Spying on Hitler’s Army: The Secret Recordings

Spying on Hitler’s Army: The Secret Recordings

47 mins | Drama, Documentary | June 2, 2013

British intelligence undertook an audacious operation to listen in on the private conversations of 10,000 German prisoners of war without their ever knowing they were being overheard. The prisoners' unguarded reminiscences and unintentional confessions have only just come to light, and prove how closely the German army were involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust. British intelligence requisitioned three stately homes for this epic task, and converted each into an elaborate trap. The 100,000 hours of conversation they captured provided crucial intelligence that changed the course of the war, and revealed some of its worst horrors, from rape to mass executions to one of the earliest bulletins from the concentration camps. But when the fighting ended, the recordings were destroyed and the transcripts locked away for half a century. Only now have they been declassified, researched and cross-referenced.

Spying on Hitler’s Army: The Secret Recordings

47 mins | Drama, Documentary | June 2, 2013

Spying on Hitler’s Army: The Secret Recordings
British intelligence undertook an audacious operation to listen in on the private conversations of 10,000 German prisoners of war without their ever knowing they were being overheard. The prisoners' unguarded reminiscences and unintentional confessions have only just come to light, and prove how closely the German army were involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust. British intelligence requisitioned three stately homes for this epic task, and converted each into an elaborate trap. The 100,000 hours of conversation they captured provided crucial intelligence that changed the course of the war, and revealed some of its worst horrors, from rape to mass executions to one of the earliest bulletins from the concentration camps. But when the fighting ended, the recordings were destroyed and the transcripts locked away for half a century. Only now have they been declassified, researched and cross-referenced.
Producers Channel 4 Television, October Films
Original title Spying on Hitler’s Army: The Secret Recordings
Directors Alex Gibb, Christopher Spencer
Writers Christopher Spencer

Cast

Philip Glenister

as Narrator

David Barrass

as General Kittel

Nicholas Farrell

as General von Thoma

Jack Fortune

as General Bruhn

Rupert Frazer

as General Cruwell

Richard Freeman

as General Von Choltitz

Peter Harding

as General Schlieben

Elliott Jordan

as Hartelt

Valentine Pelka

as General Von Felbert

Rafe Pugh

as Minnieur

Alan Turkington

as Pffanberger

Thomas Wheatley

as Lord Aberfeldy