Deutschland und Israel 1945-1965. Ein neurotisches Verhältnis (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2004)
12. Stuart Eizenstat, Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II (New York: Public Affairs, 2003)
13. Michael Bazyler, Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts (New York: NYU Press, 2003)
14. Roy Brooks, ed., When Sorry Isn't Enough: the Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (New York: NYU Press, 1999)
15. Elazar Barkan, The Guilt of Nations (New York: Norton, 2000)
16. John Torpey, Politics of the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)
17. Hans Günter Hockerts, 'Wiedergutmachung in Deutschland 1945-2000', Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 49 (2001), 167-214
18. Ulrich Lappenküper, 'Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und die Wiedergutmachung für französische Opfer nationalsozialistischen Unrechts', Francia 28 (2001), 77-101
19. Peter Helmberger, 'Der Versuch einer Generalbereinigung: Die Verhandlungen zwischen den Niederlanden und der Bundesrepublik um den Ausgleichsvertrag vom 8. April 1960', Zentrum für Niederlande Studien Jahrbuch, 4 (1993), 71-98
20. Hans Günter Hockerts, Claudia Moisel and Tobias Winstel, eds., Grenzen der Wiedergutmachung. Die Entschädigung für NS-Verfolgte in West- und Osteuropa (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006)
21. Susanna Schrafstetter, 'The Diplomacy of Wiedergutmachung: Memory, the Cold War, and the Western European Victims of Nazism 1956-64', Holocaust & Genocide Studies, 17 (2003), 459-79, discusses the Globalabkommen in a general manner
22. For details on the pre-history of the Globalabkommen see Constantin Goschler, Wiedergutmachung. Westdeutschland und die Verfolgten des Nationalsozialismus (1945-1954) (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1992)
23. See Burkhard Heß, 'Völker- und zivilrechtliche Beurteilung der Entschädigung für Zwangsarbeit vor dem Hintergrund neuerer Entscheidungen deutscher Gerichte', in Klaus Barwig, ed., Entschädigung für NS Zwangsarbeit: Rechtliche, historische und politische Aspekte (Baden Baden: Nomos, 1998), 80-1
24. Hockerts, 'Wiedergutmachung', 191
25. Goschler, Schuld und Schulden. Die Politik der Wiedergutmachung für NS-Verfolgte seit 1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005), 152-9
26. For the exact provisions see Georg Blessin and Hans Wilden, Bundesentschädigungsgesetze: Kommentar (Munich: Beck, 1957)
27. Bundesergänzungsgesetz zur Entschädigung für Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung, § 8, 1195-6
28. Hockerts, 'Wiedergutmachung', 189-91
29. Blessin and Wilden, Bundesentschädigungsgesetze, 1195-6
30. Tobias Winstel, 'Die Bundesregierung und die europäischen Entschädigungsforderungen bis 1965', in Hockerts, Moisel and Winstel, Grenzen, 83-5
31. For detailed analyses of all eleven agreements see Hockerts, Moisel and Winstel, Grenzen
32. Susanna Schrafstetter, '"What about paying BRITISH victims of Nazi hell camps?" Die Entschädigungsfrage in den deutsch-britischen Beziehungen', in Hockerts, Moisel and Winstel, Grenzen, 568-601, here 591-2
33. For details see Schrafstetter, 'Entschädigungsfrage', 593-7
34. Laszlo Schirilla, Wiedergutmachung für Nationalgeschädigte (Munich: Kaiser, 1982)
35. NA, FO 371/160638, Memorandum by Margaret King, 22 Nov. 1961, and Memorandum by I. Vair-Turnbull, 29 Nov. 1961
36. For the final stages of the negotiations see NA, FO 371/177980, Roberts to FO, 14 and 19 May 1964
37. Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, Die Entstehung der Rückstellungs- und Entschädigungsgesetzgebung: die Republik Österreich und das in der NS-Zeit entzogene Vermögen (Vienna: Oldenbourg, 2003)
38. The Times, 24 March 1964
39. Daily Mirror, 28 April 1964
40. Guardian, 24 April 1964
41. For the reasons why the distribution of the money was administered by the Foreign Office rather than the Foreign Compensation Commission, see Gregory and Hutchesson, Ombudsman, 418
42. NA, FO 950/740, Application Form and Notes for Guidance, undated
43. San Francisco Peace Treaty (1951), Art. 16
44. NA, FO 371/177981, Memorandum by William Ledwidge, 1 July 1964. For the 'post-53 funds' for Jewish victims who had left Eastern Europe after 1953 see Goschler, Schuld, 282-8
45. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, Vol. 739, Written Answers, Dame Irene Ward, 23 Jan. 1967, cols. 188-90
46. See also FO 950/766, Interim statistics 30 Sept. 1965 and 30 Nov. 1965
47. Full set of statistics: Hansard, HC Deb., Vol. 739, cols. 188-90
48. See also The Times, 24 Jan. 1967
49. In France, for example, the process of distribution was not completed until 1975. Claudia Moisel, 'Pragmatischer Formelkompromiss: Das deutsch-französische Globalabkommen von 1960', Hockerts, Winstel and Moisel, Grenzen, 242-84, here 271
50. Daily Mail, 15 April 1964
51. See Nicholas Cull, 'Great Escapes: "Englishness" and the Prisoner of War Genre', Film History, 14 (2002), 282-95
52. Priscilla Dale Jones, 'Nazi Atrocities against Allied Airmen: Stalag Luft III and the End of the British War Crimes Trials', Historical Journal, 41 (1998), 543-65. The trials against the perpetrators of the Stalag Luft III murders in 1947 and 1948 and the trial of Erich von Manstein in 1949 were the last to be conducted by the British. Dale Jones, 'Atrocities', 563
