Hitler's British Slaves (24 page)

Yet above all else they played sport. Footballs were high on the list of items requested via the Red Cross. Boxing rings were constructed and fights were held between prisoners. If enough space was available in their compounds they played cricket or rugby, or held running races and athletic competitions. If they were allowed to visit rivers and lakes in the summer they held swimming races in the refreshing water that helped to soothe away the aches and pains of work. Others
gave their word they would not attempt to escape and were simply let out of barracks to enjoy peaceful strolls around the countryside. It was a case of anything to keep themselves active.

Yet not all were able to indulge themselves in this manner. Throughout German industry access to sport and leisure was a lottery, some men were allowed, others were not. Some were housed in barbed wire enclosures with little space between the huts and the perimeter fence. They simply had no space to play sports. For others sport was forbidden by their employers, who felt they should save their energy for work, not fritter it away in meaningless games. For men at one Arbeitskommando there was no restriction on playing football, as the local team said their pitch could be used. There was just one catch, they could only play in football boots, something none of them had. Others found their activities restricted when recreation rooms were closed down to house incoming prisoners, meaning the only room left available was the space between the bunks of their overcrowded huts.

Some unlucky prisoners found their one day off per week was not the relaxing time it should have been. At one work camp it was not just the prisoners who were given Sunday off, their guard also had a day off. As a result the POWs were locked inside their huts, unable to enjoy their leisure time in the open air.

Yet despite the very real hardships endured by so many of the toiling POWs some among them were thrust into the confusing position of being sent to ‘holiday camps’. Although many were mistrustful of these special camps, where prisoners with good disciplinary records were chosen for periods of rest, the reality was the camps really did provide a well-deserved break. Opened in 1943 the two camps, Special Detachments 399 and 517, situated outside Berlin were expected to be
propaganda camps where they would be paraded before the media from neutral countries and bombarded with Nazi rhetoric. Most prisoners were wary of the Germans’ motives from the moment they heard about the camps. Their fears were confirmed when they were issued with the unheard of luxury of three Red Cross parcels in just one week. Indeed, when some prisoners arrived they insisted they be returned to their Stalags or work camps immediately. Although the Germans had initially hoped to use these camps as a method of enticing prisoners to join the British Free Corps to fight against the Red Army they made little headway with the ‘holidaymakers’. Most of the prisoners were suspicious of their fellow Britons on the permanent staff of the camp, believing Sergeant Brown and Corporal Blewitt to be pre-war fascists.

As a result of the open hostility shown by many prisoners, they faced little in the way of propaganda and actually enjoyed a measure of comfort. For soldiers who had worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, the four-to-six-week break was the ideal opportunity to recuperate. Entertainment was provided by both the Dresden Philharmonic and the Berlin State Opera, with the British-born opera singer Miss Margery Booth paying a number of visits to the camp at Genshagen. They were also able to make trips to the cinema once a week and interpreters took them out on guided tours of the palaces at nearby Potsdam. When one prisoner, Clifford Allen, needed to visit the dentist he was sent into Berlin. His guard walked at a distance behind him and made no effort to interfere during the trip. Others found it was possible for them to make unofficial visits to the capital wearing borrowed civilian clothes. For all their fears about indoctrination the prisoners were able to relax and forget their troubles, knowing they would soon be back in their work camps.

Despite such facilities being on offer for a few, in the latter period of the war the trend was for decreasing living standards. Leisure became a thing of the past and all thoughts of plays or sport were cast from their minds as they became too weak to consider exercise. It was an ominous sign. By late 1944 the men who had endured real hardship upon capture and in the early days of their captivity knew how precarious their situation was. As the autumn turned to winter, and the German economy and infrastructure felt the effects of the relentless bombing, the situation changed for the prisoners. Red Cross parcels started to appear less and less frequently and all the certainties of their existence began to be washed away on a tide of hunger and fear. Words of warning came in ‘Snips’, the camp newsletter at a mine. The Christmas pantomime was cancelled since the leading actors all found they could summon up neither the energy not the enthusiasm for the proposed performance. In November 1944 the editor wrote: ‘In this POW life to talk at all of relaxing is almost farcial, for now more than ever, we are living on our nerves, clutching at news and rumour, yet always with a half doubt in our minds. We wish and wish while we know that we can never hurry affairs with all the wishing in the world.’
³²

As a shadow of fear was cast over their lives many wondered if they would ever live to fulfil the dreams they had made during the long years of captivity. As the inevitable end of the war approached the prisoners were to face hardships and horrors few could ever have dreamt of. The final months of the war in Europe would be a period few would ever be able to forget, and that all who lived through it would be eternally grateful to have survived.

6

Friends, Enemies and Lovers

‘Work together with German women should be restricted to the indispensable minimum.’
¹

‘It was a well known fact that many German girls would drop their slacks for a bar of chocolate.’
²

The prisoners leaving the Stalags to enter industry or take their place on farms soon realised that wartime Europe – even in the hands of the supposedly super-efficient Germans – was not the smooth-running machine of peacetime. In the wake of the German successes on the battlefield had come chaos. It was not always evident on the surface, but war had changed the world. All the certainties of life – for the conquering forces, German civilians, subject populations and, not least, the new captive workforce – had changed. Pre-war hopes and expectations had been swept away by the wave of violence unleashed on Europe and a new realism crept into the lives of those washed up by the tide.

