Internment of UK Nationals in Germany

[Sparky53]

A friend was telling me her father was a UK Citizen in Germany at start of WW1 and was held in an internment camp - the female family members were repatriated has anyone else come acroos this?

Jane

[stiletto_33853]

Hi Jane,

The camps name was Ruhleben, there was an article written abouut this camp by A.E. Keith who was a businessman in Germany when the war broke out.

The article appears in The Great War "I Was There" Part 32 and describes his experiences in the camp and his escape.Ruhleben was a racecourse near Berlin which was converted into an internment camp.

Andy

[healdav]

There are two or three books about Ruhleben itself. Parts of life there seem pretty awful and parts more like a concert party.

The strange thing is that the other prisoners resented anyone who escaped. The universal sentiment seems to have been that it made trouble for them and that no one British could expect to get far as athey didn't speak German (an interesting reflection on those who lived in Germany before the war).

Internment was not practised immediately. I think it was around the end of 1915 before it came in. It seems to have been handled in a somewhat sneaky way as well. I have the meoir of a man who was trapped here at the beginning of the war. he applied to be repatriated - far above military age - and eventually got to Cologne. he was delayed there by excuse after excuse and then suddenly after a couple of months found himself being interned at Ruhleben.

As he said, the move had obviously been planned long before the order actually went out.