[Steve Brew]

A pilot and ex-POW I interviewed today recalls his interrogation in Dulag Luft in Frankfurt. His cell was standing room only and had no windows. In the evening, he was sent for and found himself in front of an Officer who said in a Manchester accent, “Hello, my name is Black.” He replied, “are you a traitor?” and the man laughed and said, “no, my name is actually Schwartz,” and explained he had been to Manchester University.

Does anyone recognise this interrogator from their research and can they give me any further information on him, please?

Schwartz then asked if he would like to hear the news from London, and the radio was turned on in time for him to catch the BBC news. Then Schwartz pulled out a folder marked, “41 Squadron,” and looked down a list of the pilots that had been shot down, until he reached my pilot’s name, which had an annotation next to it, “Escaped.” Schwartz then went on to astonish him with his knowledge of him, asking if he missed his dog Monty (still on the base back int he UK), but assured him not to worry as he was being looked after by fellow pilot, Flt. Lt. ‘Barney’ Newman. He also knew about his history in the RAF, including his time in Malta and his career in mining and surveying in South Africa. To this day, he does not know how Schwartz could have obtained this information.

Two questions here:

1. Does anyone know if such files (i.e. a "41 Squadron" folder) might still exist? They don't seem to be amongst those in the National Archives in London (though some interrogation records are there), so might they exist in a German Archiv?

2. Though no-one from the Squadron was recently captured (the nearest two both evaded), it is still hard to believe that interrogation of other Squadron pilots would have generated so much information about a single pilot (I don't know what info they held on other pilots, hence my previous question). Whilst I am aware that the Allies captured information on interrogations which led to some airmen being tried after the War for having given away too much information during their interrogation (files at TNA in London), I am unaware of any 41 Squadron pilot being tried for such an act that information of the type held by the Luftwaffe about my pilot would have resulted in. Although I appreciate the answer to this question may be pure hypothesis, does anyone have information on how German Intelligence could have obtained such detailed information on active pilots?

Thanks
Steve