Scotland's Nazi secret

WATTEN: A remote village in the barren moorland of Caithness, well known for its loch and brown-trout fishing. Had Alexander Bain – the inventor of the electric clock and the fax machine – not been born here, this obscure outpost in the far north of Scotland would have remained nothing more than a tiny speck on an Ordnance Survey map. Yet behind the façade of this sleepy settlement lies something incredibly dark and sinister. You may not know it walking through here today, but Watten was once ho

"Camp 165 began life as a military training camp in 1943, made up mainly of Nissen huts to accommodate British personnel," says Valerie Campbell, a former Watten resident and the author of Camp 165 Watten, a new book published yesterday documenting the history of the site.

"It had an armourer's store, a canteen, mess halls, latrines and barracks. It expanded in the spring of 1945 to become a PoW camp to house German, Austrian, Belgian and Polish nationals. My interest in it began when my twin daughters came home from school and said they'd been told a prisoner of war camp had been in the village. As it turned out, my family's house was actually built on the site."

Thanks to recently declassified documents, it's now known that Camp 165 – nicknamed "Little Belsen" – was constructed to house not just ordinary German soldiers, but some of the most infamous, top-ranking Nazi officers of the Second World War.

"The higher-ranking officers were segregated from ordinary soldiers when the new Compound 'O' was formed in 1947," says Campbell, who spent four years living in Watten. "Barbed-wire surrounded this compound, which consisted of 28 huts, including 16 for sleeping accommodation, a kitchen, dining area, and a hobby room for the men. These men were treated no differently from men in the other compounds, but the men in O were kept at close quarters. Many of the (more hard-line] officers were categorised as C or C+ and were unhappy at being both incarcerated and politically graded in the way they were. To pass the time, though, they had access to books and learning, just like the other prisoners. Courses included botany and English. They wanted to go home to their families, like the ordinary soldiers, but because of their rankings, it was felt by the authorities they should be held longer."

High-ranking Nazis at the camp included propagandist and former leader of the Nazi Youth Party, Gunter d'Alquen; Hitler's personal aide and SS commander, Max Wunsche, a denier of the systematic German murder of Jews in concentration camps; commandant of the notorious Stutthof concentration camp, Paul Werner Hoppe, who assisted in the murder of 85,000 people there; and Otto Kretschmer, who earned the nickname "Silent Otto" for his successful use of the "silent running" capability of the U-boats.

All subjected to "de-Nazification", as Campbell says, the officers were given the opportunity to read British newspapers and received letters from home, which told them of the devastation inflicted on their country by the Allies.

"These were not only ordinary footsoldiers of the Heer, submariners from the Kriegsmarine or members of the Luftwaffe, but also members of the Waffen-SS," Campbell points out. "These men had been indoctrinated by Nazi policies and it was hoped they would be reformed and re-educated before being sent back Germany. They were shown film footage of the concentration camps and, slowly, these things changed their attitude. Some, it has to be said, were not easily persuaded but, as with any brainwashing system, if you reinforce something for long enough people will begin to believe it."

Situated between Wick and Thurso, Watten's population at the time of Camp 165 was no more than a few hundred people. At first, locals – unaware of the top-ranking Nazi officers in their midst – were bemused at the proximity of their new neighbours. Nevertheless, they accepted the PoWs.

"Most people got along fine with them," says Campbell, a mother of three now living in Kirriemuir. "The prisoners they got to know through the barbed wire were ordinary men caught up in extraordinary circumstances." However, not everyone was so enamoured. "Some local men found it hard that these prisoners were working on the land while their own boys had no jobs."

To the first-time visitor, the isolation and vast sense of space surrounding Watten can be overwhelming. On a clear day, you can see for many miles in any given direction, gale-force winds having deprived the Caithness flatlands of trees. Therefore, those who managed to escape from the most northerly camp on British mainland had nowhere to hide.

"Escape attempts were made from the camp periodically but, in the end, all of the would-be escapees were returned there, usually by simply giving themselves up," says Campbell, whose own father served in the Second World War. "There was nowhere for the prisoners to go and the landscape was inhospitable, especially to those who didn't know it." After the camp closed in 1948, it was dismantled. Today, nothing of any significance remains, though the camp theatre was still in existence until the late 1990s. The water-pump house still stands, and some of the houses in Achingale Place and Bain Place are built on the original sites of Nissen huts. However, for the prisoners who were set free, Campbell says, it took some time to adapt to civilian life, and some remained behind in Caithness.

"Those deemed to be reformed characters were repatriated. Some of the hard-liners were involved in the Nuremberg Trials. In letters received by local Caithness families, some former prisoners spoke of the hardships they faced on their return to Germany. Many towns and cities to which these men returned had been devastated by Allied bombing."

Campbell adds: "Some of the prisoners did stay in Caithness. They married local girls, settled and blended in to the local communities, although in some cases there was resentment. But as time passed, they were accepted."

