Interrogation Nation: Refugees and Spies in Cold War Germany

(Hardback)

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This groundbreaking book explores the treatment of the millions of refugees and tens of thousands of spies that flooded Germany after World War II. Drawing on newly declassified espionage files, Keith R. Allen uncovers long-hidden interrogation systems that were developed by Germanys western occupiers to protect internal security and gather intelligence about the Soviet Union. He shows how vetting in the name of public order brought foreign intelligence officials into practically every venue, from train stations to corporate boardrooms to private dwellings, in postwar West Germany. At the heart of efforts to extract insights were extensive, personalized efforts by law enforcement and security officials to manipulate desires and emotions involving dearest family members, closest friends, and trusted colleagues. Linking personal narratives of those interrogated to the international context of postwar politics, Allen reveals a compelling world inhabited by spies and refugees. Allen's study illuminates the places, personalities, and practices of refugee interrogation in one of Europes most successful postwar states. As calls for intense scrutiny of refugees have grown dramatically, Allen illustrates how decisions to shortchange the rights of migrants in periods of heightened ideological and military tension may contribute to long-term threats to personal liberties and the rule of law.

Reviews

This book, which links relevant institutions, practices, and biographies in one presentation, offers a reading that is as exciting as it is enlightening. * H-Soz-u-Kult *
The revelations provided by Edward Snowden regarding electronic surveillance, the growth of lone wolf terrorist attacks, and the recent influx of migrants into Europe from the Middle East have all prompted a reconsideration of how intelligence agencies gather information vital to national security. Allen reminds readers that these debates, especially in Central Europe, have a long history. In an impressively researched work based on archival materials from several countries, Allen argues that the vetting procedures for screening refugees in Germany after WW II laid the foundation for those used for interrogation to this day. His book aptly demonstrates the competition that existed among various nations (most notably the US, the UK, and France) to collect sensitive information after 1945, as well as the ways that these actions routinely infringed on the sovereignty of West Germany. Divided into sections that focus on the places of interrogation, the personalities responsible for these encounters, and the practices used to acquire information, this study shines a penetrating light into a very dark and mysterious chapter of postwar history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *
Interrogation Nation presents a compelling analysis of the Western screening of refugees and asylum seekers in the Federal Republic of Germany during the Cold War and beyond. It will remain a standard reference work for the plethora of programs and places associated with such screening, not only for historians, but also for genealogists retracing the path of family members making their way from East to West through a divided Germany during the Cold War. It also represents an important contribution to the history of refugee screening, the activities of Western intelligence agencies, and the Bonn Republics relationship to the Western powers during the Cold War. * Berlin Center for Cold War Studies *
This is a brilliantly researched and fascinating study of Cold War espionage and interrogation. It could not be more timely: many of the Cold War issues Keith Allen exposes are being resurrected all around us today. -- Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
Keith Allen opens a vital window to the history of interrogations and intelligence through his careful, nuanced, and fascinating exploration of refugee screening in western Germany. Particularly gripping and informative are the many individual personalities of shadowy sources culled from American, British, Czech, and German archives. Interrogation and refugees are not a brand-new concern of our present day. Allen illuminates the roots of our current system, reaching back into the rubble-strewn soil of the postwar moment. -- Michael Gordin, Princeton University
Keith Allens meticulously crafted book is a research masterpiece on the topic of postWorld War II interrogation procedures. Drawing together a stupendous trove of documents, many recently declassified, from American, East and West German, British and French agencies, Allen resurrects a complex network of sites, technologies, and personnelincluding the galvanizing stories of spies, refugees, and scientists, among others. Together they constituted a significant part of the mass migrations of the second half of the twentieth century. While focusing on those who crossed from East to West Germany, especially in the 1940s and 1950s, Allens research does not simply resurrect a Cold War bygone. Rather, Interrogation Nation directly sheds light on two of the key unresolved issues of our time: procedures of vetting Syrian and other fleeing refugees within Europe, as well as ongoing debates over increasingly penetrating, increasingly networked, electronic surveillance. -- Rebecca Lemov, Harvard University
A fascinating read. * Militrgeschichtliche Zeitschrift *

Author Bio

Keith R. Allen is a research scholar at the Institut fr Zeitgeschichte, Munich-Berlin. Since receiving his PhD in history in 1997, he has worked for an international scholarly commission investigating Switzerland's wartime ties to Nazi Germany, directed web content development at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and curated the first pan-European exhibition on the legacies of World War II.