Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre The Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre was a British Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre in the town of Bad Nenndorf , Germany , which operated from June 1945 to July 1947 . Allegations of mistreatment of detainees by British troops resulted in a police investigation , a public controversy in both Britain and Germany and the camp ' s eventual closure . Four of the camp ' s officers were brought before courts - martial in 1948 and one of the four was convicted on charges of neglect . Background . The British authorities opened No . 74 Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre ( CSDIC ) in June 1945 . The camp was based in the Schlammbad ( mud bath ) complex in Bad Nenndorf , with the former bathing chambers being converted into prison cells . It was the successor to an earlier camp at Diest in Belgium and was run by a combination of military and intelligence officers under War Office authority . Several other CSDIC camps had existed during the war , in the UK at Ham in London and Huntercombe near Henley - on - Thames and in the Mediterranean [ CMF ] : Rome at Cinecitta , Middle East [ MEF ] Camp Ma ' adi near Cairo , and South Asia , but these had closed by the time No . 74 CSDIC had opened . The camp was originally intended to hold former Nazi s for interrogation , but its remit was expanded to include a number of people suspected of carrying out espionage for the Soviet Union . As well as Germans , these included Russians , Czechs and Hungarians . During the camp ' s two years of operation , a total of 372 men and 44 women were held there . Allegations of abuse . From the outset , the camp appears to have had organisational problems . The commanding officer , Lt Col Robin Stephens , noted that its staffing " was generous , but in practice was never filled . Later there was a reduction to the bone . That was inevitable owing to Treasury requirements . Then trouble began . Work was on the increase , demobilisation took [ a ] heavy toll and replacements were inexperienced . " In January and February 1947 , a number of prisoners from No . 74 CSDIC were taken to a civilian hospital in Rotenburg , near Bremen , suffering from frostbite , malnutrition and a variety of physical injuries . Two of the prisoners subsequently died . British medical and military personnel at the hospital were shocked at the poor condition of the prisoners and complained to their superiors , prompting senior Army officers to commission an investigation by Inspector Thomas Hayward of the Metropolitan Police . In March 1947 , the British Labour Party Member of Parliament Richard Stokes visited the camp to perform an apparently " ad hoc " inspection as part of a long - running effort on his part to promote the welfare of prisoners of war and other post - war detainees . He told the House of Commons that " in cross - examining some of these [ prisoners ] it may be necessary to indulge in forms of verbal persecution which we do not like , but there is no physical torture , starvation or ill - treatment of that kind . " However , he criticised the poor conditions at the camp . The 65 men and four women being held there were mostly in solitary confinement , in unheated cells at temperatures of - 10 °C ; the camp had no coal for heating , so the prisoners had instead been given seven blankets each . Inspector Hayward ' s investigation , which appears to have been concluded after Richard Stokes ' visit to No . 74 CSDIC , produced a list of serious allegations of abuse . These were later summarised in a Foreign Office memo : The report caused dismay among British government officials , who recognised the serious damage that the case could do to Britain ' s international image . The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster , Frank Pakenham , noted that " we are alleged to have treated internees in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps . " The junior Foreign Office minister , Hector McNeil , told Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin : " I doubt if I can put too strongly the parliamentary consequences of publicity . Whenever we have any allegations to make about the political police methods in Eastern European states it will be enough to call out in the House ' Bad Nenndorf ' , and no reply is left to us . " The camp ' s highly secret nature was another complicating factor . The Army cautioned against allowing the Soviets to discover " how we apprehended and treated their agents " , not least because it might deter future defectors . However , the affair was still brought before Army courts - martial , though some of the evidence was heard behind closed doors to ensure that security was safeguarded . The camp was closed down in July 1947 . Courts - martial . Four Army officers were indicted for a number of offences against the Army Act . Charges were brought against Lt Col Robin Stephens , the commandant of No . 74 CSDIC ; Lt Richard Oliver Langham , Royal Armoured Corps ; Capt John Stuart Smith , Royal Army Medical Corps and Capt Frank Edmunds , Intelligence Corps . Stephens was charged on four counts : conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline , failure in his duty as supervisor of the facility , and two counts of disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind . Langham and Edmunds were charged with two counts of disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind , though Edmunds ' case was abandoned on a technicality before his court - martial began . Smith , the camp doctor , faced the most serious charges - two counts of manslaughter and fourteen of professional neglect . Stephens , Langham and Smith were court - martialed in three separate proceedings held in Britain and Hamburg between March and July 1948 . All of the defendants pleaded not guilty . Langham . Lt Langham - who was originally a German citizen - was a member of an interrogation team which included Edmunds . He was accused of having mistreated two former members of the SS , Horst Mahnke and Rudolf Oebser - Roeder , who were suspected of helping to organise acts