cared for, although no other British captive – with the possible exception of his colleague Stevens – was treated with such consideration. Why was he so privileged? He himself, unconvincingly puts it down to guile on his part and to the decency of some of his SS guards. He was on quite friendly terms with the camp commandant, Anton Kaindl – ‘a good friend to me’ – and the head of the prison block, Kurt Eccarius – ‘a very decent fellow’.15 Both were regarded by most as odious and were later convicted of war crimes. Other factors were at play. It is likely there was an order to treat him well to ensure that he would be a presentable defendant, or witness, at the envisaged trial. He and Stevens are believed to have provided valuable information during interrogation.16 Could it be that he was rewarded for his good behaviour? His conditions began to improve in late 1942. By then it was becoming clear to the Germans that the war was not going as planned. The thoughts of some in the Nazi leadership turned to ways by which the British might consider a ceasefire. Perhaps an intelligence officer, one who was obviously a Germanophile, might be able to assist. The idea of using select prisoners for this purpose probably germinated about this time.
Stevens spent just over a year in Sachsenhausen. To ensure his isolation from Payne Best, he was transferred to Dachau where, as we will later discover, he also enjoyed rare privileges. Before then, another British officer had entered the bunker. John McGrath was an Irishman who had earlier been held in a special camp for Irish POWs. Although he did not meet with Payne Best or Stevens in Sachsenhausen, they were later to become acquainted in Dachau under very different circumstances.
CHAPTER TWO
THE IRISH CAMP
Friesack Camp, June 1941
Major John McGrath, a tall, well-built, middle-aged man, was apprehensive about the task he was about to undertake. He was being driven to a POW camp north of Berlin, where he was about to take on the role of Senior British Officer (SBO) in a camp designed to turn British servicemen with Irish backgrounds into traitors. There had been disciplinary problems at the camp and the Germans felt that a senior officer, preferably one sympathetic to their designs, would improve matters. They had sought an Irish-born officer from a Catholic nationalist background and McGrath seemed to fit the bill. The son of a Roscommon farmer, both his mother and father’s families were active in Irish nationalist politics; even more encouraging from a German perspective, was the fact that he had indicated a willingness to co-operate with them.
The Germans were mistaken about McGrath. He had only agreed to go to Friesack at the urging of a senior officer, in his previous camp in Laufen. Like many Irish servicemen, McGrath had mixed allegiances, but he was never going to dishonour his uniform. His relative’s involvement in the Irish War of Independence happened after he moved to England in 1911. Although, like the majority of his class and religion, he was brought up in a nationalist environment, this was of the early twentieth-century constitutional and parliamentary variety that was, for the most part, ‘culturally and politically comfortable with the trappings of empire’.1 Before the Easter Rising in 1916, careers in the police or British Army were seen as legitimate options for young Irish Catholics and McGrath was no longer resident in Ireland when the post-1916 transformational change occurred within Irish nationalism.
The mission he was about to undertake was, as he was later to describe it, to ‘investigate and endeavour to smash’ the Germans’ project.2 It was a difficult and dangerous task. He had to convince the Germans he was prepared to fight for Ireland against Britain while, at the same time, win the confidence of the men and conspire with them to frustrate the Germans’ plans.3 For this role, McGrath would have had to draw upon whatever acting skills he had gleaned during his previous work in cinemas and theatre management in Ireland. He seems to have proved a capable actor, for he ‘played the collaborator so convincingly that, for a time, even the British thought he had gone over to the other side’.4
However, it seems not all the Germans were convinced. He had been wined and dined in Berlin in the company of a number of German officers before being taken to the camp. Jupp Hoven, a member of the Abwehr, was the host and he was joined at the restaurant table by his friend and colleague Helmut Clissmann. Both had lived in Ireland before the war when they were involved in an Irish–German Academic Exchange service, most likely a cover for intelligence work. While there, they cultivated relationships with a number of senior IRA activists. Clissmann married a Sligo woman, Elizabeth Mulcahy, whose family were immersed in the Republican movement. Over dinner in Berlin, he confided to McGrath that his wife wished to return to Ireland and, knowing he had good business connections, sought his advice about finding her suitable employment. Whether this was a genuine request on his part, or a stratagem to gain McGrath’s confidence is unclear, but in the course of the discussion, he began to doubt the Irish officer’s collaborative potential. Clissmann is likely to have conveyed his doubts to Hoven, but the latter doesn’t seem to have shared his friend’s suspicions, at least not at that time. Even if Hoven had some concerns about McGrath’s commitment, there wasn’t a ready alternative. The previous SBO had been removed when a camp informer disclosed that the officer was leading an escape party. Other candidates for the position were likely to be Anglo-Irish, or have had a family tradition of service to the British Empire, making them probable British Intelligence plants.
On entry into the camp, McGrath’s forebodings appeared justified. ‘From the hour I entered the place I knew it meant trouble,’ he later recalled.5 The inmates were unhappy, suspicious and resentful. German promises of better food and recreation had not been kept and the majority of the prisoners were without proper footwear or clothing.6 They were not allowed to write home, no Red-Cross parcels were being delivered and they were left without soap or cigarettes. Other grievances related to inadequate food and the absence of canteen facilities.7 Adding to the discontent, many of the inmates felt they had been tricked or forced into the camp and were fearful that their very presence there could be viewed as disloyal. McGrath sensed that he was suspect in the eyes of these men. Seeing him arrive in the company of Abwehr officers, the inmates could be excused for assuming him to be a renegade officer, an aspiring Casement.8
McGrath was a veteran of the First World War, having seen action in the Dardanelles and France, where he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Wounded twice, he spent the final year of that war in a military hospital in Blackpool (see John McGrath: Truth and Invention, Addendum I). He remained a reserve officer in the inter-war years, even after he returned to Ireland. He could have readily avoided returning to duty in 1939. He was then forty-five years old and living in a neutral country. He had a good job – he was manager of The Royal, Dublin’s premier theatre – but he immediately answered the recall. His return to service may not have been entirely a matter of contractual obligation. Through his employer and good friend, Louis Elliman, he had friendly contacts with the Jewish Community in Dublin and the anti-Semitism of the Nazis is likely to have appalled him. Perhaps, to quote the Irish poet Francis Ledwidge, a casualty of the First World War, he decided to join England’s fight ‘because she stood between Ireland and an enemy common to our civilisation’.9 McGrath was assigned to the Royal Engineers and embarked with the British Expeditionary Force to France. Like thousands of others, he was left behind after the Dunkirk evacuations. He fought on and was wounded before being forced to surrender. We can safely assume that McGrath proved to be a brave and resourceful officer during the retreat for he was awarded a field promotion to major.
The evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940 is lauded, not without cause, as a heroic event; a deliverance snatched from the jaws of defeat. Less well known is the plight of the forty thousand service personnel who didn’t board the boats. Those left behind fought on before surrendering, in many instances only when their ammunition and supplies were exhausted.10 They were force marched from France to Germany during which time they were given little food and had to forage from fields. Notwithstanding occasional rain showers, it was a hot summer and in some French towns the inhabitants left out buckets of water for the prisoners which the German guards regularly kicked away. They were forced to drink ditch water and most suffered from dysentery as a result. They slept in open fields, often in
