Ahead of the opening of a museum in part of the historic mansion at its heart, projects to carry out further in-depth research into Trent Park's vital World War 2 intelligence-gathering role are already yielding results. In parallel, an interactive project to teach local children about the activities of the "secret listeners" is being readied for roll-out across Enfield schools.
A "secret listener" in the basement at Trent Park monitoring the conversations of high ranking German prisoners-of-war in the rooms above
Links to fascinating articles describing progress to date are included in the latest issue of the Trent Park Museum Trust's email newsletter - see the brief summaries below, which are followed by links to the full articles.
Delving into the archives
The Museum Trust now has a group of volunteers engaged in "detective work" at the National Archives in Kew, searching through huge numbers of formerly top secret files to find out more about the intelligence gleaned from listening in to German generals housed as prisoners of war at "Cockfosters". They are also discovering more about some of the high ranking enemy officers themselves, about the methods used to encourage the "guests" to give away German secrets and about some of the "secret listeners" - German-speaking refugees, many of them Jewish, who were located in the mansion's basement, eavesdropping on the conversations above.
Rediscovering Trent Park House: a trip to the National Archives
Averting the threat of a Nazi intercontinental ballistic missile
A particularly significant intelligence success at Trent Park was the result of bugging a conversation in which a newly arrived German general updated a colleague on the Nazis' advanced weapons programmes. Using a clever ruse, British military intelligence were able to prompt the unsuspecting internee to reveal more details, alerting them to the existence of a project that could potentially lead to a German intercontinental ballistic missile which might have changed the course of the war. In the light of this, Allied intelligence increased its focus on tracking such advanced weapons programmes and bombing raids were subsequently launched that succeeded in disrupting these deadly plans.
Clive Francis writes about "A most significant conversation"
A highly decorated but anti-Nazi German general
In another item, Clive Francis writes about another Trent Park internee who was one of the most highly decorated generals in the German army, but whom British intelligence later assessed to be an anti-Nazi with surprisingly ‘sane views on the general political set-up’ and ‘a rather shrewd man of the world’. Maj Gen Wahle's award of the Knights Cross of the War Service Cross with Swords came about in recognition of his handling of the aftermath of a British bombing raid on Hamburg which caused a firestorm that killed more than 40,000 people - an unintended tragic occurrence that was commemorated this year when King Charles laid a wreath in a Hamburg church.
Bringing Trent Park's wartime role to life for today's kids
During the summer term Freshwater Theatre Company ran pilot sessions of Secret Listeners history workshops with Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils at local schools. These were in preparation for the roll-out of 32 sessions in Enfield schools in the autumn. The interactive workshops use drama techniques and props such as 1940s headphones and various clues kept in an old-fashioned briefcase to help schoolkids put themselves in the shoes of the secret listeners.
Exploring the story of the Secret Listeners with local schools
Links
Trent Park Museum Trust website
Helping new generations discover the fascinating history of Trent Park (Palmers Green Community 17 May 2023)
