Hitler's British Slaves (8 page)

Those who did volunteer to join working parties often found they were tricked by the Germans. When they agreed to work they signed a six-month contract. Under this they would be free to return to the Stalag once their allotted time had passed. Many found it was not that simple. The contracts included a clause in the ‘small print’ that meant the NCOs had to resign officially, in writing, one month before the contract terminated otherwise the contract was extended for a further six months. Others found themselves tricked into
going on work parties. Some NCOs signed what they were informed were insurance contracts only to find they had actually waived their right to exemption from labour. In some cases NCOs were simply told they had no choice, Convention or no Convention, and in 1944 one group of NCOs who questioned being ordered to work were simply told that the Germans no longer recognised Article 27 of the Geneva Convention. Similarly, a group of 200 NCOs and warrant officers at Stalag XIIIc were deprived of all their personal effects and separated from the rest of the prisoners. Their guards informed them they would be detained until they volunteered for work. For 12 months they were locked into a barrack hut, unable to go outside to exercise. Eventually they relented and agreed to join working parties.

The issue of NCOs working was also an irritant to some of the private soldiers on working parties. Once at work camps the NCOs were usually given the role of administering the camp, in effect meaning the NCOs got all the cushy jobs. As a result fewer of the private soldiers were able to avoid the drudgery of heavy labour. It was not only the NCOs whose exemption from work was ignored by the Germans. All medical staff should officially have been protected personnel and only allowed to work in a medical capacity. This group included all Royal Army Medical Corps staff, regimental stretcher-bearers and orderlies, and men from other units attached to the RAMC as drivers. However the enemy often failed to recognise their credentials. Upon capture many regimental medics and bearers had lost the typewritten forms identifying them as such and, since the Germans only accepted as ‘protected personnel’ those whose capacity as a medic was marked in their paybooks, they were forced into industry. The War Office attempted to remedy this by sending out the correct documentation but this was not always successful.
In June 1943 it was reported that 200 RAMC personnel unrecognised by the enemy were employed in a single labour detachment. Complaining or insisting that the Germans allow medics not to work was not simple. When a Private Bull of the RAMC protested that he was a ‘protected person’ and refused to work he was shot and killed by his guards. As a result some of the trained medics, whose work could have helped alleviate the misery of so many men in POW hospitals, found themselves pressed into service as miners, wasting their talents at the coalface. Even those recognised as medics were sometimes forced to work. At Stalag IVa staff from the camp lazaret were taken at bayonet point and informed that they had to build new barracks for the enemy. They had choice but to comply – none wished to become patients in their own hospital.

The medical staff had learned the one vital rule for all employed in the industries of the Reich. They were possessions of the Wehrmacht and could be loaned out anywhere to do as instructed. Despite the relative freedom possible on some work details most prisoners only had to watch their guards to know they could expect little lenience. They did not need to read the rules on how they should be treated to know to expect no indulgence. As the regulations on foreign workers in Germany stated:

Every prisoner of war liable for work and able bodied is expected to exert himself to the full. Should he fail to do so the guards or auxiliary guards are entitled to take rigorous action. Guards who fail to take such action will themselves be held responsible and severely punished. They are entitled to enforce their orders by force of arms … When a POW is not attaining normal efficiency it is the duty of the guard to take action … he is entitled to make use of his weapons.
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‘Normal efficiency’ was a term that was liberally interpreted by the Germans. Many kept their prisoners working despite failing health and in one instance sick prisoners were forced to carry railway sleepers and sent to work breaking stones. This matter was complicated since the prisoners were often left under the guard of civilians. Although a breach of the Geneva Convention, many of these civilians used force against the prisoners, some even using guns against them.

