Background
The British authorities opened No. 74 Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) in June 1945. The camp was based in the Schlammbad (mud bath) complex in Bad Nenndorf, with the former bathing chambers being converted into prison cells. It was the successor to an earlier camp at Diest in Belgium and was run by a combination of military and intelligence officers under War Office authority. Several other CSDIC camps had existed during the war, in the UK at Ham in London and Huntercombe near Henley-on-Thames and in the Mediterranean :Rome at Cinecitta, Middle East Camp Ma'adi near Cairo, and South Asia, but these had closed by the time No. 74 CSDIC had opened.
The camp was originally intended to hold former Nazis for interrogation, but its remit was expanded to include a number of people suspected of carrying out espionage for the Soviet Union. As well as Germans, these included Russians, Czechs and Hungarians. During the camp's two years of operation, a total of 372 men and 44 women were held there.
Read more about this topic: Bad Nenndorf Interrogation Centre
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)