Germany: Prisoners, including: British prisoners in Germany, including: Treatment...

FO 383/152

1916

Germany: Prisoners, including:

British prisoners in Germany, including:

• Treatment of Grimsby fishermen while prisoners at Sennelager. Attested statements by William Connelly, Robert Mann and Charles Garwood Thomas.
• List of camps and hospitals where British prisoners interned: (a) Camps for rank and file; (b) Officers' camps; and (c) Lazarette, showing to which camp each corps is assigned.
• Conditions in Wittenberg Camp: Government Committee on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War advice for non-publication of official report as it could jeopardise the treatment of remaining prisoners. German Government permission for publication on condition their memorandum is published at same time. Further allegations: Captain Vidal, Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), that medicines and bandages sent to him were confiscated; thank-you letters from internees not forwarded. List of 30 internees who refused to work on Sunday and were threatened with court-martial (in docket no. 40342). Visit to camp by US Embassy staff Dr Karl Ohnesorg and Ellis Loring Dresel.
• The Morning Post publication of a letter from William Farren of Wimbledon alleging that the Germans had stolen clothing intended for a British prisoner. Correspondence between Foreign Office and Mr Farren requesting identity of internee and camp. Replies from Mr Farren stating he had forwarded letter to internee's father, and cutting from The Star of 21 March 1916 about German mistreatment of prisoners. Foreign Office counter of his charge of neglect by describing actions taken.
• Reports on prisoners' camps, including Spandau; Hannover Münden (with photograph, in docket no. 30531); and Göttingen.
• Prisoners' camp at Sennelager: prisoner's complaint of hunger.
• Subadar Bhag Singh, Sikh officer interned at Mainz, allegedly subjected to harsh treatment: requests for transfer to Indian camp at Wünsdorf-Zossen.
• Captain A B W Allistone, sentenced to one year's imprisonment for damaging state property; Captain George Elliot to be charged with bribery and attempted bribery; Lieutenant C F L Templer, sentenced to one year and one week's imprisonment at Magdeburg for damaging state property and theft.
• Canadian internees allegedly given rigorous imprisonment for refusing to make munitions.
• Daily Graphic allegation that parcels for prisoners containing butter being placed at disposal of central butter-buying office in Berlin.
• Prisoners interned at Ingolstadt.
• Güstrow Camp: allegation in The Times of 7 February 1916 that two prisoners bayoneted. Report at first seemed false, but some such incident may have happened earlier, between November 1914 and February 1915.
• Prisoners interned at Cologne (Köln). Protests to be made to German Government for imprisoning Privates Dale and others for refusing to load shells on trucks. Protests not made because British Government contemplating ways of employing German prisoners in British hands.
• Proposed International Red Cross Conference. Foreign Office decline for proposal for British and German Red Cross Societies to meet on neutral territory.
• Lance Corporal Reynolds, Royal Irish Regiment, interned at Limburg, not allowed to retain greatcoat sent to him.
• Merseburg Camp: list of ten prisoners who refused to work and were awaiting punishment (in docket no. 40721).
• Friedberg Camp: request to US Embassy to investigate irregularities in treatment of prisoners.
• Tegel Camp: withholding of prisoners' clothing not having prisoners' yellow edging.
• Halle Camp (officers): report that not all complaints addressed by German reply.
• Weilburg Camp: reported overcrowding.
• Private William Lonsdale, interned in Spandau: charges pending for publishing letter in English newspapers.
• Doberitz Camp: withholding of prisoners' clothing sent to them.
• American doctors appointed for attachment to US Embassy Berlin, to tend to British prisoners.
• Letter from Rudyard Kipling published in The Morning Post about the experiences of a returned prisoner (Private Arthur Green, 1st Somerset Light Infantry) in Wittenberg Camp. Press cuttings of Private Green's articles in The Morning Post of 13-21 March 1916. Interview of Green by Government Committee on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War and corroboration of statements by Major Priestley and Captain Vidal and Captain Lauder. Foreign Office request for articles to be sent to the US Ambassador in Berlin, registering their indignation.
• Clothing sent to British prisoners in Germany being too similar to civilian clothing: Germans insistence on clothing of a military character.
• Weilburg Camp (officers) and Giessen Camp (rank and file). Refusal by Private Gilbert G Sawyer, 13th Canadian Battalion, to wear trousers instead of kilt for fatigue duty. Allegation he was refused parcels; but production by Germans of his signed receipt for 68 parcels.
• Bread for British prisoners in Germany.
• Captain J B Taylor, Captain W G R Elliot and Lieutenant H B Hibbert: denial of complicity in construction of dummy to mask an officer's escape at Burg Camp.
• Lieutenant C H J Chichester-Constable, imprisoned at Magdeburg for four months for aggravated offence of insubordination, and five months for insulting language.
• Reports on Halle Camp and Burg Camp.
• Camps at Oldenburg, Münchberg, Gnadenfrei and Neisse.
• Private E Vokins, 1st Royal Berkshire Regiment, interned at Werden.
• Captain Hubert Pelham Burn, interned at Mainz: question of him being prevented from writing to his relations; report of him being in the best of health.

Code 1218 File 463 (papers 23749-57315).

File 463 (pp.23749-57315).

Public Record(s)

Open Document, Open Description

Topics

Clothing

Internment

International

Army

Trade and commerce

Europe and Russia

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Aid and development

Crime

Fishing

Armed Forces (General Administration)

Operations, battles and campaigns