Because you catch more flies with honey than vinegar
June 10, 2016 5:36 PM Subscribe
“The closer you adhere to the most exacting standards of human rights and treatment of prisoners -- what Scharff did -- you will be more effective. Here is a guy who was caught up in a horrible situation he couldn’t walk away from, and his moral standards still allowed him to be successful, perhaps among the most successful interrogators in history.”
Meet Hanns Joachim Scharff, an interrogator for the German Luftwaffe who pioneered interrogation techniques that were intelligent, humane, and also produced significantly better results than the other, much more widely used Nazi interrogation method, physical torture.
"He really hit on strategies and techniques that work ... There is a bit of an irony, I know, that we are learning this from an interrogator for the Nazis.
— Christian Meissner, psychology professor at Iowa State University.
Although Scharff died in 1992, his legacy endures, mainly because the techniques he developed in WWII continue to produce very strong results. Scharff himself (with co-author Raymond F. Toliver), discussed his life and his approach to questioning prisoners in his autobiography, The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Joachim Scharff, Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe.
In a fascinating second act to his life, Scharff immigrated to the US after the of war and pursued a career as an artist working in the medium of mosaics. Working with his daughter, Monika Scharff, he created many beautiful and complex pieces, including the five 15-foot wall mosaics that tell the story of Cinderella in the Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
The commission to produce art for Disney was not a fluke. Among the many commissions Scharff received, he and his studio also created the marbled mosaic floor in the California state capitol building, the mosaic entry ramps at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida, a large outdoor building fascade mosaic at Dixie College in Utah, and the mosaiced eagle floor at the University of Southern California campus, in addition to several other private homes, hotels, schools, universities, department stores, shopping malls and churches worldwide.
Previously, albeit in a comment
"He really hit on strategies and techniques that work ... There is a bit of an irony, I know, that we are learning this from an interrogator for the Nazis.
— Christian Meissner, psychology professor at Iowa State University.
Although Scharff died in 1992, his legacy endures, mainly because the techniques he developed in WWII continue to produce very strong results. Scharff himself (with co-author Raymond F. Toliver), discussed his life and his approach to questioning prisoners in his autobiography, The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Joachim Scharff, Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe.
In a fascinating second act to his life, Scharff immigrated to the US after the of war and pursued a career as an artist working in the medium of mosaics. Working with his daughter, Monika Scharff, he created many beautiful and complex pieces, including the five 15-foot wall mosaics that tell the story of Cinderella in the Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
The commission to produce art for Disney was not a fluke. Among the many commissions Scharff received, he and his studio also created the marbled mosaic floor in the California state capitol building, the mosaic entry ramps at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida, a large outdoor building fascade mosaic at Dixie College in Utah, and the mosaiced eagle floor at the University of Southern California campus, in addition to several other private homes, hotels, schools, universities, department stores, shopping malls and churches worldwide.
Previously, albeit in a comment
From your last link: "Hanns Scharff was primarily an American 8th and 9th Air Force Fighter pilot interrogator. He was considered the best of the interrogators at Dulag Luft. He gained the reputation of magically getting all the answers he needed from the prisoners of war, often with the prisoners never realizing that their words, small talk or otherwise, were important pieces of the mosaic."
Oh ho, I see what he did there.
This was a great post, thanks a lot.
posted by looli at 6:41 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh ho, I see what he did there.
This was a great post, thanks a lot.
posted by looli at 6:41 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
The commission to produce art for Disney was not a fluke.
Disney supporting a former Nazi? Gee, I wonder why...
posted by leotrotsky at 6:59 PM on June 10, 2016
Disney supporting a former Nazi? Gee, I wonder why...
posted by leotrotsky at 6:59 PM on June 10, 2016
Fascinating. The great number of amazing characters, the strangeness of their stories, the almost unbelievable situations that arose, all because of WWII never ceases to surprise me. Thanks for the post.
posted by cwest at 9:13 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by cwest at 9:13 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Reaction time is a factor in this so please pay attention. Answer as quickly as you can.
