Dachau to Dolomites. Tom Wall
by his lack of German which was the lingua franca among the different nationalities in the camp. Although he was the ranking officer, it was Bessonov who was dominant among the Soviet prisoners: his burly physique and over-bearing manner allowed him to maintain his fearsome NKVD status, notwithstanding the changed circumstances. The other Russians present were Lieutenant Colonel Victor Brodnikov, who is believed to have worked for the Germans under Bessonov,13 and Lieutenant Nikolay Russchenko, a former reserve office who was captured during fighting near Leningrad. He claimed to have escaped and led a Russian partisan group in actions behind German lines. When recaptured, he was tortured, but kept denying any involvement with the resistance.14 Acting as orderly to the officers was a Soviet soldier, Fyoder Ceredilin, who had spent time in a Soviet gulag before the war.
In uncomfortably close proximity to the Russians were two young Polish RAF officers, Jan Izycki and Stanislaw Jensen. They were flying a Wellington Bomber when it was shot down over France a year previously. Jensen, the pilot, managed to crash land the plane in a field and they both managed to drag themselves clear of the burning wreck. Izycki, the navigator, suffered serious burns to his face which his full beard now only partly obscured. His hands were also badly burned. When captured, they sought medical attention, but Izycki’s wounds didn’t save him from a severe beating.15 The Poles tended to keep to themselves in the Sonderlager. They both shared the Polish national prejudice against Russians and tried as far as possible to avoid contact with their Soviet neighbours.
A group of Italians had also entered the special compound in late 1943. They had been stationed in the Italian embassy in Berlin when the post-Mussolini Italian government changed sides and they, like hundreds of thousands of Italian servicemen, were imprisoned. The officers among them were soon transferred out of Sachsenhausen, leaving behind two orderlies, Amechi and Burtoli, who assumed the roles of cook and servant for the growing number of British officers in the compound.
At some point, Cushing and Walsh approached Peter Churchill again in conspiratorial fashion. They had come to tell him that they had an informer in their midst. They were referring to Lance-Bombardier John Spence, their fellow Irish POW who had taken Murphy’s place within their section of the hut. If, as Cushing and Walsh suspected, Spence was, for whatever reason, currying favour with the Camp Commandant by informing on others, there was a risk that they would be tarnished with the same brush, hence their interest in isolating him and distancing themselves from him. The crimes and betrayals attributed to Spence were numerous. For one, it appears he had volunteered to work on a German Radio Service (Irland Redaktion) that directed propaganda broadcasts to Ireland.
Early in the war, the Germans established propaganda radio stations directed at different countries. The Irish service, which transmitted for only a few hours weekly, directly after Lord Haw-Haw’s talk, initially confined its broadcasts to the Irish language. This was an extraordinary constraint on a propaganda service given that only a very small percentage of the Irish population spoke the language and, as most of those lived in what were then relatively poor communities along the western seaboard, few of them would have owned a radio and the few that did would have had difficulty in picking up the signal.16 The radio talks were delivered by a number of German academics specialising in Irish studies. In charge of the service was Adolf Mahr, who was technically on leave from his position as Director of the National Museum in Dublin. When the radio service expanded in 1941 to include nightly English transmissions, new recruits were sought. Frank Stuart was one of the first to contribute in English.17 Spence was probably recruited around this time also and he operated under the alias ‘Brennan’, although there is no record of him broadcasting under that name.18 Nevertheless, he was a willing collaborator, and the charges against him go much further.
Peter Churchill in his book The Spirit in the Cage didn’t refer to Spence by his real name, using the alias ‘Judd’ in his descriptions of these incidents,19 but there is no doubt that ‘Judd’ was Spence.20 By far the worst accusation made by Churchill is that ‘Judd’, while working at the station and living in Berlin, betrayed some Jewish people who had befriended him by reporting their undercover existence to the Nazis, resulting in their arrest and deportation to an ‘extermination camp’.21 No sources are indicated, but it is probable Churchill heard of this from Cushing or Walsh, who likely came into contact with Spence during their time in Berlin. Another collaborator in the radio centre, Patrick Joseph Dillon, who broadcast under the alias ‘Cadogan’, painted a less dramatic, but no less reprehensible, picture of Spence’s betrayal.
