During the Second World War, prisoner of war camps emerged across many different countries
as a way to deal with the captured soldiers of enemy armies.
Within the Third Reich, many Prisoners of War were sent to concentration camps where
they had to put up with the horrific conditions and brutal guards who would inflict violence
for minor infringements of the camps rules.
Soviet POWs were treated terribly for example, with many being executed and murdered by the
Germans as Hitler ordered the Commissar order, a death order that resulted in the executions
of thousands of Soviet former soldiers.
But within Britain, things were rather different for prisoners of the German Army, Italian
Army or other Axis forces who were captured.
Today only a few former British POW camps exist and can be visited, a number are left
in ruin but how were Nazi and Axis prisoners of war treated in Britain?
As you can expect, things across the English Channel were very different.
So join us today as we look at, ‘What Life was like in a British POW Camp,’ remember
to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
As the Second World War waged on, a large number of prisoners of war were captured by
the different sides.
Some commanders and generals treated the prisoners with contempt as they slowed down their advances
or got in the way of attacks, but inside of Britain around 400,000 prisoners were held
in different camps before the conflict came to an end.
At their peak, different camps housed the soldiers across the country, and the experiences
of those held inside of Britain were very different to other soldiers of other armies.
But this didn’t mean that the British were lenient with Axis POWs, but compared to the
prisoners in captivity inside other camps in different countries, the death rate inside
British camps was remarkably lower.
The Germans and Axis forces were treated in a humane way.
As the Second World War began, the only Germans captured by the British were naval personnel
and members of the Luftwaffe who’s aircraft and planes had crashed within Britain.
Rudolf Hess, would be one such pilot who crashed within Britain but he was treated differently
and housed separately due to his high profile career in the Nazi Party.
The First prisoners held in Britain were the captain and crew of the submarine, U-39, held
on the 14th September 1939.
The commanding officer, Captain Gerhard Glattes became one of the longest serving prisoners
in British custody, and was then released 7 and a half years later in 1947.
At the start, only two prisoner of war camps were stablished.
These were Camp 1 at Griezedale Hall in Cumbria, and Camp 2 Glen Mill in Oldham.
Griezedale Hall was a huge mansion which had 40 rooms where officers would be held inside,
and also 200 soldiers of less rank could be held within the grounds.
Glen Mill was a former cotton mill that was much larger, and held up to 2000 prisoners
of a sergeant rank of lower.
Privates who were captured usually ended up initially at Glen Mill.
Initially in Britain there wasn’t much need to create a network of camps, as the British
had a policy of sending POWs to Canada.
One reason for this was that it was virtually impossible then for POWs to escape back to
Germany and to join the war effort.
Also the fact Prisoners of War were being housed in Britain led to a number of people
becoming angry at them.
Britain was already feeling the effects of the war as rationing had been introduced,
and many other necessities were being rationed.
This meant that the British government didn’t want Germans adding to a strain on resources
and food inside of the country, so men were sent to Canada as soon as there was enough
to be sent on a boat.
Because of this 9000 POWs were sent to Canada by late 1942.
But as the allies achieved more victories across the various theatres, the problem of
POWS became heightened, especially following the success in North Africa.
The Axis surrender in May 1943 led to a big problem of what would the British and Americans
do with all the prisoners of war that they were forced to take control and possession
of.
260,000 prisoners were absorbed by the Allies, and half of these were German and the other
half were Italian.
It was agreed that any joint operation between the Americans and British would led to the
prisoners shared 50/50, regardless of where they came from.
But in Britain, things were already very strained with resources, and the British government
asked the Americans to take their own share and another 130,000 prisoners.
This was agreed, as long as they could use the prisoners as a work force within America.
The prisoners belonging to the British were held initially in camps in the Middle East
that were set up, and a few high ranking officers were sent back to Britain.
The Italians were sent to the UK, and they were held inside a newly built network of
camps, and some of these POWs even had to make their own camps and bunks which they
would sleep in as the facility hadn’t been created yet.
These workers were then mobilised not to directly work in munitions factories, but instead were
put to work in agriculture and helped to produce more food for the people of Britain.
But further successes following the Invasion of Normandy and D-Day led to huge numbers
of German POWs being captured and rounded up, before being then transported across the
English Channel back to Britain.
The usual rule was the those prisoners who had a surname beginning with a letter in the
first half of the alphabet were sent to America from Liverpool.
As the allies captured more port towns in Europe, prisoners were usually sent directly
to the states from these.
Those with a surname in the second half of the alphabet would be transported to Britain,
but were taken to transit camps for interrogation and interview first before they were then
sent to the hundreds of established camps around the country.
