The Nazi Interrogator Who Killed Them With Kindness

this video is made possible by the great courses plus an on-demand video learning service you can learn from the world's best professors on the great courses plus and if you enjoy this sort of video i think you'll really enjoy their course world war ii battlefield europe which looks at the european theater of world war ii and it's explored from the perspective of a military strategist so really great stuff basically the great courses plus is like a university education but it's at your own pace there are no tests there are no schedules and it's incredibly easy to access you can do it on pc tablet phone however you like you can also just listen to the audio if you want so that's great if you're on the go so yeah great stuff and you can try it for free just go to thegreatcoursesplus.com forward slash brain food or click the link in the description below doing that helps support the show and let's get into it [Music] hitler himmler goering goebbels even the most casual student of history knows this roster of infamous nazis that were responsible for some of the greatest evils the world has ever known of the millions that were killed by german hands during world war ii countless thousands were prisoners of war often massive numbers of prisoners were killed at a time in acts of retaliation for the killing of german soldiers pows and even civilians were routinely turned over to the gestapo for investigation never to be seen again whether or not they divulged any useful information or not pows would do most anything to avoid ending up in gestapo hands hogan's heroes provided a less than realistic depiction of life in a pow camp there were few bumbling and different germans like sergeant schultz keeping guard in the stalag prison system over the decades the image of the sadistic nazi interrogator has become commonplace a bright light in the prisoner's eyes while he's sitting in a lone chair in the middle of a stark room the threat or even meeting out of torture always just a second away however violent means of nazi interrogation were often unsuccessful many prisoners would endure sickening treatment but only still state basic information like name rank and serial number or give bogus information to their captors but one notable german man who one prisoner would note would get a confession of infidelity from a nun employed very different means of interrogation often with much more success than with the point of a bayonet killing them with kindness if you will his name was hans schaaf the kind-hearted nazi interrogator schaaf was born in 1907 in east prussia now part of poland his father hans hermann schaaf was a highly decorated soldier in the east prussian army who was killed during the great war this gave his son a great sense of pride about his dad scharf's mother was from a family that ran one of germany's largest textile mills located near leipzig and the elder schaaf worked there prior to world war one the younger shaft was raised in a family villa adjacent to the textile complex he attended school in leipzig and studied art intensively which would lay the groundwork for his post-world war ii life scharf learned the ropes of the textile business including marketing and exporting the businesses wares and quickly moved up the company ranks he shipped off to the company's offices in johannesburg south africa which was supposed to be to last for a period of a year but he was promoted to director of the overseas division of the textile company schaaf remained there for nearly 10 years during which time he met and married margaret stokes a south african british woman whose father captain claude stokes was a squadron leader in the royal flying corps the family would fall victim to very bad timing though in the summer of 1939 they were on vacation in greets germany when world war ii broke out unable to travel the family was stuck there shah found work in berlin but was drafted into the german military in 1939. thus began his odyssey to avoid being shipped off to the eastern front where he was slated to be sent scharf's wife was indignant and hysterical about his orders not only from a spouse's standpoint but because schaaf was fluent in english frauschaf believed that it was a tremendous waste of his skill not to at least work as a german english interpreter she was able to make her way to a german general's office to plead her case it's unclear whether or not she employed the tactics of forrest gump's mother to get the general to change his mind but whatever she did she was convincing and he sent a telegram to shaft's panzer division ordering them to send him to the 12th interpreter's company and weiss barden the telegram arrived the morning he was set to leave for the eastern front but he was not yet out of the woods upon arriving on the train in weisbarden scharf asked the military police where his unit was located unfamiliar with the unit they ordered him to report to another unit that was headed to the eastern front in desperation scharf contacted a high-ranking german officer who had known his father whom he had told his son to call if he was in trouble and needed an ace in the hole the friend ordered the new panzer unit to release him to the proper unit at that point he had twice avoided what would have probably been his certain death in russia from here shaf was trained in british military organization and customs but he soon became bored with his duties he told one of his superiors that he was dissatisfied with manufacturing holes in paper and estimated the cost of each hole at five fannings this irritated his general but nonetheless he sent him to the luftwaffe interrogation center in urber russell one of the few granted this privilege to act as an interpreter for the interrogators this was the turning point in shaft's contribution to interrogation history the center was where all allied airmen captured on the western front were taken for interrogation schaaf was stuck in a lower level position but when two of his superiors were killed in a plane crash he was promoted to head of the united states army air force fighter section it was then that he was transferred to the luftwaffe from the army though at the same rank he quickly became soured on harsh interrogation