53. Peter Churchill, The Spirit in the Cage (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1954)
54. and S. Payne Best, The Venlo Incident (London: Hutchinson, 1950)
55. Daily Worker, 19 Feb. 1966
56. See also Morning Star, 23 Feb. 1967
57. Daily Express, 19 Oct. 1965
58. Sun, 1 March 1966
59. For the camp system hierarchy see Jürgen Matthäus, 'Verfolgung, Ausbeutung, Vernichtung: Jüdische Häftlinge im System der Konzentrationslager', in Günter Morsch and Susanne zur Nieden, eds., Jüdische Häftlinge im Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen (Berlin: Metropol, 2004), 64-90
60. Herbert Obenaus, 'Der Kampf um das tägliche Brot', in Ulrich Herbert, Karin Orth and Christoph Dieckmann, eds., Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Entwicklung und Struktur (Göttingen: Wallstein, 1998), part 2, 841-73
61. Johannes Tuchel, Die Inspektion der Konzentationslager. Das System des Terrors 1938-45 (Berlin: Metropol 1994)
62. Henry Michel, Oranienburg - Sachsenhausen (Eupen: Grenz-Echo, 1985), 77
63. Research on Sachsenhausen had for a long time been limited to survivor accounts and, more recently, exhibition catalogues. For memoirs see, e.g., Michel, Oranienburg; Odd Nansen, Von Tag zu Tag (Hamburg: Dulk, 1949)
64. Arnold Weiss-Rüthel, Nacht und Nebel. Ein Sachsenhausen-Buch (Berlin: Kluger, 1949)
65. Harry Naujoks, Mein Leben im KZ-Sachsenhausen 1936-42. Erinnerungen des ehemaligen Lagerältesten (Cologne: Röderberg, 1987)
66. Both Günter Morsch, Agnes Ohm and Sylvia de Pasquale, eds., 'All Europe was here'. Survivors of the Concentration Camps of Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen in Post-war Politics (Berlin: Metropol, 2004)
67. and Günter Morsch, Murder and Mass Murder in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, 1936-1945 (Berlin: Metropol, 2005), document exhibitions of the Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen
68. Research has only just begun to analyse this vast complex, running over a hundred satellite camps. See Hermann Kaienburg, Der Militär- und Wirtschaftskomplex der SS im KZ-Standort Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg (Berlin: Metropol, 2006)
69. and Michel, Oranienburg, 78. This is also clear from the testimony of Starr, who had subsequently been transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was mistreated very badly
70. see Jean Overton Fuller, The Starr Affair (London: Gollancz, 1954)
71. Damals in Sachsenhausen, herausgegeben vom Komitee der Antifaschistischen Widerstandskämpfer in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Ostberlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1961)
72. Five of the seven were murdered in Sachsenhausen, one in Bergen-Belsen and one was presumed to have been murdered in Belsen. For the postwar investigations see WO 309/109 and WO 309/853. See also Winfried Meyer, 'Britischer oder sowjetischer Sachsenhausen-Prozess?', Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 45 (1997), 965-91, here 975-6
73. Fritz Sigl, Todeslager Sachsenhausen. Ein Dokumentarbericht zum Sachsenhausen Prozess (Berlin: SWA, 1948), 213, wrongly mentions the shooting of only three British inmates. The foreign office identified thirty-four British Sachsenhausen inmates; in thirty cases applications for compensation were submitted. Twenty-two cases were claims by dependants for murdered victims
74. See also Gregory and Giddings, Ombudsman, 165-6
75. Sunday Times, 11 Feb. 1968
76. similar: Sun, 6 Feb. 1968
77. and The Times, 6 Feb. 1968
78. The Spectator, 9 Feb. 1968
79. Daily Mail, Sun, 7 Feb. 1968
80. Cull, 'Great Escapes', 282
81. Cull, 'Great Escapes', 282-3
82. Tony Johnson, Escape to Freedom: An Airman's Tale of Capture, Escape and Evasion (Barnsley: Cooper, 2002)
83. On this question see Joseph White, '"Even in Auschwitz ... Humanity Could Prevail": British POWs and Jewish Concentration Camp Inmates at IG Auschwitz 1943-45', Holocaust & Genocide Studies, 15 (2001), 266-95
84. Goschler, Schuld, 422-37
85. Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis, Verantwortung und Rechtsfrieden. Die Stiftungsinitiative der deutschen Wirtschaft (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2003)
86. BBC News, 17 Jan. 1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk
87. Guardian, 8 Nov. 2000, http://guardian.co.uk
88. Guardian, 13 July 2005, http://guardian.co.uk. Only those victims who were born in the United Kingdom or had parents or grandparents born in the United Kingdom were to be compensated
89. Guardian, 13 July 2005, http://guardian.co.uk
90. Cull, 'Great Escapes', 288
91. Daily Worker, 19 Feb. 1965
92. Steven Cooke, 'Negotiating Memory and Identity: The Hyde Park Holocaust Memorial, London', Journal of Historical Geography, 26 (2000), 449-65, here 453
93. Tony Kushner, 'Too Little, Too Late? Reflections on Britain's Holocaust Memorial Day', Journal of Israeli History, 23 (2004), 116-29, here 116-17
94. On this point see David Cesarani, 'Seizing the Day: Why Britain Will Benefit from Holocaust Memorial Day', Patterns of Prejudice, 34 (2000), 61-6
95. Chicken Run (2000)
96. Cull, 'Great Escapes', 293