Intelligence Gathering: Interrogation Of Enemy Airmen (1943)

National Archives and Records Administration - ARC Identifier 651903 / Local Identifier 263.2036 - Intelligence Gathering: Interrogation of Enemy Airmen - National Security Council. Central Intelligence Agency. (09/18/1947 - 12/04/1981). This film covers interrogation techniques and other intelligence activities. -

[@Spaethon]

I searched "interrogation" hoping to find an hours long video between suspect and detective. Instead I got something way more historical, interesting, and fascinating

[@phettywappharmaceuticalsll8842]

Welcome to the wormhole

[@NebelNexus]

Cannot really speak for the Japanese part, but I have to admit I was impressed by the Italian part. The interrogator speaks good and understandable Italian, although it is clear from his pronunciation that he is an English native speaker. The actor impersonating the Italian POW on the other hand has to be a native. He speaks clearly, as a trained Italian actor of those days would have, with no interference from dialects, which were still dominant back then in Italy. The script for both the interrogator and the POW is also quite interesting, it looks as if it was taken straight from an Italian movie of the 1930s, in stylish standard Italian; the courtesy form (which is something that does not exist in English but is common elswhere, as in German Sie opposed to du) the two use is also the 'voi' form, which would have been widespread in the 1940s as it was pushed by Fascism who preferred it over the 'lei' form, which eventually won again and is mostly used nowdays. That's impressively well made.

[@sharkybate7115]

"The enemy threatens violence, but doesn't dare carry it out" Japanese: "Hmm? Were you talking about me?"

[@flowerlight]

Thankyou for posting. It’s really kool to see the interrogation strategy and the actors right make you feel for them!

[@Krawurxus]

The guy interrogating the airman from Bavaria has an amazing grasp of the German language. I daresay better than many natives nowadays. He actually sounds more standard than the Bavarian he's interrogating.

[@michaelK3148]

Actor Roman Bohen portrays German speaking Capt. Schwartz. German surname and born is St. Paul, MN, a community with large German immigrant population that would have been predominantly German speaking pre-WWI when he was growing up. He is known for excellent performances in Best Years of Our Lives and Of Mice and Men.

[@danielgregg2530]

@@michaelK3148 Yup. Dana Andrews's father. Totally different role here, though.

[@michaelK3148]

@@danielgregg2530 I tear up when I watch the scene in Best Years of Our Lives where he reads his son’s (Dana Andrews character) Distinguished Flying Cross citation.

[@danielgregg2530]

@@michaelK3148 He does making it very touching.

[@stevelenores5637]

If you want an expert understanding of interrogating enemy airman you should read "The Interrogator" by Toliver. It was based on German interrogation of U.S. Airman. The techniques were so good they were adopted by every intelligence agency after WW2.

[@shanemoore8055]

The German speaking interrogator has an excellent grasp on German grammar, but his pronunciation is clearly non native German.

[@RasEli03]

That's probably what to expect from someone who hasn't had the time to spend socializing with others native German speakers

[@nsh1980]

Good enough for interrogation but not good enough for spy work

[@MSchmitz77]

He still gets a couple things wrong but overall his grammar is good. His accent however is very obviously american

[@folou9199]

" Japanese, German or Italian, all are human underneath."

[@FerasAbuTaha]

What A Great Piece Of History!

[@RemyCT63]

Wow! There are a lot of familiar Hollywood actors in this training film. For example at 16:38 you will see a very young Peter van Eyck playing the German Luftwaffe officer. Later in his acting career he will once again be cast to play a German officer in the Hollywood war films The Longest Day and Bridge at Remagen. The actor who is playing the interrogator is Hollywood character actor Roman Bohnen. You will recognize him in the Oscar winning film The Best Years of Our Lives where he plays the role of Fred Derry's (Dana Andrews) father who lives down by the railroad tracks. So interesting to see him speaking German in this film.

