Hitler's British Slaves (38 page)

Their arrival made the accommodation situation within the camp critical. With the coming of winter the whole camp and all the roads and paths within it became a sea of mud. As they trudged around inside their enclosure, trying to fill the long hours of boredom until the next meal, the mud sucked at their boots as if telling them there could be no escape from their misery.

Crammed into vast huts that had never been intended as permanent homes for prisoners, the new arrivals experienced an existence far from the mythological image of the POW camp. Day by day conditions deteriorated. ‘Famished, wounded and the majority clad in rags’
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incoming men, some described as having legs as thin as ten-year-olds, became a burden on the camp authorities. Most were in need of replacement clothing, in place of uniforms damaged in battle, and soon the stockpiles of uniforms were exhausted. As a result long-established prisoners handed out their spare clothing to the new arrivals. George Marsden, captured in Holland, was among those in need of new clothing: ‘I still had my cellular pants on, stiff with dried blood, my trousers fastened down the front with safety pins. I’d ripped them diving over wire before being captured, plus my left sleeve was missing from
my jacket.’
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He would receive no new clothing until after liberation.

Clothing was not the only thing in short supply. As each new batch of men arrived they made their homes in whatever space was available. The old dining halls and recreation rooms soon became barrack rooms as new inmates, usually with just one blanket each, dossed down on the floor. As the cold of winter began to bite those lucky enough to have bunks began to burn them, plank by plank, to heat their huts. Many cupboards, once used to store personal possessions, also made their way into the fires. Then, in the final months, the Germans inflicted further hardship on the prisoners by confiscating palliases, tables and stools. Leaking roofs added to the misery, meaning some huts were abandoned as the men searched for a space they could call their own. Soon even those with bunks found they had to share them. This situation was mirrored across the Reich. Men on work details had no fuel except what they could steal and slept beneath blankets that had been unwashed for years. Almost threadbare and thick with grease the thin woollen blankets offered little protection against the winter cold. It was a winter that would live on in the memories of all those who were unfortunate enough to experience it.

At Fallingbostel there were few hygiene facilities and fuel shortages meant the inmates were allowed just one shower per month. In lieu of regular showers the prisoners washed as best they could with whatever was available, as George Marsden remembered: ‘there was just a cold water tap at the back of the hut somewhere, no towel so no wash. It was a good job that I was brought up in the recession when people struggled daily to feed their large families.’
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He soon became aware too of how the latrines were also overused: ‘Disgusting, there was one toilet in a concrete building, a hole in the
ground which had running water under it, until someone must have been upset because the water was cut off. This was for the use of hundreds of men, most having dysentery, imagine when the stone building was filled and the trail of excrement ran across, sometimes into the hut.’
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The fuel shortages that denied them hot water also meant little opportunity to cook the contents of Red Cross parcels. The increasingly hungry, dirty and exhausted inmates seemed to have so much time on their hands but ever less to occupy their minds. The huts were so dark and crowded even those with enough energy to rise from their bunks found the light insufficient to read by. Starved of intellectual stimulation their active minds wandered and they could think of nothing but the very real starvation of their empty stomachs.

With little or no hot water the prisoners were seldom able to wash their few remaining clothes. Even if they could wash clothes there was little space to dry them since the huts were so crowded wet clothes would surely have dripped on a man huddled asleep on the floor. The lack of fuel became an increasing psychological burden for prisoners throughout the Reich. By early 1945 rations were growing ever more basic. As food shortages began to bite the prisoners were forced to take desperate measures. One prisoner at Stalag XIa ate a handful of beans he had been able to scrounge but it was soon discovered they had been chemically treated and the starving soldier died soon after consuming them. With food consumption plummeting the Red Cross couldn’t fail to notice the changes in the prisoners between their visits. During one inspection it was noted that in just five weeks the prisoners had gone from appearing healthy to looking like skeletons: ‘the food issue by the German authorities is no longer enough to prevent the prisoners from weakening rapidly’.
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Some Red Cross inspectors went even further. At Sandbostel, where the
POWs survived on three potatoes, 200 grams of bread, 30 grams of sausage and 21 grams of margarine per day, they noted there had been several deaths of prisoners weakened by hunger, and decribed what they found within the camp: ‘emaciation general … Low blood pressure … dizziness … Signs of famine … life of prisoners is in jeopardy.’
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As the prisoners evacuated from the east crowded into Fallingbostel the men already there did what they could to help them. As the scrawny scarecrow figures shuffled through gates into the main compound efforts were made to ensure they were looked after. They were put into tents erected for them by the guards. Then British doctors checked the condition of each man. Les Allan, who had marched the 600 miles in clogs whilst nursing a fractured ankle, made the mistake of doing his utmost to appear healthy. Maybe it was the sight of the airborne RSM John Lord who had greeted them at the gates in his perfectly creased battledress, or simply that it was so incredible they had survived that nothing would ever seem a strain again, but, when his turn came to see the doctor, Allan stood up and was thus denied one of the bunks allocated for the most sickly of the marchers. The bunks came courtesy of the paratroopers who had been captured at Arnhem. Under the command of Lord, and being among the most recent and thus fittest of the POWs, they volunteered to a man to give up their bunks. It was a show of comradeship and generosity that ensured their survival and was a gesture the men would never forget.

