GERMAN NATIONAL (INTERNMENT) (Hansard, 16 December 1946)

§ Mr. William Shepherd (Bucklow)
I want to raise the question of the treatment of Mr. Karl Kuchenmeister during the past seven years. I raise this issue because Mr. Kuchenmeister is one of my constituents. He has three children for whom, naturally, as their Member, I want to see the best possible done. In my Division there is a growing feeling that justice has not been done in this case. What is more, it does not appear to have been done. I suggest to the Home Secretary and the Parliamentary Secretary that it is as important to see that justice is apparently done as in fact to do justice.
I want to remind the House of the details concerning Mr. Karl Kuchenmeister. He came to this country in 1928 from Germany, and established a very successful business in Manchester. Without any question, he is a most expert engineer and a man whose services would be of value to this country. Within a short time he had built up a very extensive business and was consulted by many of the leading firms in this country upon industrial problems. He did not apply for naturalisation until 1939 because his main business was concerned with the importation of machines from Germany and if he had applied earlier for British naturalisation it would possibly, in the circumstances then prevailing in that country, have adversely affected his chance of getting those machines.
In August, 1939, when the application for naturalisation was in, the Home Secretary requested him to leave the country, without any reason being given. He did not go, as one might have assumed as a result of his treatment by the British, back to Germany, but to Eire. There he applied on many occasions to come back to this country and eventually to come back to this country for internment. He went before an advisory committee and was duly interned and sent to Australia, where he stayed for the greater part of the war. He was sent back to this country in 1945 with the promise that his case for release would be considered—

§ Mr. Stokes (Ipswich)
Apropos the advisory committee, does the hon. Member know whether the advisory committee recommended his continued detention or not?

§ Mr. Shepherd
I am afraid I cannot give the hon. Member that information, but I know that Mr. Kuchenmeister was interned as a consequence of the decision of the advisory committee. He returned to this country in 1945 with some promise of consideration which never materialised. The point which I think will concern the House is that this man, who has been interned now for nearly seven years, is at present in Brixton Gaol as an ordinary prisoner. He is not even allowed a watch or a fountain pen. He is kept in his cell for 18 hours a day. That, to my mind, is a disgraceful state of affairs in this country—that a man should be kept in prison when there is no case against him.
I have tried to find exactly what he has done. I have visited the Home Secretary. I am sorry to have to say this in the unfortunate absence of the Home Secretary, but I got no more information from the Home Secretary than any outsider would have done coming from the street—

§ Mr. Stokes
Nor did I.

§ Mr. Shepherd
I take the very poorest view of that treatment of a Member of Parliament, It is particularly unfortunate because had I been given some information about what this man was alleged to have done I could have considered that information confidentially and if I considered it justified I could have reported to his relatives in Germany that I was convinced about it, and the matter would have been settled months ago. But I was given no information whatever about this case by the Home Secretary.
I suggest that Mr. Kuchenmeister would certainly not have returned to this country had he been convinced that there was a case against him as a Nazi spy. I can certainly ask what possible case there can be, now that Germany is battered and broken beyond any possibility of any rebuilding in the next 20 years, for keeping this man from getting free and being of some service to the German Government. There is not even a German Government, so there is no justification for this man to be kept in prison now. I suggest, therefore, that it would be in the interests 1726 of British justice for the Home Secretary to release this man tomorrow morning.
There is another point. The Home Secretary, not content with wishing to deport this man to Germany, states where he shall not go. This man is not to be allowed, according to the Home Secretary, to go to Eire. The Eire Government is prepared to have this man as a citizen, but the Home Secretary says that he must not go there. Whatever case may exist why this man should not remain in this country, I know of no case which would justify the Home Secretary saying that he shall not go to Southern Ireland, because obviously it would be of no service to the German Government if he went to Southern Ireland at the present time.
I want to refer to one other matter. Since this man has been interned, the assets of the company with which he was concerned have somehow or other been robbed to the extent of £50,000 or £60,000, and this whilst it is under the supervision of the Custodian of Enemy Property.

§ Mr. Stokes
By whom?

§ Mr. Shepherd
The exact circumstances of the loss of the money are not determinable because papers and all kinds of relevant information are also missing. I think it grossly unfair that this man should be deported to Germany before this question has been satisfactorily settled. Certainly, if he is to be deported, he should be given the right to go where he chooses. The Home Secretary has said that this man can go to any consulate to get a visa to travel to some foreign country, but he would have to go between two prison warders and say, "I want to go to your country." On the other hand, if he writes to them, he has to write to them from the address "His Majesty's Prison, Brixton.",
I suggest that those things are not fair to a man who has never been brought to trial for any offence, and who has been kept in prison against what I think is British justice. Therefore, I ask the Under-Secretary tonight to say that he will not only free this man tomorrow from the detention in which he is now being kept, for which there is no justification whatsoever, but will permit him to go where he chooses outside this country, because I believe that nothing that can be said against this man can justify his 1727 unlawful detention and prevent him going to whatever part of the world he wishes.