[@ShepardCZ]

Germans: Exploit their sense of superiority. Italians: Exploit their disdain for Germans and inferiority complex. Japanese: Show them their beliefs about Americans eating the prisoners were wrong. Actually pretty clever.

[@tr5947]

The acting in this film was very good, especially the Japanese POW.

[@danielgregg2530]

First-class and fascinating.

[@abdulqayumkhan3992]

I Watched ,That's the best way of Interrogations.

[@RitchieMuseum]

This is Military Intelligence Training Footage from Camp Ritchie, MD. Otherwise known as Ritchie Boys.

[@stevenmcnair1897]

wow... thats was a fascinating movie

[@x0718]

Very good, interesting movie with this clever tricks.

[@upscaleavenue]

You can't threaten prisoners in an interrogation, and yet it is described here as a reliable and frequently used technique. When did this become illegal? Was it illegal at this time and still encouraged?

[@eddievhfan1984]

Threats can still be used in interrogation; it's the actual following through on those threats that violates international law. It also depends on the way it's implied vs. made directly. For example, the bits about reporting the Italian guy's father to the FBI or turning the German aircraft commander over to Polish authorities. Both cases rely on implied threats (that the FBI would be as ruthless as the Gestapo, or that Polish interrogators would be more vindictive against a German officer know to the Allies for particularly cruel treatment of Poles), and if the POWs had fuller cultural knowledge of their own interrogators, they'd have known that the FBI (usually) isn't Gestapo levels of cruel, and that the Americans wouldn't tolerate Polish reprisals, if they ever intended a transfer in the first place. No explicit threats of violence, but the prisoners' own backgrounds work against them to turn a toothless implication into something more sinister.

[@michelerestivo3706]

And the great Peter van Eyck acting as the downed German Pilot !!!! What a candy!!!!!

[@x0718]

11.59 left man said just new heinkel ( without 177).

[@proud2bpagan]

These interrogation techniques, and not force, is how the man who interrogated Saddam Hussein got his answers, in accompaniment with strict environment control.

[@johnrogan9420]

A USA MILITARY MAN IS CONVINCED HIS HOSPITAL IS STAFFED BY THE ENEMY...THEY LET HIM CALL HIS MOTHER TO ASSURE HIM HE IS SAFELY BEING CARED FOR BY FELLOW americans...his mother tells him everyting is ok to which he answers...😢😢" oh no mom...they got you too!"

[@stevejauncey3086]

The German lieutenant became a well known actor.

[@lutzkoester8727]

The german prisoner in reality is famous actor.

[@Dezdez0]

I have a question 4:43 , why such an emphasis on the ‘You mean his wife can remarry??’ Is this some kind of ‘morality drag’?

[@eddievhfan1984]

More like a follow-up clarification as to how far this "legally dead" status of a captured soldier would go. This interrogator may go on to run into a Japanese POW who was married, and that detail would come in handy to reinforce that the prisoner's old life is effectively over by the cultural standards of that time, and he might as well make a new life for himself going forwards, including cooperating with interrogators.

[@nealsausen4651]

Wartime Interrogation:…..the psychology of warfare!

[@user-jt5vm3mi1w]

What were they fighting about?

[@greybirdo]

‘A singer who studied Italian’ who would later go on to command The Leper Colony under Brigadier General Frank Savage. He can’t have put Maximum Effort into his interrogation training…

[@RadioMattM]

He was Colonel Davenport, the original leader of the group - not the leader of the Leper Colony. But good catching that he was in 12 o’Clock High.

[@greybirdo]

@@RadioMattM , yep you’re right. I was going from memory. I should have rewatched the movie before posting. Watching 12 o’clock high is never time wasted. My only regret about that movie is that Jimmy Stewart didn’t play the Frank Savage role.

[@RadioMattM]

@@greybirdo That would have been an interesting change of pace for Stewart, but I don’t know he would have been ready for it. It may have been too emotionally hard for him. I would love to see that on a big screen. I have the old DVD of it as well as the Blu-ray. I also read the book about twenty years ago. Nobody could do Harry Stovall as Dean Jagger did.

