Germans Internerned in UK WW1 - Stratford

[bhlwarman]

Hi Everyone, 

 

I am very new to this forum as of today. I am trying to do some family research into my ancestor Alfred Kiefer. He was born in Stuttgart Germany in 1883 and came over to the UK between 1901-1911. I have found his internment record card, he was interned in Stratford in 1915. I have tried to use the National Archives records to search further details of him using the classification on the record card however I am struggling to find him.

 

I was wondering if anyone would be able to advise me on how to search these records, or if there are any other documents that i should look in?

 

Any help would be very much appreciated as I have been searching for years and have reached a dead end!

 

Name: Alfred Kiefer

Born: 1883, Stuttgart Germany

Occupation: Hotel Porter

Interned: Startford

Classifications on record

30244

No: 30

ALL 2-30

ALL 2-34

Stratford

 

Thanks

Bryony

[wandererpaul]

I assume this is him in the England 1911 Census:

First name(s); Alfred

Last name; Kiefer

Relationship; Porter

Marital status; Single

Sex; Male

Occupation; Floorporter Hotel

Age; 28

Birth year; 1883

Birth place; Germany Resident

Address; City House Hotel City Road E C

Parish; St Luke

County; London

Country; England

Registration district; Holborn

 

Hi death in England:

 

First name(s); ALFRED

Last name; KIEFER

Gender; Male

Birth day -

Birth month -

Birth year; 1883

Age; 43

Death quarter; 3

Death year; 1926

District; PADDINGTON

County; London

Edited 28 December , 2016 by wandererpaul

[bhlwarman]

Hi Paul,

 

Yes that is him, unfortunately other than this and his marriage/death/will records this is all I can find about him!

 

 

[wandererpaul]

The ICRC records doesn't give anymore than what you already have either. http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Search#/1/1/245/0/German/Civilians/Kiefer Alfred

[bhlwarman]

Thanks for your replies Paul.

 

I was hoping once I found that that it would take me to some further information and I was just reading it wrong.

 

I feel this may be the end of my search as I have run out of places to look!

[Guest]

      Tried the Anglo- German Family History Society??  A very industrious group and very helpful. The German colony in London and internment  are well provided for.

[CGM]

I can recommend the book: ALEXANDRA PALACE A Hidden History. (Tempus Publishing Ltd). 

 

Alexandra Palace (the Ally Pally) was used to house thousands of German civilian internees during and after the First World War. The Palace is situated in N. London so most of the well researched newspaper articles and personal recollections are taken from Tottenham and Wood Green records, but Internment in Stratford is also discussed.

 

I'm sure you will find the very detailed introduction to internment and the description of life before and during internment interesting, and sadly, distressing too.

 

I don't think your relative is mentioned by name (very few internees are) but you will probably learn a great deal about what his life would have been like.

Internment in Stratford was in an old, disused jute factory and conditions were dreadful.

CGM

[Guest]

1 hour ago, CGM said:

Internment in Stratford was in an old, disused jute factory and conditions were dreadful.

CGM

 

    Would this be the 25 Bridge Road address?   Intrigued by the topic. Quite who was interned and who was not is something of a mystery. I have a local casualty, Ronald Ludwig Eichler, only allowed to serve in an alien battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, although others of his family served in more frontline units. Another, Henry Gulden, from South Woodford, escaped internment because his grandfather was naturalised in 1873-and the man's father, an 8 year old, was naturalised at the same time- Yet the Gulden family continued a strongly German way of life. His wife was German, the family business was a German pork butchers in Stratford Broadway(employees all German) and the family's domestic servants always came from Germany. The family married in the German Church, used their German forenames in their domestic lives-and,I suspect, spoke German to each other. Not only was Gulden not interned, he also served as a Special Constable for 2 years before he was conscripted.