Despite these dangers, the system of work parties had both positive and detrimental effects on the men behind the wire. For many the thought of staying in the dismal Stalags, with their crowded huts, lice and boredom, was too much. They relished the freedom of being out in the countryside or in factories, mixing with civilians and, most importantly, meeting women. Yet there was a downside. Allocation to work details was arbitrary. Men were suddenly split from their mates and sent away, sometimes never to meet again. They might return to the Stalag but not necessarily at the same time. There were even fathers and sons who fought long and hard to be transferred to the same camps, yet even they could not guarantee being sent on the same work details. For soldiers who found the camaraderie shared with their mates was the only thing that made army life tolerable, to be constantly split up from mates was a burden few enjoyed. Yet there was little choice. As the inmates of the Stalags soon learnt – it was adapt or die.

In face of the dirt and discomfort within the main camps most of the POWs not on work details attempted to make the best of a bad situation. Musical instruments were begged, borrowed or stolen and bands set up to entertain their mates during the long hours of inactivity. Theatres were established where all manner of plays and revues were performed and in which men in drag became the only sight of ‘female’
flesh the ‘Kriegies’ ever had. Bands formed using musical instruments sent from home, singers entertained the prisoners and all manner of men were recruited to appear in variety shows. Books arrived via charities allowing men a large amount of reading matter, with some camp libraries believed to have as many as ten thousand books. Card games, chess, draughts, backgammon and any number of board games were played.

Not all the activities were so cerebral and all manner of activities were used to pass the time. Home made tattoos were popular in some camps, with amateur artists adorning the skin of their friends with writing ink and the needles from their sewing kits. Amateur jewellery designers made skull and crossbones rings out of scrap metal and pieces of leather that became fashionable in some camps. Other men developed strange games that helped keep the prisoners entertained, placing bets on anything that could pass the time. Some sat outside barracks and took bets on the hair colour of the next man to walk around a corner. In extreme cases prisoners organised séances and played with Ouija boards. At Stalag XXb they improvised some highly unusual entertainments, as Gordon Barber recalled: ‘We had a big cock contest. It was won by a little sergeant in the Rifle Brigade. He couldn’t get his knob into a tin for 50 cigarettes. We also had a contest to see who had the most lice on their blankets.’
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The diet of unfamiliar vegetables soon provided another source of basic entertainment, as Thomas Crawcour recalled:

One night I mentioned to one our chaps that human intestinal gas was combustible. Surprisingly they refused to accept this as a fact, so I suggested that it could be proved by experiment. Lights went out and the fun began. It should be recorded that a diet of cabbage, potatoes and German ration bread were an ideal combination to provide an abundant and ready supply of the appropriate gas. One man bravely announced he was ready with a box of matches, another said he was ready to provide the gas. The seat of his pyjamas protruded over the edge of his bed and glowed in an eerie green light as gas and match came together, which caused great hilarity in our room. Another chap announced his readiness to participate, so a match was struck and a bare bottom could be seen hanging over the edge of the bed. The match drew close and a fart released of such force that it blew the match out! We shrieked with laughter and my stomach hurt with the continued hilarity. It was a wonder the guards did not investigate what was going on.
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To keep their bodies active they took up sports. In summer cricket was played and throughout the year, wherever the men could gather in a suitable place, they played football. They even played international matches – England against Scotland, England against France or Belgium and so on. At Stalag IVb ‘Bill’ Sykes attended a lecture given by a padre that revealed an interesting history to their football pitch: ‘I was horrified to learn that in a previous extremely harsh winter, that due to the small amount of rations given to the Russian prisoners that acts of cannibalism took place and 2,000 Russian prisoners died of starvation and were buried under the football pitch.’
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Regardless of such stories there was little that could stop the prisoners from joining in with sports.