posted by arcticseal at 9:16 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by arcticseal at 9:16 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
We've known about the uselessness of torture for quite a while. The truth is we just really wanted to torture some brown people - it didn't even particularly matter which brown people - to exact revenge for 9/11. And that is why the torture of detainees happened; also why the invasion of Iraq happened.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:44 PM on June 10, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:44 PM on June 10, 2016 [17 favorites]
Super interesting! I curious to know more about the research that has been going on recently about this (mentioned in the main link).
posted by iamkimiam at 11:56 PM on June 10, 2016
posted by iamkimiam at 11:56 PM on June 10, 2016
Of course the analogue on the British side was Trent Park, which is also worth reading about! Rather than closely interrogating a number of high-ranked German POWs, the British just put them all together in a country estate, treated them well, and bugged every room.
posted by phoenixy at 12:02 AM on June 11, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by phoenixy at 12:02 AM on June 11, 2016 [12 favorites]
We've known about the uselessness of torture for quite a while.
I keep repeating this, but it's important: torture is very bad at extracting information (because the subject will say whatever the interrogator wants to make the pain stop). But it's very good at extracting confessions (for exactly the same reason). Therefore it's useful to note that when an organisation employs torture they are more interested in fabricating confessions than actually getting information. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the policy seems to have been to round up as many brown men as possible, torture confessions out of them and create the illusion of an Islamist army which didn't, in fact, exist. Of course torture also has a radicalising effect - even if the men who were rounded up didn't actually hate the West then they probably do now.
The other connection between Islamism and torture being that each ratcheting up of violence within the movement seems to have coincided with their leaders spending time in Egypt's torture chambers.
posted by Grangousier at 2:52 AM on June 11, 2016 [16 favorites]
I keep repeating this, but it's important: torture is very bad at extracting information (because the subject will say whatever the interrogator wants to make the pain stop). But it's very good at extracting confessions (for exactly the same reason). Therefore it's useful to note that when an organisation employs torture they are more interested in fabricating confessions than actually getting information. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the policy seems to have been to round up as many brown men as possible, torture confessions out of them and create the illusion of an Islamist army which didn't, in fact, exist. Of course torture also has a radicalising effect - even if the men who were rounded up didn't actually hate the West then they probably do now.
The other connection between Islamism and torture being that each ratcheting up of violence within the movement seems to have coincided with their leaders spending time in Egypt's torture chambers.
posted by Grangousier at 2:52 AM on June 11, 2016 [16 favorites]
ISee also the US counterpart, Sherwood Moran. I would think Japanese soldiers in WW II were as difficult to interrogate as anyone out there, yet he did it successfully using humane techniques.
posted by TedW at 4:06 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by TedW at 4:06 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
On further investigation, it looks like the links in the FPP i linked are dead, so here are two more. The second one contains the text of his memo "Suggestions for Japanese Interpreters Based on Work in the Field."
posted by TedW at 4:15 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by TedW at 4:15 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Disney supporting a former Nazi?
Do we know for a fact that Scharff was a Nazi? You didn't have to be a Nazi to be in the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, or Kriegsmarine, and the military's mandatory loyalty oath did not confer party membership. Scharff came to Germany in 1939 from South Africa and was stuck because of the war. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht and slated for the Russian front before his fluent English was taken into account.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:08 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Do we know for a fact that Scharff was a Nazi? You didn't have to be a Nazi to be in the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, or Kriegsmarine, and the military's mandatory loyalty oath did not confer party membership. Scharff came to Germany in 1939 from South Africa and was stuck because of the war. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht and slated for the Russian front before his fluent English was taken into account.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:08 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
The truth is we just really wanted to torture some brown people -
Our government may act in our name, but that does not mean that it wants what we want. I seriously doubt that the segment of the American people who approved of torture was large, before 24 and the rest of the propaganda onslaught began. I remain disappointed that that onslaught was so successful, and that the leaders of our government are so forgiving of torture.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:20 AM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
Our government may act in our name, but that does not mean that it wants what we want. I seriously doubt that the segment of the American people who approved of torture was large, before 24 and the rest of the propaganda onslaught began. I remain disappointed that that onslaught was so successful, and that the leaders of our government are so forgiving of torture.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:20 AM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
phoenixy had the point I was going to make. There was a great Secrets of the Dead episode on PBS about Trent Park about two years ago.