Many of these had been built by Italian workers, but as these were being sent back to Italians,
the Germans moved into their former lodgings.
Prisoner of war camps were even established in foreign lands such as Belgium, and the
conditions in these were much harsher than those within Britain.
It’s likely that the guards who policed these camps had seen many of the crimes that
the Germans committed, or that their treatment of the prisoners was influenced by the fact
they had been fighting the Germans, so they regarded them as the staunch enemy.
These camps eventually were shut down and the prisoners were sent to Britain following
the war by late July 1946.
It was around this time where most of the German POWs came to Britain.
However, what were the camps truly like within Britain?
It’s intriguing to compare the fatality rates of the different camps established within
different countries.
In the Soviet Union and East and South East Europe, the conditions were far worse, and
inside the Soviet Union’s camps, there was a fatality rate of almost 35% for its 3 million
German POWs.
But remarkably in Britain, there was just a 0.03% death rate for the 3.6 million prisoners,
which is crazy compared with 35%.
This shows that the British camps were far safer and that prisoners were looked after
in a better way.
In the UK, German POWS were graded in terms of their Nazi sentiment and feeling towards
the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler.
The British sought to find out the individual values of each prisoner and how ardent of
a Nazi they were.
The more pro-Nazi prisoners were taken to more stricter camps and were held with less
freedoms than those who opposed the Nazi regime or were pressed into service against their
own will.
The grades were, Grade A or White which was deemed an Anti-Nazi camp, Grade B which is
where the prisoners feelings were not as reliable or clear as Grade A, and Grade C or Black
was for those prisoners who had Nazi sentiment.
But the most ardent Nazis were kept in camps graded C+, and were kept under the strictest
confines and rules.
But the conditions inside of the camps within Britain were rather good.
Some were seen as less strict than others, and one good example is Eden Camp in Yorkshire.
Here for example, the prisoners were allowed many more conveniences than other camps and
the living quarters were seen as good compared to other camps.
Those places dealing with more ardent Nazis would enforce stricter laws such as curfews
and would aim to prevent certain prisoners moving around the camps and mixing.
Even before the Germans surrendered, many POWs were working as agricultural labourers,
but after VE Day all of the prisoners held in British camps were required to do some
form of work.
Most POWs worked on British farms as there was a high demand for food produce at the
time, and there was a huge shortage of agricultural workers as many had gone off to fight during
the war.
By Mid 1946, almost half of the POWs were employed on farms conducting different work.
At first, groups of around 30 men would be taken and escorted to the fields and would
be kept under armed guard at all times, but as time went on following the surrender, the
British allowed many different concessions for prisoners.
Some were allowed to stay on farms where they worked, and many were allowed to almost live
freely being kept under minimal supervision.
Some of the workers were even allowed to earn a wage from the farm for the first time since
the war began, and prisoners would typically receive payment of around a shilling a day.
This was seen by the government as pocket money for them to spend in local villages
that they could visit, and also that following repatriation it could be used for them to
begin their new lives.
It wasn’t much, but for many German POWs it allowed them to obtain supplies when they
went back home.
There was however one element of work inside of Britain that could be considered much darker.
There were a few occasions where the British put a very few number of prisoners to work
on disposing unexploded bombs, land mines or ammunition that had not detonated.
This was very dangerous work and was not permitted by the Geneva Convention, and the British
justified this saying that the rules were not valid in the post war period, citing atrocities
committed by the Germans as evidence for this.
It is known that at least 3 Germans died in bomb diffuse squads.
But they were also used in other ways, in the winter of 1946 there was a number of bad
snowstorms and because of this the Germans helped to re-open the railways and roads meaning
supplies and goods could travel around the country.
But inside of the camps, rules different on the type of camp it was.
Prisoners were allocated a certain amount of food each day, which consisted of bread
and meat.
The rations were collected by British soldiers and were then distributed by the cooks who
were POWs and they then prepared the food.
Upon interviewing different prisoners, the British before allowing them into the camps
often asked for their pre-employment history, to see if they could carry out specific roles
at the camps, such as doctors, dentists or cooks.
This meant that German doctors could look after the prisoners performing their pre-war
duties, and it made the camp very efficient.
There was constant running water provided, and showers and bathrooms were used.
Many other facilities inside of camps included chapels where many prisoners would go to pray
on a daily basis, or when religious ceremonies were performed on a weekly basis on a Sunday.
There were even music halls set up inside of the camps, and prisoners were encouraged
to write their own plays and forms of entertainment where these could be performed.
