Ja, nett waren sie. Oder besser gesagt: das Gericht war zum kotzen.
This led to several prosecutions between March and July 1948, concerning the mistreatment of nine German prisoners. ...
Stephens' rule regarding interrogations was straightforward: he believed that in a protracted ideological battle like the Second World War or Cold War, the quick benefits that might be gained from physical abuse were outweighed by the long-term damage to intelligence-gathering which those acts caused. Stephens believed that the objective of interrogations was not to obtain quick answers to a few questions, nor to extract a simple answer. Rather, interrogations should induce a prisoner to give all the relevant information in his or her possession - and the only way to do that, Stephens believed, was to abide by an axiomatic rule of non-violence.
The court accepted Stephens' defence and cleared him of all charges.
http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/bad-nenndorf.html