§ Major Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)
I have only one point to raise on this matter and that is, is this man being detained under Regulation 18? If he is, surely he comes under the same category as certain British subjects against whom nothing has been proved, but who are still restricted as regards their exit from this country to other countries? This matter was raised in another place not very long ago, and the Lord Chancellor made it fairly clear that one of the main reasons why people can be detained under that Regulation is if they are trying to evade military service. I hope when the Undersecretary of State for the Home Department replies, he will tell us whether it is under Regulation 18. If so, will he then explain how it comes about that the man mentioned by my hon. Friend is detained under a regulation which mainly affects those who are possibly going to evade military service if they leave this country? Regulation 18, and all the restrictions on the private rights of a citizen in that particular Regulation, were only just tolerable during the war. They are certainly not tolerable in time of peace when the need for this Regulation has largely vanished. I understand that Regulation 18 will disappear at the end of 1947, but it seems that special consideration should be given to these cases, and it is surely one of the things of which this country is proud that a citizen of this country has the right to move about. I do not know whether the gentleman my hon. Friend has mentioned comes under that category, but there is grave injustice being done today to the rights of the individual citizen, and it seems, not only of British citizens, but citizens of other countries who are affected. I hope the Home Secretary will be able to carry out the wishes of my hon. Friend.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Oliver)
There are one or two points I would like to answer before I deal with the matter more fully. The last question directed to me was whether this man is detained under Defence Regulation 18, and the answer is "No." He is detained under Royal Prerogative.

§ Mr. Stokes
What does that mean?

§ Mr. Oliver
It means that the power of the Crown can be exercised against the national of a State at war with this country, or with His Majesty. It is a power every Home Secretary has had when this country is at war and that is technically the case today. There is power to detain any national who is a member of that State. That is the power which is being exercised today. If I understood the hon. Member who introduced this matter, Mr. Kuchenmeister came back to this country under a promise. I do not know whether I heard the hon. Member correctly, but, if that be so, I have no knowledge that any promise was given to Mr. Kuchenmeister when he came back to this country in 1939.

§ Mr. Shepherd
I said he came back to this country in 1939 knowing full well that he would be interned, but when he returned from Australia in 1945, he was advised that his release would be considered.

§ Mr. Oliver
I am very sorry, I thought it was that some promise had been made to him. He certainly returned from Australia in 1945, but I have no information, nor is there any indication that any promise was then made to him that he would receive some consideration. Out of a total of roughly 22,000 Germans and Austrians interned here during the war, there were some 1,200 who, it was decided, could not properly be released from internment and allowed to remain in the United Kingdom. In order that none of them should be kept in custody any longer than was strictly necessary, opportunity was taken on every occasion to get these repatriated. At present, apart from 23 who are in hospital suffering from physical and mental illnesses, I think all but two have long since gone. The two who remain, one of whom is Mr. Kuchenmeister, are here solely because they have commenced legal proceedings the object of which is to test the validity of the Home Secretary's power to deport them, and to prevent the Secretary of State from deporting them, precisely in the same way that other internees with whom Mr. Kuchenmeister was classed were deported.

§ Mr. Molson (The High Peak)
Call him "K".

§ Mr. Oliver
He was classed like the other internees, and it was desired that he should be returned to Germany. That would have been the case had he not commenced these proceedings. No one can object to, and no one desires to prevent, Mr. K. from taking such steps as he may think proper—

§ Mr. Stokes
He does not want to go back to Germany.

§ Mr. Oliver
I will deal with that in a moment. It is the settled practice of the Home Office, whenever an alien takes proceedings with a view to testing the legality of action proposed by the Secretary of State, to refrain from taking action, pending a determination of the matter at issue. That was so in Mr. K' s case. No step was taken, but the fact that an alien who is in custody has taken legal proceedings is, however, clearly no ground for releasing him.
Therefore, the whole point rests on the fact that it is because Mr. K has taken proceedings that he is being held, as there is no justification for him to be released in the circumstances.

§ Mr. Shepherd
Why is he being held?

§ Mr. Molson
I quite appreciate the point the Minister has made—that the fact that an alien institutes proceedings against the Home Secretary is not in itself ground for releasing him. But is it or is it not the case that this man is confined in a prison like Brixton Gaol, and that he is confined, not in the same conditions in which aliens were confined during the war, but without any right of access or any of the personal liberty that was allowed to aliens?