[@davidatkinson3887]

Oberleutnant apparently escaped and gets promoted to lt/col. Ocker in "The Longest Day" .AKA Peter Van Eyck !.

[@RasEli03]

Holy cow the subtitles are messy xD

[@arieltraasdahl-xh6ri]

If I'd have been around in WWII I think that I might have ended up interrogating people. Might have even been assigned to, as well.

[@rickdalzell9712]

Awesome

[@tinafoster8665]

Well what else should the prisoner do, if you've been captured by the English or American Army you're put so far in the rear there's no hope of effective escape n the best you can do is tell them what they want, get something to eat and sleep out the rest of the war. Besides there were underground units in every Axis county, nothing like that in England or America

[@nealsausen4651]

Do you left at one important quality of an interrogator in addition to the four qualities there’s one more and that one more is:………. PATIENCE!!!!

[@maddyg3208]

I wonder how good the POWs were at winding up the interrogators. If I were a POW, I would have been correcting their German, Italian or Japanese pronunciation, throwing in some obscure or slang words that a non-native or temporary immigrant person wouldn't know, using easily confusable terms, speaking rapidly or mumbling, and generally letting them know they weren't as fluent in my language as they thought. Then again, maybe not.

[@SeruraRenge11]

You'd be surprised how willing people are to spill their guts when meeting someone that actually appears to be friendly after everything they've been through in the war already. That's why the criticism of the mock interpretation in class is that he was pressing too hard. Though I will say that the Captain's German was impeccable. Also the important thing to keep in mind is that the Japanese soldier they found is in New Guinea. That island was so bad that the Japanese had a saying about it, "Heaven is Java, Hell is Burma, but no one returns alive from New Guinea". If they captured someone there, they're probably just in disbelief that they aren't dead.

[@MichaelSmith-pp3wp]

Off to the Poles with this one.

[@FrankJmClarke]

The first thing is to adopt the worst regional accent you can muster, and fail to understand all the interrogator's speech. The interrogator will move on to the next guy. The severe regional accent allows you to feign stupidity too. Pausing for 5 seconds before answering the simplest question drives most people crazy.

[@TNS10000]

@@MichaelSmith-pp3wp off to the russians with this MF

[@convoyjack3310]

How could he have flew from trondheim in norway to france that fast anyways like you know its a lie

[@reginaldmcnab3265]

Yeah right! So they never beat and torture starve and kill enemy prisoners!

[@bomunly6702]

poorly treated prisoners either refuse to provide useful information, or provide false information because theyll tell you whatever they want to hear to get the mistreatment to stop. im sure there were incidents of gross mistreatment however those were contrary to official policy.

[@reginaldmcnab3265]

That might be so, however, when Japan offered to surrender they went ahead nuked them twice

[@bomunly6702]

@@reginaldmcnab3265 The Empire of Japan did not offer to surrender unconditionally until after the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. You are mistaken.

[@reginaldmcnab3265]

@@bomunly6702 Did I say unconditionally?

[@bomunly6702]

@@reginaldmcnab3265 you didnt but you gotta be crazy if you think we're gonna let them continue occupation of China, Korea or Taiwan. Imperial Japan was worse than the Nazis in my opinion and given that they refused to throw in the towel after we flattened Tokyo and Hiroshima, the bombing was necessary. Imperial Japanese society was too proud for its own good.

[@shawnredmond8402]

I want to interrogate some bosche! America must secure democracy in the world

[@MarvinT0606]

How'd they find weebs in 1943 anyway?

[@bomunly6702]

Missionaries

[@matthewwaddington2777]

God they were bright! 2003 interrogation: "Let's hit em!" "And hurt em!" "That'll get us info we want!" "Lyke mie Dadda sayze!"-George Bush...