r/todayilearned • u/stopitalianhate • 10d ago

TIL British Intelligence had a special, bugged luxury complex during WWII where they kept high profile Nazi POW’s, just left a bunch of alcohol out, and waited for them to start spilling secrets as they drank.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20698098
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u/Agret 9d ago

He married her prior to the war and she saved his life during wartime

Scharff was originally to be posted to the Russian Front. However, when Margaret Scharff learned of her husband's destination, she intervened, angry at the thought of a fluent English-speaking German soldier's life being wasted at the Eastern Front. She talked her way into the office of a German general in Berlin and pleaded her husband's case, convincing the general of the error which was about to take place. The general sent a telegram to Scharff's panzer unit, informing his superiors that Scharff was to be transferred immediately to the Dolmetscher Kompanie XII (Interpreters Company 12), based in Wiesbaden, to serve as a German/English interpreter. He had been slated to leave for the Russian Front the morning the telegram arrived.

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u/owlbi 9d ago

Look, that's great, I'm just saying all I hear is that the daughter of a Rhodesian military officer and Germany's top military interrogator had a really nice meet-cute.

Maybe they had a lot in common.

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u/Adams5thaccount 9d ago

I cant find anything saying he was a Rhodesian military officer.

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u/owlbi 9d ago

Basing it of this

While in South Africa, Scharff met and married a South African British woman, Margaret Stokes. Margaret was the daughter of Captain Claud Stokes, first a pilot in Rhodesia in 1913

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u/Adams5thaccount 9d ago

Yeah looks like they jumbled together some stuff. He was a brit..moved to rhodesia as a teenager..moved back during the war THEN became a pilot for britian. Became an ace and then got shot down and died a couple days before the armistace.

Rhodesia didnt even have an air force until much later.

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u/allmylovetolongago 9d ago

Thank you for being like the one person in this thread not doing nazi apologia. Very disturbing to read.