§ Mr. Oliver
He is confined to Brixton Prison, but I think that when most of the large number of aliens who were interned were sent back to Germany and Austria, it would have been unreasonable to have maintained the large establishments which had housed a large community of people who had been detained in them. Therefore, the very fact that there are only two such persons now here accounts for the fact that there is no place to which these people could reasonably be sent other than to a prison.

§ Mr. Palmer (Wimbledon)
Could not Mr. K. be treated rather differently while at Brixton?

§ Mr. Osborne (Louth)
Why is he not given the same privileges as those prisoners who are allowed to have papers and correspondence, and are given a great deal of freedom?

§ Mr. Oliver
I am informed that this man is not conforming to an ordinary prison routine. He has considerable liberties which are not given to the ordinary prisoner. It must not be assumed for a moment that Brixton is used only for the ordinary criminal. Hon. Members will know that during the war not only were enemy aliens interned there, but British subjects were detained under 18B.

§ Mr. Molson
A highly desirable residence, in fact.

§ Mr. Oliver
I do not know where, in the circumstances, this man could be placed. If any complaints were made with regard to the conditions under which he was being detained, if he is to be detained at all—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] In the circumstances he must be detained. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] For the simple reason that a succession of Home Secretaries, starting with the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) and including the present Lord President of the Council, one of the appeal judges, Lord Justice Somervell, and also the present Home Secretary, have reviewed this matter. Four successive Home Secretaries have reviewed the matter and—

§ Mr. Marlowe (Brighton)
I feel, even on an intervention, that I must disclose the fact that I have an interest in this matter professionally, having advised this individual on one occasion. The hon. Gentleman is making the case that this man is detained merely because he took proceedings with regard to his detention. Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that those were proceedings by way of habeas corpus, and were not those proceedings determined some considerable months ago? If that is so, what justification is there for detaining this man?

§ Mr. Oliver
I understand that an appeal is to be lodged to the House of Lords. If there is any complaint about this man being detained, the complaint is brought about wholly by himself. The decision of the Home Secretary is that he should go to some other country, certainly not this one.

§ Mr. Molson
I apologise for interrupting again. Are we to understand that there is a form of blackmail in this matter and that because this alien is instituting proceedings against the Home Secretary he is being kept in Brixton Gaol and that if he withdrew those proceedings he would be liberated?

§ Mr. Oliver
If the proceedings were stopped, or when the proceedings are over, the Home Secretary will do as has been suggested. He will either be repatriated to Germany or it may be—and I think this offer has been made to the man—he may go to some other country.

§ Mr. Quintin Hogg (Oxford)
Why cannot he go there now?

§ Mr. Oliver
If the Home Secretary were to send him there now, the allegation would be that he had been sent there so that he would not be here, in this country, when his case was considered. There would be an allegation that we had sent him out of the country merely because there was some fear of what the result might be.

§ Mr. Hogg
Do I understand that he wants to go to Eire? Why on earth should he not go there if he wishes to go? That is what I do not understand.

§ Mr. Oliver
I do not know whether he wants to go to Eire. That is a point which has been raised but, so far as I am aware, it has not been stated definitely that he desires to go there. With regard to this man's going to Eire, I think it has been made clear that it is no part of the Home Secretary's duty when he is ridding this country of enemy nationals to permit them to elect the country to which they should go; and that applies in this case. We do not want to dump these people on OUT doorstep. When we wish to rid the country of enemy nationals it is not the function of the Home Secretary to say, "Where would you like to go?" and, If they say "We would like to go to Eire," for the Home Secretary to reply, "Very well, you shall go" [HON. MEMBERS: "What is wrong with that?"] I do not think we should consider this 1732 case in isolation. We have to judge these matters as a whole. There have been 22,000 German and Austrian internees in this country, and if they had suggested that they should be permitted to go to Eire, would it have been the duty of the Home Secretary at that particular time to say, "Yes, you shall go"?
As a rule, these people go back to the country of origin—they are repatriated. In this case, the Home Secretary has made an exception in the sense that he has suggested that this man may go to some country other than Germany, and so far as Eire is concerned, that at the moment has not been definitely settled. That is the position. While it is unfortunate that this man should be detained, what alternative is there left to a Home Secretary who has decided that this man shall leave the country?

§ Mr. Tiffany (Peterborough)
If it be argued that it would be unjustifiable to send him to Eire while his case is considered, if it is said that this would be an argument against justice, could not the same argument be deduced that it is also against justice to keep the man detained while his case is being heard, instead of allowing him freedom in the country to conduct his case? In any case, if he were allowed to be free, is it not obvious that he would not depart from this country until his case is settled?

§ Mr. Oliver
There is no question of his departing from the country. He does not want to leave the country. But the Home Secretary has made it quite clear that he must leave this country, and that being the case, it is not in question that he wants to stay. This man wants to stay very badly, and these actions are, no doubt, promoted with that purpose in view.