For the first prisoners to enter the Reich the reaction from civilians was one of blatant hostility. As they were marched through the streets to the Stalags or work camps they were laughed at by local women, who found it comical to see the once proud soldiers reduced to wearing secondhand uniforms and rough wooden clogs. Men dropped cigarettes in the gutter and looked on in scorn as desperate prisoners scrabbled in the dirt to retrieve the butts. For the POWs their humiliation was complete, they had been defeated in battle, marched halfway across Europe, starved and then finally been paraded like
slaves through the streets of the victorious nation. Yet as the people of Germany gloated and revelled in the fruits of their triumph the POWs had, deep within their minds, the feeling that the roles might one day be reversed.

In the years that followed many prisoners were to find themselves increasingly confident about their position within German society. As the war progressed German industry and agriculture were gradually stripped of their loyal local workforce, sent off to the front to pursue the vainglorious dreams of their leaders. In their place came a ragged army of slaves – forced labourers from Poland and Russia, and POWs from the armies of both the defeated nations and those who still fought on. Alongside them worked people from across Europe, tempted into Germany by the lure of high wages. When the German men were swallowed up by the armed forces the British and Commonwealth prisoners slipped into their jobs and eventually, if they were lucky, into their beds. It may have been a life of slavery, bound to work as ordered by those who purchased their toil and sweat from the commandants of the Stalags, but it was a life most POWs would do their best to exploit. Eventually the chaos of the collapsing Reich would see many POWS able to enjoy a life few could have envisaged when they first shuffled out of the Stalags and into their work camps.

None knew what the attitude would be from the people they would work alongside. Those POWs on farms across eastern Europe imagined the conquered populations would be their friends and confidants, able to succour them in their time of need, but few expected such assistance from the natives of the newly enlarged Reich. The Germans and Austrians of the pre-war state, and Volksdeutsch of the lands swallowed during the advances eastwards, remained the enemy – and the prisoners expected to be treated as such by them. In this
world of chaos and confusion many expectations and preconceptions would be challenged and friendships would grow in the vacuum caused by the dislocation of war.

There was a measure of tension between the prisoners working in some German industrial enterprises and the civilian labourers. Not all were hostile to the prisoners, indeed for many it was little more than the language barrier and the rules regarding fraternisation that kept the two factions from developing friendships. In some mines the German workers were communists who had been sent to the mines as political prisoners and whose labour was forced as much as that of the prisoners. But in every large factory or mine there seemed to be a few among the fellow workers, foremen or managers who liked to make life difficult for the prisoners. Some among the offenders were men whose foul nature made them unpopular with their countrymen, something that was of little consolation to the working prisoners. At one mine a Private Gray was attacked by a fellow worker who swung a heavy pit lamp at his head. Gray was left needing five stitches. Similarly, at Schlegel pit in Silesia the civilian overseers were a constant source of trouble for the prisoners, using rubber truncheons to beat the men into working harder.

Unsurprisingly it was with the Poles and Czechs who were living under German rule in the newly annexed lands of the Reich where the POWs made the first steps towards settling into life in the community. In particular, in the farms and small villages where they worked, the new labour force were viewed as allies by local labourers whose animosity towards their German neighbours long predated any conflict the British had known. These were lands that had been fought over enough times in recent history for the conquerors to know they were not among friends.

Trading for food began almost as soon as the POWS
arrived in the Stalags and work camps that would become their new homes. In the harsh months following the defeat of the BEF in France, the men taken into captivity turned to barter to ensure they had enough food to survive. Imprisoned in Fort 17 at Stalag XXa, Ken Willats witnessed the nascent trade that would over the years grow into a complete black market industry:

The entrepreneurial side of people came to the fore. Working parties were going out and they had access to Poles. So if they had a gold watch they could swap it for bread which they could smuggle back into camp down their trousers. So consequently a black market arose, as men brought back bread and offered so many loaves for someone else’s watch. Next time they went out they’d trade it at a higher value. So you got this commercial aspect to life in a very primitive state. I was lucky, I got onto a working party after about three weeks.
³

Once the men had settled into their new homes – though few would ever consider them that – they began to look out for opportunities to enhance their existence and buy the few small luxuries that would help preserve their dignity. The local populations were the ideal source of supplies for the POWs. The contents of their Red Cross parcels were perfect for trading onto the black market – and trade they did, as one recalled: ‘Give them a few fags, they’ll get you anything.’
⁴
Although few prisoners could afford to sell their precious tinned foods, all across Europe POWs leaked other supplies into the local economy, providing goods many civilians had long given up hope of seeing again. Cigarettes, coffee, soap – all commanded high prices for the men behind the wire. The trade began at many of the smaller work camps where canteen facilities were
unavailable. Instead the NCOs in charge of the work details were sent under escort to shop for what the men needed with whatever money they had available. In these quiet rural towns the shopkeepers often accepted the
lagergeld
offered by the prisoners and were able to exchange it for real money from the commandants of the Stalags. With prisoners making contact within the communities the local shopkeepers were able to begin a clandestine trade that would soon make many goods available to the local population. Chocolate bars handed over by the POWs meant extra loaves of bread appearing with the shopping, with the chocolate being sold on to eager local customers. It was not only foodstuffs that were used for trading. Whatever goods were short for civilians could be exchanged. When Polish workers were unable to buy woollen goods in the shops it was the POWs they turned to for help. The prisoners who had been lucky enough to receive clothing parcels from home were able to fill the gap. One prisoner was able to trade a pullover for 50 eggs, a chicken and several pounds of tomatoes and onions. Soon the black market trade became widespread, but some found such activities came at a price. For one prisoner the cost was 21 days hard labour, a sentence he received after committing an almost meaningless crime – the sale of a pair of underpants to a Polish worker.