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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Lodge Moor camp - UK's biggest second world war prisoner camp unearthed in Yorkshire


TGM

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I grew up only a stones throw from Redmires, my father as a teenager remembers the WW2 camp there. Is your interest with the WW1 or WW2 aspect of the camp? If you use the forums search facility ‘Redmires’ should pull up most if not all posts relating to this camp. There is a Facebook group that goes by the name of Redmires PoW Camp Heritage Project that will be of interest I’m sure, also the Sheffield History forum will be worth looking through

 

J

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I tried finding Redmires on Facebook but only get an Italian in Italian language WW2 fb page.  My interest of course is in WWI.  A Manchester Guardian story (?) recent states that Karl Doenitz was held as a POW in this camp during WWI (captured towards end of the war in late 1918 and slightly wounded).  The same story states that Doenitz feigned mental illness to avoid being tried as a war criminal.  Does anyone have anything information, documents, archival citations, etc... on this Doenitz as a POW period of his life and especially this aspect of his imprisonment?  I tried finding the hospital that he was transferred to but they may be a multitude as several Manchester area hospitals were amalgamated in the past 10 to 20 years.

Tx

John

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John the FB page is ‘Redmires PoW Camp Community Heritage Project’. It’s a closed group so you’ll have to request to join but the request will be swiftly dealt with. Regarding Karl Doenitz I have nothing on file but I do have access to some Sheffield newspapers and will gladly look over the weekend when I get the chance

 

Jon

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I just stumbled across the article and thought it was worth posting.

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I know that Doenitz covers in his famed after release post-WW2 autobiography his WWI service and that he became a POW after his sub was sunk I think in the Med.  Where can I find any information on his sojurn in Great Britain circa 1918 - 1919 presuming that he was most likely released at some point in 1919.

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  • 1 year later...
On 11/07/2019 at 01:12, John Gilinsky said:

I know that Doenitz covers in his famed after release post-WW2 autobiography his WWI service and that he became a POW after his sub was sunk I think in the Med.  Where can I find any information on his sojurn in Great Britain circa 1918 - 1919 presuming that he was most likely released at some point in 1919.

Hi John, 

There is no definitive evidence which Manchester hospital Doenitz was held in.  The articles published last year following the archeological survey at Redmires state that he was transferred to "Wythenshawe Hospital".  However I strongly believe that this is incorrect and that he was actually held at Withington Hospital and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to confirm this.

  1. Wythenshawe Hospital at the time was nonexistent as it was known at the time as Baguley Sanatorium, an isolation hospital opened initially in 1902  for the treatment of TB. It was a remote annex to the much larger Withington Hospital about four miles to the north. 
  2. 2nd Western General Hospital operated all the Military Hospitals including a the Nell Lane Military Hospital at Withington. when i contacted a good friend of mine who is an authority on 2nd Western General Hospital, she was well aware of stories that Doenitz was held at the hospital and that this was documented in a history of Withington Hospital written in the 1970s. 
  3. If you Google Karl Doenitz, Withington, you will find pages which refer to the fact that Doenitz was allowed to live outside the Hospital in Withington and would stroll in local parks and even drinking in local pubs. 
  4. Gerry Edwards, who wrote the Hospital history "The Road to Nell Lane" did not take these rumours at face value and went to considerable lengths to verify them, even to the point of receiving a letter from Admiral Doenitz dated 1st May 1971.  Unfortunately he couldn't confirm that he was held in Withington but did confirm that he was in a hospital near to Manchester which consisted almost totally of barracks and that he returned to Germany in the summer of 1919.  This does fit in with the fact that the Nell Lane Hospital did indeed establish temporary accommodation across the road from the main hospital buildings. 
  5. Gerry also received communications from Vice Admiral Ruge confirming the story that Doenitz had feigned mental illness and been transferred to a mental hospital.  He also received a letter from the Military History and Research Institute in Freiberg which referred to an untranslated autobiography of Doenitz's early life which refers to his time at Redmires.  Gerry attempted to locate the Camp and suspected its location  to be where we now know is outside Sheffield. Doenitz also related his story regarding feigning mental illness to the prison psychiatrist during the Nuremberg Trials. 
  6. Finally Gerry managed to unearth an account from a Senior Nurse at the hospital which "verified" that Doenitz had been a prisoner at Withington Hospital. 

The reason that I became interested in this story is that I have researched the life of a GP who spent the majority of his life in the town where I live.  I have recently been in touch with his Grandson who related a family story he heard a few years ago. He said that his Grandfather had treated a German POW during WW1 and become very friendly with him to such an extent that he had allowed him to look after his young daughter at the time.  This would certainly fit in because he was posted to Mesopotamia but was evacuated following illness and spent the remainder of his military service at Nell Lane Military Hospital. Sadly, I cannot verify it with his daughter as she sadly passed away in April this year, a few weeks before her 103rd birthday and I never got the opportunity to discuss her father's life with her. 

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