posted by pmurray63 at 7:25 AM on June 11, 2016
posted by pmurray63 at 7:25 AM on June 11, 2016
Just to reiterate a point others have made: "After the war, in a sign of the respect U.S. military officials had for Scharff’s methods, the interrogator was invited to give lectures at the Pentagon ..." So the military has known this stuff all my life, they just like to torture people instead. (Note: "they," not "we," because we're not all sadists even if we wind up empowering them.) Thanks for a great post.
posted by languagehat at 7:32 AM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by languagehat at 7:32 AM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
this is all well and good, but what if all you've got is 24 hours?
posted by philip-random at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
So the military has known this stuff all my life, they just like to torture people instead.
The military generally doesn't particularly like to torture people; some of the most passionate critics I've read of the treatment of prisoners in the War on Terror have been military interrogators (and in one case, an instructor in interrogation techniques). The spread of torture since 9/11 largely started with the intelligence community (CIA and its contractors), and was then pushed onto the military by the civilian leadership. Jane Mayer's The Dark Side is probably the definitive single source on how exactly it all went down.
posted by asterix at 11:50 AM on June 11, 2016 [9 favorites]
The military generally doesn't particularly like to torture people; some of the most passionate critics I've read of the treatment of prisoners in the War on Terror have been military interrogators (and in one case, an instructor in interrogation techniques). The spread of torture since 9/11 largely started with the intelligence community (CIA and its contractors), and was then pushed onto the military by the civilian leadership. Jane Mayer's The Dark Side is probably the definitive single source on how exactly it all went down.
posted by asterix at 11:50 AM on June 11, 2016 [9 favorites]
Yeah, sorry, as soon as I posted that I realized I was painting with too broad a brush (this topic gets me seeing red). What I should have said was "some people with a lot of power get off on the idea of torture and impose it on the system," or something like that. Thanks for calling me on it—I don't want to come off as insulting the entire military (which would include a good many people in my own family).
posted by languagehat at 6:04 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by languagehat at 6:04 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
"What is being done around here is horrible. Young people are being turned into sadists. How can one do that? Simply bang away at women and children? That is impossible.
Our people will go mad."
-Adolf Eichmann, comment to local SS commander, Lvov, 1941.
posted by clavdivs at 7:08 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Our people will go mad."
-Adolf Eichmann, comment to local SS commander, Lvov, 1941.
posted by clavdivs at 7:08 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Or so Eichmann said he had said, when he was being tried. Your call as to whether to believe him.
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on June 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on June 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, not from the trial there LH.
Would you like the source.
I can also link documents expressing similar "concerns".
Would you like that source?
posted by clavdivs at 11:45 AM on June 12, 2016
Would you like the source.
I can also link documents expressing similar "concerns".
Would you like that source?
posted by clavdivs at 11:45 AM on June 12, 2016
From the article about Sherwood Moran-
Rather, it is the small and seemingly inconsequential bits of evidence that prisoners may give away once they start talking—about training, weapons, commanders, tactics—that, when assembled into a larger mosaic, build up the most complete and valuable picture of the enemy's organization, intentions, and methods.
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:39 AM on June 13, 2016
Rather, it is the small and seemingly inconsequential bits of evidence that prisoners may give away once they start talking—about training, weapons, commanders, tactics—that, when assembled into a larger mosaic, build up the most complete and valuable picture of the enemy's organization, intentions, and methods.
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:39 AM on June 13, 2016
Related: Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII
posted by homunculus at 4:08 PM on June 17, 2016
posted by homunculus at 4:08 PM on June 17, 2016
The spread of torture since 9/11 largely started with the intelligence community (CIA and its contractors)
Speaking of which: CIA Releases New and Gruesome Details on Its Torture Program
Latest CIA Torture Docs Show "Evidence of War Crimes" & Level of Brutality That Even Shocked Bush
These New CIA Torture Documents Are Revolting, But They Won't Change Anything
posted by homunculus at 4:10 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Speaking of which: CIA Releases New and Gruesome Details on Its Torture Program
Latest CIA Torture Docs Show "Evidence of War Crimes" & Level of Brutality That Even Shocked Bush
These New CIA Torture Documents Are Revolting, But They Won't Change Anything
posted by homunculus at 4:10 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
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