    The system bit the other way as well- One man in Wanstead happened to have been born in Austria but came to England as a baby. He was very heavily fined for not declaring his alien background, the more so as he worked as a telephone operator and official paranoia kicked in. On the other hand, a local journalist from Wanstead, Edward Fuller, was one of the founders of Save the Children- whose first actions were not that popular- to help feed starving children in Germany at the end of the war

    My late father serve as an airborne signaller at Arnhem and often spoke highly of the emigre German Jews serving with the Airborne recce (under aliases). The whole subject is of nationality, birth and loyalties is one of huge complexity and much prejudice.And far too much shameful officialdom

[CGM]

 

    Would this be the 25 Bridge Road address?  

It was Carpenter's Road. Is this near Bridge Road? 

[wandererpaul]

16 minutes ago, CGM said:

It was Carpenter's Road. Is this near Bridge Road? 

 

Just a few roads along from each other.

[Guest]

Alas, no idea-as yet. Just intrigued by it all. I am not into the history of the area very much but as I get older, odd little bits do arouse some curiosity. My little bits of work on Wanstead have illuminated other bits of the Great War in the wider area about which I knew nothing

   For instance, until the building boom of the past decade, there were various old barrack blocks dotted all over the area, which are now largely built over but which were there for decades- As you are an Essex Gal (in the best senses of that phrase), then there used to be the barracks huts across from Jenkins Lane in Barking, opposite the drive-in tip- where the Beckton cinema complex now is. There was(may still be there) tucked away on Ilford Lane, up an alleyway on the other side of Loxford Water to the mosque- and yet more.in Ilford just south of Winston Way, just a few yards south of Philpot Path. All WW2 installations

     I believe that the long,low wooden huts that can be seen at the northern end of Wanstead Flats (Bush Road) are left over from the Great War.

    My sense of observation was roused a few years back when a retired gentleman phoned me from out in the Sticks to order a set of books- He had grown up in Ilford and told me the true reason for "sunken gardens" in Loxford Park- they are 4 circular AA gun emplacements from WW2. Once you know that, then many parks in East London make sense- AA emplacements on the western side,as the parks give a clear view to shoot at German aircraft coming down the Thames.

    As to the proper topic of this thread, I seem to recollect a good account of internment/riots of 1914/1915 in a book on the Germans in Britain by Panikos Panayi. And the account of the German POW camp on Wanstead Flats in WW2(Leytonstone Historical Society) is interesting- but its equivalent for internees (and POWs?) in the Great War is an unknown. yet there is sometimes odd knowledge known to many but unknown generally-eg. A local in Redbridge had a query about a POW camp in Woodford Avenue, past Gants Hill and heading for Charlie Browns. Sure enough, the 1945-1946 RAF commercially available survey photographs show what is unmistakably a bog standard army camp. Took ages to work out it was originally a small AA camp (possibly for storage of ammunition),then a holding camp for POWs passing through London in 1944-1945. - And after all that, just to be told by my younger son- who was a pupil at Beal High School, next to the site, that its use in the war was common knowledge and he ahd been taught about it in History.

 

    (And as a taster for WW2 to keep your eyes open- a retired roofer came into Redbridge Local Studies a couple of years back- Did anyone know anything about  slogans being incorporated in roofs when they were re-tile after bombing raids in WW2?- Turns out the "V for Victory" in a different tile colours was not that uncommon- Since being told this, I have noticed on several houses in Redbridge.

  Goes to show- the History is out there- Just need to trip over it to notice where it is!!

Edited 28 December , 2016 by Guest
serial illiteracy

[CGM]

There is a lot to the story of internments but what strikes me the most was the inhumanity involved.

Before they were interned many men were summarily dismissed from their jobs and soon became almost destitute,

After internment many wives and young children were left without any means of support.

The conditions of internment were appalling.

 

The family of a school friend of my grandmother was interned in the Alexandra Palace and she and some friends used to take supplies up to them to make life a little more comfortable.

They took soap and food. As she was the shortest and lightest she was lifted up so she was able to pass the items over the top of the door.

I suppose they could have been charged with aiding the enemy but it never happened.

 

CGM