ABSTRACT
Interrogation has a long, understudied history. In the ancient world, senior commanders often personally interrogated enemy prisoners and deserters. Before one of Julius Caesar's greatest victories in the Gallic War - his defeat of the Germanic ruler Ariovistus in 58 BC - what he learned during interrogation had a decisive influence on his battle plans. Even in the twentieth century there were occasional examples of wartime interrogation by senior military commanders. No detailed record of what he learned, however, appears to survive. In general, far fewer military interrogation records exist for the First than for the Second World War. The same is true of MI5 interrogation records. The most infamous interrogators in twentieth-century Europe were those of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. Svetlana Lokhova's research in Russian archives shows that as late as early 1935, the interrogation records during the investigation of the alleged 'Kremlin Plot' to assassinate Stalin contain little evidence of coercion.