techniques although these violent methods were largely off the books and an official list of less drastic techniques was published they were still the order of the day he had witnessed these intense and violent episodes and decided that he'd do things differently and so it was that schaaf would use the role of good cobb to achieve his goals shah first gained the trust and confidence of the captives plying the captives with long walks in the woods his wife's baked delicacies casual conversations good medical care and even letting one pow fly a plane beyond all these little kindnesses he would sell himself as their biggest advocate with his superiors he was the one who could keep them from the gestapo but only if they worked with him and played ball no nazi dentist would dig into their gums and ask them is it safe his methodology was as follows get to know the pow and then allow him to talk without coercion along the way shah pretended to know everything beforehand but stated that his superiors insisted that the information come from the captive then he would either confirm that he knew the information or discontinued the conversation this eventually became known as the shaft method and it was highly successful pows often offered up vital intelligence on their own through this trickery no brutality no torture no raising of voices no use of the gestapo maybe the most classic example was schaaf suggesting to a pow that a chemical shortage caused american tracer bullets to leave white smoke instead of red the airmen replied that this was not the case that they were white to indicate low ammunition naturally this was extremely useful information for the german forces through his methods scharf was able to put together extensive dossiers on american pilots especially the higher ranking ones this included information about their hometowns and families their press clippings and even information about common american and british pilot behavior went off duty as such he was able to more easily bamboozle pows he was also allowed to wear street clothes which led to captives believing that he was much higher ranking than he actually was during the remainder of the war schaaf interrogated all manner of famous high-ranking pilots this included lieutenant colonel francis gabreski who was the top american fighter race in europe in world war ii schaaf even had gabreski's picture on the wall in his office and was thrilled to meet him however even shaft's techniques couldn't pry information from gobrsky he was one of the few pows who did not provide useful information during interrogation from scharf this is noteworthy as it's estimated he interrogated around 500 pows with only a couple of dozen or so providing no usable intelligence to him further showing how friendly he was able to get with all these prisoners most of the men he interrogated would go on to happily sign his guest book before being transferred as you might expect from his extreme success and rather unusual methods for the day shaft's public profile greatly increased after the war like german rocket pioneer verna von braun he was useful to the united states and because he was not an insidious nazi he wasn't tried at nuremberg nor did he have to escape to south america in 1948 he was asked to come to the united states to interrogate martin j monty who defected to germany in 1944. he was also asked to testify during monty's trial the us air force also adopted several aspects of his methods more recently after controversy over enhanced interrogation techniques in the war on terror and the uproar over alleged torture at abu ghraib prison president obama launched the fbi's high value interrogation group it spent millions studying and presumably utilizing shaft's methods schaaf also continued his friendship with the aforementioned lieutenant colonel gabreski after the war the two re-enacted an interrogation in 1983 at a reunion of stalagluft iii pows in chicago on their note shaft eventually settled in the united states and became an american citizen the rest of his life's work has likely affected many more americans than his interrogations scharf had studied art in his younger days and developed his craft into a successful business he had a gift for his ache-based art and furniture and found instant success with this endeavor in new york he eventually brought the business to los angeles his daughter-in-law monica schaaf joined him and became his business partner for the new scharf shaft company it is still in operation today among their well-known works the large mosaics of the cinderella story in the cinderella castle at walt disney world in orlando florida others include mosaic entry ramps at epcot center mosaics at several colleges and in hotels homes stores and churches around the globe schaaf passed away in 1992 his story lives on in print some of his memoirs were published in a 1950 article in argosy magazine in 1978 military writer raymond toliver collaborated with scharf to publish the book the interrogator the story of hans schaaf which was republished with a different company in 1997. it was a mixture of schaaf's memoirs and tolliver's supporting biographical work scharf's legacy in interrogation continues to grow to this day shaft's tactics have been studied at length by pas anders granhag who is a professor of psychology at sweden's university of gothenburg granhag is considered the leading authority on shaft and his techniques as for schaff's extreme success groundhack states that schaaf was able to manipulate and contradict the pow's assumptions about interrogation which in turn circumvented their counter-interrogation training thus the deception and new level of comfort made them ripe for the taking so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below and don't forget to subscribe also please do check out our fantastic sponsor the great courses plus link below and thank you for watching

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 568,135

Rating: 4.9516568 out of 5

Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know, Nazi Interrogator, Hermann Scharff, kind-hearted Nazi interrogator, Hanns Scharff facts, Hanns Scharff life story, Hanns Scharff nazi

Id: 9fXzwxvYlg0

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2020