Prisoners held at Stalag VIIa at Moosburg suffered in much the same way as those at Fallingbostel or Sandbostel. Designed to hold just 14,000 men, by early 1945 the popu-lation had grown to over 100,000. Swelled initially by Americans captured during the Battle of the Bulge, and then by those arriving from work camps and Stalags in the east,
conditions in Moosburg rapidly deteriorated. When one group of emaciated prisoners arrived at the camp they were thought to be unusually pale skinned. They turned out to be labourers from salt mines whose skin had seldom seen the sun. The irony was that whilst they had been digging in the mines salt had become a forgotten commodity for the prisoners at Moosburg. As in the other camps tents filled the gaps between huts, and men slept in whatever space was available as the mud reached their ankles. Recently arrived from hospital, Bryan Willoughby remembered the scenes within the compound:

It was pretty ghastly – overcrowded. The bunks were in a structure with twelve all together. Bed boards were very scarce, you were lucky to get enough to be reasonably comfortable. People pinched them, there were so many POWs in there. The main thing was lice. I’d take off my shirt and in my armpit it was like greenfly on the back of a leaf. I’d take my shirt off and put it in cold water then put it back on again. As time went on the overcrowding became worse. Towards the very end the floor was absolutely full of sleeping men. You didn’t dare go out for a pee in the night ’cause you’d never get to the end of the room without treading on a Russian or maybe a Pole. Everyone was there. I never thought about the smell or washing because you were lucky to get near a tap, they were right at the end of the camp. You’d have to choose your time – late at night or in the middle of the day. If you were dying for a crap you’d find about ten Russians queuing up to occupy one space. Some of them had religious rituals for their washing and it all took time. But I think it was not such a great problem because you got so little to eat, so you didn’t go very often. If you eat next to nothing you have nothing to get rid of. I expect we had rats in the camp but I didn’t notice them. It wouldn’t have worried us, they’d have probably gone into the pot.
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With increased overcrowding the segregation of prisoners began to break down and the Germans no longer insisted on compounds being divided up between nationalities. Instead all were thrown in together with a resulting breakdown in discipline. Prisoners within Stalag XVIIc – none of whom had received any new issues of clothing since June the previous year, nor received any
lagergeld
since October – found the camp had become cosmopolitan in character. With 13,000 men crammed into a space designed for just 4,000 it was little wonder the NCOs were unable to keep control. As the German rule collapsed the prisoners became free agents, something that would impact on the countryside around the camp.

With so many prisoners of all nationalities crammed within the camps many prisoners soon noticed the differences between them:

The Ruskies were very varied, they’d gob on the floor, it was natural to them – you couldn’t do anything about it – but some were very civilised. The French were always arguing among themselves, they’d come to blows. The Yanks weren’t anywhere near as good as the Brits, they went to pieces quicker. Some would just sit around all day long. If anyone got into that state of mind you would notice it.
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In these desperate conditions within the camp some among the prisoners tried to exploit the chaos by attempting to ease their own situation by preying on their fellow ‘kriegies’. Bryan Willoughby watched the activities of the bullies in the final days before liberation:

There were these two Yanks. One a great big John Wayne chap, and his sidekick a George Raft type – a tough guy. They came round and said ‘Give us your English cigarettes’. They demanded we hand them over. You couldn’t do much about it. They said to this little Yorkshire chap ‘C’mon you Limey cocksucker!’ He stood up and said ‘I ain’t a Limey cocksucker’. Looking at him – he was only a little fellow – but I could tell ‘George Raft’ and his sidekick were going to ‘go for a burton’. They would of done. They just slunk off. He was a very tough fellow.
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Another Arnhem veteran, Jim Sims, recalled these divisions:

There was a great deal of bad feeling between the various inmates of Stalag XIb. The Americans shared our Lager but would have nothing to do with us … The French disliked everyone, especially the British who had run away at Dunkirk and betrayed the gallant French … The poor old Russians were treated abominably. The atmosphere in the POW camp was dog eat dog and one soon adapted.
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Even in the camp hospitals rations of potatoes and sugar were cut by 50 per cent. By March 1945 the camp hospital at Stalag Xb found itself able to serve just 1,300 calories worth of food to patients each day, and whilst German soldiers in the hospital were served with a variety of vegetables the POWs received swedes at every meal. Only 20 tons of coal were available each week, down from 100 tons a week earlier in the war, and the temperature on the wards never climbed above 13°C. Patients were refused hot showers unless they were suffering from TB. The conditions only helped to slow down the healing process. Some prisoners were even given bread containing sand that had been put into the dough to
add bulk. Conditions in one camp infirmary became so bad that sick prisoners refused to remain, fearing the bed bugs were a greater danger to their health than the treatment was of benefit.

With the falling rations what sustenance could be found in Red Cross parcels was once again vital to help protect the prisoners from starvation. Even without fuel for cooking the calories found in cheese, butter and tinned meats could help keep hunger at bay. But for many prisoners the supply of parcels they had grown to rely on had become irregular. By February 1945 one camp hospital reported just 15 parcels left in stock, whereas the previous year there had enough to ensure every patient got a parcel each week. At the camp hospital of Stalag Xb they issued just one parcel per man per month. Despite the shortages, when parcels finally arrived they gave a new lease of life to the dejected prisoners: ‘There were long delays before the parcels came around. You got to the stage where you didn’t have the energy to do anything. You didn’t even have the energy to talk. We were getting to the stage where you could drift off into despair. But when the parcels came there was a sense of relief. Blokes would be up all night gambling with cigarettes or whatever. It was amazing!’
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The prisoners at Stalag XIId, including over 400 Indian soldiers mainly employed in German vineyards, found their supplies of Red Cross parcels dried up in early 1945. During the evacuation of the camp from Trier all stores of parcels had been lost and the men were forced to survive on what little food the Germans provided them, or whatever they could pinch. The little food provided by their employers had to be transported from the main Stalag to the work detachments, in one case it was found the 30 kilometre journey took as long as 48 hours. As a result one work detachment complained they received no food for several days and another
group survived on less than 100 grams of bread per man per day for two weeks. It was a far cry from the days of the previous autumn when their canteen was still selling razor blades and pale ale.