Langensalza POWs

[KIRKY]

HI I am new to this forum but love anything to do with WW1 especially The somme area.

I recently got a set of postcards to Camp at Langensalza and have no info on this place. Can anyone help me please?

Tony

[jemimajane]

I'm also new to the forum etc - It may not be much help but my grandfather was a POW at Langensalza (according to Red Cross records) before being sent to Cassell, then later to Gottingen. He was taken POW on 21 October 1914 - and wasn't released until January 1919. I have some postcards of his fellow POW's (some in uniform, some in "theatrical dress") but I don't know which camp these were taken at.

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

Why don't you post them?

Ian

[Chris_Baker]

I think Ian means scan them and post them on this forum, rather than popping them in a postbox!

[jemimajane]

Well, I've scanned in one postcard - I don't know if it will work - It is of a group of POW's at the camp with my Grandfather - seems to be a mix of nationalities there.

(If scan hasn't worked - will try again later)

[jemimajane]

It worked! - I've also scanned the postcard photo of my grandfather while a POW. (private Henry George Phillips No: 9165 South Wales Borderers -captured 21st October 1914 at Poelcappelle). The pictures of the "theatrical dressed" POW's aren't very good - but will see what I can do. I have only recently found this website and have found it very helpful so far. I have a few queries re WW1 ancestors - and it looks like I may be able to get some answer - so thank you.

[andrew_jackson]

Here's a little on Langensalza, taken from an edited version of the memoirs of George Mulford (12th Yorks and Lancs, taken prisoner on 1st July 1916):

By December 1916, the hospital at Ohrdruf was nearly cleared and George - his services to the medical staff no longer required - was transferred to the neighbouring prisoner of war camp of Langensalza, a place that George described as the most sinister camp in Germany.

"Think of the conditions of 12,000 men huddled together on a large sized ploughed field so situated that it caught all the water draining from the surrounding hills. Sanitary arrangements on a par with those of the native quarter in an Egyptian town. Food of the vilest and unhealthiest nature for human consumption. Long ramshackle dilapidated barracks to hold 7-800 men with no thought in their construction for comfort and accommodation."

George described the guards at Langensalza as being the most brutal and ferocious that he ever saw.

Before leaving Ohrdruf, George had kitted himself out for comfort and warmth in scarlet trousers, blue tunic, an old kepi and "an ancient comically cut overcoat which must have been worn by its [French] owner in the 1870 war of which he yarned so much." Thus attired he readily passed for a Frenchman and by making friends amongst some of the French N.C.O.s who held priviliged posts in the camp, he was able to escape some of the harsher treatment from the guards. George was also now receiving regular supplies of food parcels from home.

George's stay at Langensalza was short, for early in 1917 he was transferred to a camp at Cassel, where conditions were less harsh.