History - Bugging Hitler's Soldiers

In the mess and annihilation of total war, first-class intelligence is as crucial as firepower. MI19 set out to make use of the German prisoners of war in the most enthusiastic surveillance mission ever attempted. Three courtly homes in the British non-urban area were transformed into prison camps and wired for sound. MI19s microphones reached everywhere. Nothing was outside limits. Cloaked away in cellars and top floors were the listening rooms filled with, what at that time was cutting edge, recording equipment. German prisoners of war were brought to the UK and interrogated. If they were suspicious of having important intelligence the prisoners were then sent to bugged locations where listeners were ready and waiting for them to start talking. The evidence comes from one of the most aweless operations British intelligence ever attempted. Conversations between captured German soldiers were secretly recorded and then transcribed word for word. In this documentary we hear German soldiers as theyd never been heard before - uncensored and unguarded. Using transcripts buried for decades, these conversations are reconstructed for the first time. In the aftermath of World War II, ordinary German soldiers claimed they knew nothing about the Holocaust. They blamed all its atrocities on the SS. But these recently publicized transcripts expose the full extent of that lie.