German p.o.w interments.

[MikeyH]

The Lancashire cotton town of my birth, had a brand new mill which was ready for use in 1914 and which was quickly converted to house a large number of German p.o.w.  I sometimes accompanied my grandma to place flowers on my grandfathers grave in the 1950's.  She would also take me to see a number of German graves in the cemetery.  She had witnessed some of the funerals, which left a lasting impression upon her.  My memory is that the headstones had a helmet carved on them, a stahlhelm I think, rather than a pickelhaube.  Was this normal procedure?  These graves were moved to a central location at a later date.

Also my other grandfather had a small scale German bayonet, around 3 or 4 inches overall, which he said was made by an inmate, this long ago lost.  Would prisoners have been permitted to make such things to sell to boost their allowances?

I know that around 200 prisoners made a daily train journey, to work in a local steel works.  There is a photo on the net in which they all refuse to face the camera.

Mike.

Edited 18 August , 2022 by MikeyH

[AOK4]

It was normal for POWs to take care of the graves and erect monuments and headstones. The same happened in Germany as well. It may also have been done post-war. 

I assume the graves were moved to Cannock Chase, which is the central German cemetery in the UK.

Jan

[MikeyH]

11 hours ago, AOK4 said:

It was normal for POWs to take care of the graves and erect monuments and headstones. The same happened in Germany as well. It may also have been done post-war. 

I assume the graves were moved to Cannock Chase, which is the central German cemetery in the UK.

Jan

A total of 13 prisoners who died in captivity, this included one shot whilst trying to escape.  Exhumations carried out on the 6th June 1962 for reburial at Cannock Chase.

Mike.

Edited 16 August , 2022 by MikeyH

[Chasemuseum]

On 16/08/2022 at 05:13, MikeyH said:

Also my other grandfather had a small scale German bayonet, around 3 or 4 inches overall, which he said was made by an inmate, this long ago lost.  Would prisoners have been permitted to make such things to sell to boost their allowances?

Allowing prisoners to make souvenirs was traditional. It had been a common practice through the Napoleonic wars and through to the 2nd Boer War. By WW2 it had become unfashionable. 

Here in Australia Turkish prisoners during WW1 made large quantity of bead crafts which they sold through the guards to the public and still turn up at the markets from time to time. During WW2 we had large numbers of Italian prisoners here and many were assigned out as farm labourers. Officially they had to sleep in the farm sheds or if available shearers quarters (if you ran sheep you were required to provide cottages for the itinerant shearers when shearing), in practice many lived in the main farm houses. After the war they were required to be repatriated to Italy, with many not wanting to go and emigrating back to Australia as soon as they could.

My point is that there are no particular crafts/souvenirs associated with these WW2 prisoners, unlike the WW1 Turkish prisoners. The WW2 civilian internees are a different matter, a school friends German father had been interned for the war and the prison at Berrima where they were housed is associated with souvenirs, with examples in the local museum - but they were not POW. 

[MikeyH]

I have found a list of the prisoners who died in the Leigh pow camp.  The first named Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Schmidt, was shot in 1915 whilst attempting to escape.  The very grainy image of the communal memorial obelisk, was as Jan suggested carved by one of the prisoners.  This would have born the representation of a stalhelm of my long ago recollection.

Mike.

Edited 18 August , 2022 by MikeyH