It was not only the sportsmen and spectators who stood to benefit from sports. As vast crowds gathered in the recreation areas ‘wide boys’ among the camp populations opened books on the result, taking bets in food or cigarettes. These same ‘wide boys’ were often behind many of the scams in the camp. They grew legendary among their fellow prisoners
– such as Harry Don at Stalag XXB who was described by a mate as a ‘whiz kid’ who could ‘charm the birds out of the trees’.
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These were the men who somehow knew when deliveries of food were arriving and where it could be pinched from. Often the efforts of such men made the difference between subsistence and starvation. One of those in the thick of the rackets explained: ‘We became self sufficient. If there was anyone who was a little “Artful Dodger” I was. If there anything going on I was always in the thick of it. If I knew something was going to be brought into the camp I’d be there, at the front.’
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These were the men who became the wheeler-dealers within the camps. Whatever they could swap was swapped, if someone had something to sell they would find a buyer, when extra food came into the camps they would trade it for a profit. Watches and jewellery were soon traded by men who were desperate for a full belly or a smoke. The Stalag market, like all markets, was prone to fluctuation. When mail deliveries from home or Red Cross parcels arrived there was a sudden surplus in goods, particularly cigarettes. For a short period prices dropped as the smokers enjoyed their fill of tobacco. Yet once the supplies began to fall, prices began to rise. In response to the ever-changing prices, lists were pinned up on doors indicating the new rates of exchange.

The ‘tobacco barons’ became vital figures within the camps, buying and selling cigarettes and ensuring a widespread distribution. Their efforts ensured heavy smokers were still able to keep up their habit. Only through the exchange of goods were those with surplus fags prevented from smoking more than they really wanted just to whittle away the hours of boredom. During the latter stages of the war the shortages of tobacco were such that many of the heavy smokers became noticeably irritable as the withdrawal from nicotine began to
affect them. James Witte, captured in North Africa in 1941, became a ‘tobacco baron’, continuing his trade from the first days of captivity until his liberation. It started when he found a haversack full of cigarettes in an abandoned lorry after he was captured: ‘I was launched on a racketeering career which lasted four years. I was determined to make things as easy as I could for myself.’ Yet as he soon found out, the dealers had to take care: ‘Tobacco barons had hard lives in POW camps, lives of tension, unable to trust anyone.’
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They couldn’t leave the fags alone for a moment, knowing full well the second their back was turned they would be pinched. At one camp Sergeant Major James of the Sherwood Foresters was able to corner the market in tobacco. He was reported to have stolen 200 parcels of tea from Red Cross packets within the Stalag store. For each packet of tea he was able to buy three packets of tobacco from the guards. From the deal he kept a third of the profits – 200 packets of tobacco – for himself.

This dark side to the rackets ensured that arguments frequently boiled over into fights between prisoners. Often these were trivial – petty arguments over habits that irritated men living dull lives where the smallest incident could be the notable event of the day – but sometimes there was real menace behind the violence. Whilst for many of the prisoners, adversity had brought out the best in them – giving up their valuables to buy food to share with their mates – others were not so charitably minded. In the close confines of the Stalags there was one activity guaranteed to ensure a violent reaction – theft. All the prisoners knew that it wasn’t counted as theft when they stole from the Germans, that was just ‘appropriation’, but stealing from among fellow prisoners was another matter. ‘Wide boys’ in the Stalags were known to sell or swap packets of tea they had opened, emptied and half filled with sawdust. Others siphoned out the milk from tins then refilled
them with water before selling them to unsuspecting fellow prisoners. As Gordon Barber explained:

The worst thing you ever done was steal from your mates. If you ever got found out you were in trouble. In Marienburg they had a bloke called Charlie MacDowell, he was our ‘Man of Confidence’, if you had any problems you went to him. So if anybody got caught stealing and you couldn’t handle him then Charlie would sort him out. He was good. He came from Glasgow. He’d start with his fists but if he found a bloke was a boxer or was a tough fighter he’d go for their knees. He would wack ’em. He’d give ’em a good hiding. I never had to call on him ’cause I was handy myself. But I never used to pick on someone I couldn’t handle. You didn’t want to do that in them days. I’ve seen blokes go to bed with a loaf of bread under their heads, wake up and both ends are gone. I remember a bloke stole my mate Paddy’s overcoat. I said ‘How are you going to find it?’ He said ‘When we go to
Appel
I’ll go down the lines and have a look’. So when the guards had passed us I moved over and he went down the rows. I was watching him and all of a sudden I saw him drag a bloke out. He ripped the coat off him. He recognized it, it had his name in it.’
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