While it's almost 60 years since Camp 165 closed its gates, there are still those who remain tight-lipped about it, and obtaining information to help research her book – as Campbell discovered to her frustration – wasn't easy. "The camp was known; but locals and prisoners alike were told never to speak about it. I guess they saw it as just doing their duty. Eventually I got in touch with Margaret, Viscountess Thurso, who gave me some leads to follow and I contacted the MoD, who pointed me in the right direction."

One person who agreed to speak to The Scotsman about her recollections of Camp 165 is Anne O' Sullivan, who was stationed near it during and after the war. She is now 87 and living in Wick, but it was as a young Wren in Watten during the war that she met her husband, Paddy O'Sullivan (nicknamed "Black Sergeant" by the prisoners), who worked inside Camp 165.

"You would never think there had been a prisoner of war camp in Watten if you wandered through it today," says Anne. "The British officers, including Paddy, were good to the prisoners, and the prisoners treated them with respect, too. The only real trouble was they did try to escape now and then.

"My husband and I were once on our way to a dance when (he] decided to check in on a soldier called Brock (a prisoner in one of the huts] beforehand. When he got there, he found a big lump in the bed – but it was just a pillow. Brock must have cut a panel in the wall and escaped. Almost immediately, a policeman alerted my husband to someone he'd found hiding in a ditch just outside the camp. Sure enough it was Brock. 'Is that you, Brock?' my husband said staring into the ditch. Covered in mud and with his hands up, Brock shouted back, 'Yes Black Sergeant, don't shoot.' After the war, Brock came back to Watten for a visit. He turned up at our house in a fancy car, saying, 'I've gone from nothing to nice cars,' before taking us out to dinner. He was a nice man. Another prisoner, Seidell, was a famous musician in Germany. He teamed up with other musicians in the camp. He was kind enough to play at my wedding, even though Paddy was a sergeant in the British Army. He later died in a plane crash going back to Germany, I think."

While life alongside the regular German prisoners was relatively benign, the presence of the more senior Nazis in the camp was met with a relatively mute response.

"The locals didn't let the more famous Nazis affect their day-to-day lives because not many of them actually knew they were there, let alone saw them," says Anne. "They were segregated from the regular German soldiers. My husband rarely spoke about them and, even if he wanted to, he wasn't allowed because of the secrecy act.

"That said, the other prisoners were great. They made me a sewing box, and a doll's pram for my sister. We all got on with them and it wasn't a surprise to see them return to Caithness after the war, as they genuinely liked the place," recalls Anne.

Viscountess Thurso, who lived near the camp, is fascinated by some of the revelations in Campbell's book. "Little did we know (it] was Britain's most secretive prisoner of war camp," she said. "I knew both Lt Colonel 'Tishy' Murray and his junior officer, Captain Tim Gunn. Yet on the many occasions I met them, neither spoke of life in the camp. It was from the book that I learned both men had themselves been prisoners of war."

Camp 165 Watten has been a labour of love for Campbell. A nursery nurse who turned to writing in 2003, she says she will throw up a few surprises to the people of Caithness.

"I hope I've managed to encapsulate a piece of history that is important to them," she says. "Watten may be tiny, but it had an important role to play in the history of Europe and the wider world. Be proud of it."

• Camp 165 Watten: Scotland's Most Secretive POW Camp is available now through Whittles Publishing, £14.99.

INTERNED AT CAMP 165

THEY were among the most notorious Nazi officers of the Second World War, but what became of Camp 165's infamous inmates?

Paul Werner Hoppe

ESCAPED from British custody in 1948. He changed his name and lived in Switzerland for a time, working as a landscape gardener. He returned to Germany in late 1952 and reverted to his own name. He believed no-one would be interested in him, but was arrested in 1953 and sentenced to five years. This was later increased to nine. He served seven and a half and, on his release, he worked for an insurance firm. He died in 1974.

Gunter d'Alquen

EMPLOYED by the CIA in the US, working on propaganda for the Korean War. Once they had finished with him, he was allowed to return home to Germany. He divorced his first wife and remarried, but was unable to fulfil his dream of a career in journalism as he had been banned from doing so, and worked as a textile manufacturer. In 1955, he was fined by a de-Nazification court in Berlin and again fined in 1958. He died in 1998.

Max Wunsche

RELEASED from British captivity in 1948 and returned to Germany. He married, had a family and kept a low profile, although he attended the funerals of his friends Kurt Meyer and "Sepp" Dietrich. He retired in 1980 and died 15 years later, a few days short of his 81st birthday.

Ollo Kretschmer

ON HIS release from British custody, he married and joined the Bundesmarine. In 1965 he became Chief of Staff of the NATO Command for the Baltic Approaches. In this capacity, Kretschmer visited Orkney several times during his four-year stint for NATO. He retired in 1970. He died in 1998, aged 86.