In late April 1943 Dillon, Glasgow-born of Irish background, was a merchant seaman who was captured when his boat was sunk in the Atlantic.22 After disclosing pro-German sympathies, he was taken to the Radio Centre in Berlin in April 1943. In the Irland Redaktion office he was introduced to a Mr Brennan whose real name he later learned was Spence. Spence was assigned to look after Dillon and took him to his lodgings. Dillon claimed that the landlady didn’t want the two men to share a room for some reason and lodged Dillon downstairs in rooms occupied by a German woman, Charlotte Greger. Dillon began a relationship with Greger whose husband, a Jew, was incarcerated in a concentration camp. Dillon, who was anti-Semitic, claimed to have changed his views under her influence and says they had made plans to escape to Switzerland. He says he made the mistake of confiding in Spence, who betrayed him, leading to the Gregers’ arrest. Dillon claimed he then refused to continue with his radio talks unless his lover was freed and she was subsequently released, but soon after five women ‘who used to keep company with Spence’ were arrested following another disclosure to the Gestapo by Spence.23 According to Dillon, Spence then disappeared for a time, but ten days later the Gestapo again came to the house, having been informed by the Irishman that there was a Jew hiding in the accommodation. A Jewish girl, possibly a relative of the woman’s husband, had been secretly living in the house, but was now elsewhere, having been warned to stay away after the earlier arrest. However, this time Dillon and Greger were both arrested; the implication being that this was on suspicion of their joint collaboration in hiding the fugitive.
Although purportedly a witness to, and victim of, Spence’s treachery, Dillon’s testimony must be treated with caution. He gave this account when he was facing post-war charges of renegade activities, so any story that portrayed him as undergoing a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion and helping a Jew to avoid capture is most likely a self-serving invention. His broadcasts, under the pseudonym ‘Cadogan’, were invariably replete with anti-Jewish demagoguery and this continued until at least June 1943, after his supposed conversion by Greger.24 It is even possible that Dillon was attempting to put the blame for his own actions on Spence. Whatever the truth of the matter, the story about Spence betraying some Jewish person or persons had wide currency and, for this reason, and because he was believed to be acting as an informer in Sachsenhausen, he was disliked, distrusted and shunned. It is not clear why Spence ended up in Sonderlager ‘A’. Dillon says that he was told that he had been arrested near the Swiss frontier, which would suggest that he was attempting to escape Germany.25
Spence didn’t help his cause in Sachsenhausen, for it seems he was rude and disagreeable. He refused to comply with the rudimentary disciplinary codes applying to the lower ranks in the camp, refusing to salute Churchill or obey his orders. As indicated, he was believed to be a stool pigeon who informed the Camp Commandant, Anton Keindl, about fellow prisoners and even SS guards who were sometimes incautious in what they said to prisoners. He was suspected of reporting a young SS guard who told Andy Walsh that he listened to the BBC in the guard room at night and advised Walsh how he might do the same.26 Listening to enemy broadcasts, although not uncommon towards the end of the war, was a serious offence and encouraging a prisoner to do so could have led to the guard being shot. The Camp Commandant launched an investigation during which prisoners were asked if they had listened to the BBC. All denied it of course; Churchill was notified in advance by one of the guards of Keindl’s visit and he sent Cushing and Walsh on a mission to alert all the prisoners. The guard was exonerated.27
Peter Churchill, who was at this time the only British officer present, decided to take action against Spence. He told Cushing and Walsh to summon Spence, but he refused to leave his quarters. Accompanied by the two gleefully expectant Irishmen, Churchill marched officiously to confront Spence. Churchill demanded he explain why he refused to obey his order. Spence deigned to remain blasé and seated until Churchill hoisted him up by the lapels, slapped a cigarette from