Memories of searching for Nazis after WW2

Memories of searching for Nazis after WW2

Leicester in WW2

Ted White recalls searching for Nazis in Germany after the end of WW2.

EMOHA

Ref: EMOHA33/114

EMOHA

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.mp3

English

Oral history

3 min 30 sec

Well, we had a lovely house in in Germany in Stade, near Hamburg. And our job there was arresting Nazis. That's right. And we were stationed in this place, and each morning the officer would give us a job for that day, to go out and arrest Nazis. Well, of course we ditched the motorcycles. You can't arrest people on a motorcycle. So, what used to happen was if we arrested a high ranking Nazi, the first thing we did was to look in his garage. And perhaps he'd have a Merc in there, or a BMW or whatever. And we'd take it, we’d take it, of course. And then we would use it, and then we could, you know. Yeah, we did have a Jeep, which we could take as well and... We would be allocated people to arrest. Now, there was a certain level below which you didn't arrest, and there was a level which and I think the lowest level was [German rank] and we’d arrest above that and all you had to do if you arrested somebody when you took him back and he went into the local police station where we had a fluent German speaking chap, who lived in Cologne with his mum, who was a teacher in Cologne, and he got a property in Cologne. Anyway, he was interrogating them, you see. And we took them back, and then all we have to do, if you gave a German that you'd arrested a piece of paper and say, write down the names of the people that you were responsible to and for, and they would fill it in and they would give you several names then to go on arresting. So this went on for months, of course. Then it came then that it was getting down to the, it was getting down to the tag end of arresting.

Can I ask, what did you make of the people you were arresting? What did you think of them?

Well, they, they were, they were very, obviously they were, they were soul destroyed. They never put up any - well, I had one chap, he was a young fellow and his mother let me in the door, and he ran out of the back door and out into the garden, away in the fields. And of course all I did was take the pistol and shot it in the air and he stopped dead, you know? And he came back. Yeah. That was the only time. I never heard anybody make any chance to escape. Yeah, but otherwise they were very docile. It's a good job they were because they were sitting behind me in the car, but they they no, no, no. We arrested one very - I didn't arrest him - but we arrested one very high-ranking man and he was at Nuremberg and he was hanged, of course I forgot he was a.. he was a.... what was he now? Armaments. Forgotten his name. But he went. He was at Nuremberg. We arrested him. Yeah, but other other than that, I suppose the majority of them were released and let back again. Yeah, yeah.

Colin Hyde

Edward 'Ted' White

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