Some of these even invited outside visitors in to watch, and this was a space where prisoners
could get some escapisms from their imprisonment.
Prisoners were even encouraged to establish their own camp magazines which were screened
first, and they were given a weekly German language newspaper published by the British
Government called Wochenpost.
This was a chance for them to see what was happening back home in Germany and around
the world.
Libraries were often an important centre of escapism for the prisoners also, and these
were inside the camps.
Here prisoners could borrow books, records and even films and were shown inside the hall.
Lecturers were also invited to speak to the prisoners inside, and these activities aimed
to allow the Prisoners to have a sense of freedom of speech which would help them develop
after repatriation.
Many of the De-Nazification activities did happen in this way.
Some prisoners were even allowed to attend colleges established and some obtained degrees
studying whilst held in camps.
With regards to sport, many different teams such as football teams were set up, and fixtures
were arranged against different local teams and camps and many people would come to watch.
In charge of the day to day running of the prisoner of war camps was the sergeant of
orderly officers, by prisoners discipline was the responsibility of their own NCOs and
officers.
The majority of prisoners did not misbehave because their imprisonement was seen as a
relief from the conditions that they were fighting in, and there were few incidents
of prisoners being treated cruelly or poorly.
The guards would carry truncheons incase something did occur instead of their rifles, and many
of the prisoners accepted what they were doing and knew they were being looked after well.
Many were lucky to come to Britain rather than the Soviet camps.
But checks did occur to see if POWs were in possession of banned items.
Punishment was administered in the form of solitary confinement if there were infringements
of the camps rule, and this would have been tough as the camps were considered rather
social.
Each day, roll call would happen to make sure there was no escapes and the prisoners lived
in billets.
These were huts, where a number of POWs lived in together but each had their own bed and
were allowed to use the different areas of the camp to relax.
There was some living space inside the billets, as prisoners would play chess and cards inside
them.
After their days work was done, the prisoners time was their own and they did many inventive
things, some made their own musical instruments, and others wrote their own plays and performed
them.
Choirs would form of talented German singers, and musicians would form different bands and
play to the British officers and their wives and fellow prisoners also came to watch.
One thing that was heavily monitored and checked though was post or mail that came to the prisoners,
this was to ensure they weren’t being fed Nazi ideas or lies by family members back
home.
Also the British did not want the prisoners to find out if their family members had been
killed especially in allied bombing raids as this could have caused a significant degree
of friction between the guards and prisoners.
If this happened, prisoners could go on strike and disobey orders, and then this would cause
trouble.
If a prisoner did misbehave, they were given a period of 7, 14 or 21 days in solitary confinement
on a daily diet of bread and water.
This usually sorted things out.
Conditions within the prisoner of war camps within Britain were very good.
Many Italian prisoners who were co-operative and pleasant were allowed to go on their own
for evening walks around the local villages but were told not to speak or fraternise with
the locals.
This wasn’t always kept to, as many friendships and romantic relationships were struck up
between the prisoners and the locals.
Many citizens liked them but some did treat them with contempt and animosity initially
during times of war, but as the time went on, feelings cooled.
In late 1946, civilians were allowed to invite prisoners of war into their homes for Christmas
and the festivities, which moved many of the prisoners.
They had longed to feel like a family, especially during the holiday season and this made many
incredibly happy.
By late 1947, two years after the end of the war, many of the restrictions were lifted
and prisoners could leave the camp unescorted and visit local cafes, cinemas and churches.
There was a ban on romance, but following the lifting of this 796 marriages took place
between British women and German POWs.
The point of treating the prisoners fairly in Britain was to re-educate them about the
Nazis and about the dangerous political beliefs that gripped Germany.
They had been brainwashed by Hitler and his government, and the hope was that re-education
would lead to those prisoners being repatriated and to help form a democratic Germany.
The prisoners were lucky in Britain, especially those who headed to East Germany after the
war living under Soviet laws and rules.
Repatriations began for Germans in September 1946, and this was delayed after the POW workforce
was used to help rebuild the country including building bombed out buildings, and they were
also needed in the farms.
Also the German economy had collapsed, but a number of POWs were allowed to stay in Britain
as civilian workers, and 25,000 men stayed after being reluctant to head back to Germany,
seeing a better life for themselves in Britain.
British Prisoner of War camps were significantly better than camps found in other countries.
The low death rate coupled with the respect that they were generally treated with led
to a happier system for the POWs who found themselves in Britain.
They were given greater freedoms and were treated fairly and were seen as a necessary
workforce to help rebuild the nation.
Thanks for watching.
To support please make sure to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.