of terrorism . The two prisoners claimed to have been beaten up , tortured with lighted cigarettes , doused in cold water and subjected to threats . Langham denied the claims and cited medical records that showed that Roeder had not made any mention of his alleged mistreatment to the German doctor at the camp . For his part , Roeder claimed that he had not complained because he had thought the doctor was too " timid " . Former Company Sergeant - Major Samuel Mathers testified that there had been no torture , though he admitted to having " pushed [ the prisoners ] around for a few minutes . " Sergeant Edmund Sore told the court - martial that he had been given orders by Mathers to " drive [ Roeder ] round the cell for about two hours " and Lance - Corporal A . R . S . Hunt testified that the reason given for the treatment was that the two Germans were " part of an organisation which was to start a rising on Hitler ' s birthday . " Langham ' s defence complained that the prosecution had failed to prove that Langham had anything to do with the " curious things " that had admittedly occurred at Bad Nenndorf . According to his lawyer , there were numerous inconsistencies between the two prisoners ' claims and there was no evidence at all of the more extreme " tortures " ever having been carried out . Langham was said to have had no part at all " in the brutality of April 17 , 1946 , whether he was duty officer at that time or not . " The court - martial accepted Langham ' s arguments and on 31 March 1948 he was acquitted on both counts . Smith . Capt Smith ' s court - martial opened on 7 April 1948 in Hamburg . He was accused of having abused nine German detainees during the exceptionally harsh winter of 1946 - 47 , allowing prisoners to be subjected to cruel treatment , including having cold water thrown over them , depriving them of boots and making them continually scrub the cell floors . Two of the nine detainees were said to have died from this treatment . Over 40 witnesses were called by the prosecution and defence . The court - martial heard accounts of physical abuse from a number of prisoners , some of whom sustained serious physical injuries such as frostbite . One of the former interrogators at Bad Nenndorf testified that some of the Army warders at the camp were themselves ex - convicts . For his part , Smith denied any responsibility for the abuse and described the camp as a " bestial hole " which was " full of people who , unknown to him , were being brutally treated . " . He testified that he had been sent one prisoner who was suffering from meningitis but had been unable to obtain an ambulance to transport him to hospital . The court - martial dismissed three of the charges of professional neglect against Capt Smith before the conclusion of the trial . It found him not guilty of the two counts of manslaughter or six of the eleven counts of professional neglect . However , it found him guilty of five of the neglect charges , and he was sentenced to be dismissed from the service . Stephens . The final court - martial was that of Lt Col Stephens , which opened in June 1948 . On the first day of proceedings , both counts of disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind were withdrawn , leaving only the counts of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline and failure in his duty as commandant . Stephens was uncompromisingly blunt about the prisoners who had made accusations , declaring that " their motives are invariably foul , most of them are degenerates , most of them come diseased from V . D . , many are chronic medical cases . . . they are pathological liars and the value of their Christian oath is therefore doubtful . " He told the court - martial that he had instituted the same basic regime as had operated at Camp 020 , a CSDIC facility in London which he had previously commanded with great success during the war . Prisoners were to be treated firmly : " No chivalry . No gossip . No cigarettes . . . Figuratively , a spy in war should be at the point of a bayonet . " However , physical coercion was forbidden under any circumstances , as it was seen as ineffective : " Violence is taboo , for not only does it produce answers to please , but it lowers the standard of information . " Most of the case was heard behind closed doors due to security concerns . The court - martial concluded on 20 July 1948 with Stephens being found not guilty on all charges . Closure of the camp . Three months after the closure of the camp at Bad Nenndorf , a new custom - built interrogation centre with cells for 30 men and 10 women was opened at Gütersloh . Most of the interrogators were said to have served at Bad Nenndorf , causing disquiet in the Government . Foreign Office Minister Frank Pakenham demanded that " drastic methods " should not be employed . However , the Army insisted that the standards applied in British prisons should not be applied to Army interrogation centres in Germany . According to the German newspaper " Die Zeit " , the failings exposed at Bad Nenndorf resulted in the conditions of prisoners elsewhere in Germany being improved to the point that they were better treated than the civilian population . Recent information . On December 17 , 2005 , the British newspaper " The Guardian " published an account of the Bad Nenndorf case , based on recently declassified files . The report was followed up on January 30 , 2006 by the German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk , based on 800 pages of declassified documents that they received . In its April 3 , 2006 issue , the " Guardian " published pictures of the emaciated German prisoners held in Bad Nenndorf , calling it a " cold war torture camp . " The reports caused a brief political controversy in both Britain and Germany , with some commentators drawing explicit parallels with the mistreatment of prisoners in the Iraq conflict and the war on terror . On 29 July 2006 , neo - Nazi s held a rally at the site of the former camp . A coalition of opponents organised a rally in protest , among them the DGB ' s local chapter . A DGB leaflet objects the attempt to " " revise history " " .