Treatment of British Prisoners Shocking Brutalities in German War Prisons Revealed in an Official Report

A report issued by an official British Investigating Committee, known as the Justice Younger Committee, appointed to investigate the treatment of British soldiers by their German captors, made public in April, 1918, presents a shocking record of barbarities. The commission reported as follows:

There is now no doubt in the minds of the committee that as early, at the latest, as the month of August, 1916, the German Command were systematically employing their British as well as other prisoners in forced labor close behind the western firing line, thereby deliberately exposing them to the fire of the guns of their own and allied armies. This fact has never been acknowledged by the German Government. On the contrary, it has always been studiously concealed. But that the Germans are chargeable, even from that early date, with inflicting the physical cruelty and the mental torture inherent in such a practice can no longer be doubted.

Characteristically the excuse put forward was that this treatment, not apparently suggested to be otherwise defensible, was forced upon the German Command as a reprisal for what was asserted to be the fact, namely, that German prisoners in British hands had at some time or other been kept less than thirty kilometers (how much less does not appear) behind the British firing line in France. This statement was quite unfounded.

Furthermore, at the end of April, 1917, an agreement was definitely concluded between the British and German Governments that prisoners of war should not on either side be employed within thirty kilometers of the firing line. Nevertheless, the German Command continued without intermission so to employ their British prisoners, under the inhuman conditions stated in the report. And that certainly until the end of 1917—it may be even until now—although it has never even been suggested by the German authorities, so far as the committee are aware, that the thirty kilometers limit agreed upon has not been scrupulously observed by the British Command in the letter as well as in the spirit.

"Prisoners of Respite"

The German excuse is embodied in different official documents, some of which enter into detailed descriptions of the reprisals alleged to be in contemplation because of it. These descriptions are in substantial accord with treatment which the committee, from the information in their possession, now know to have been in regular operation for months before either the threat or the so-called excuse for it, and to have continued in regular operation after the solemn promise of April that it should cease. These documents definitely commit the German Command to at least a threatened course of conduct for which the committee would have been slow to fix them with conscious responsibility. Incidentally they corroborate in advance the accuracy, in its incidents, of the information, appalling as it is, which has independently reached the committee from so many sides.

As a typical example, the committee set forth a transcript in German-English of one of these pronouncements, of which extensive use was made. It is a notice, entitled, "Conditions of Respite to German Prisoners." As here given, it was handed to a British noncommissioned officer to read out, and it was read out to his fellow-prisoners at Lille on April 15, 1917:

Upon the German request to withdraw the German prisoners of war to a distance of not less than thirty kilometers from the front line, the British Government has not replied; therefore it has been decided that all prisoners of war who are captured in future will be kept as prisoners of respite. Very short of food, bad lighting, bad lodgings, no beds, and hard work beside the German guns, under heavy shellfire. No pay, no soap for washing or shaving, no towels or boots, &c. The English prisoners of respite are all to write to their relations or persons of influence in England how badly they are treated, and that no alteration in the ill-treatment will occur until the English Government has consented to the German request; it is therefore in the interest of all English prisoners of respite to do their best to enable the German Government to remove all English prisoners of respite to camps in Germany, where they will be properly treated, with good food, good clothing, and you will succeed by writing as mentioned above, and then surely the English Government will consent to Germany's request, for the sake of their own countrymen. You will be supplied with postcard, note paper, and envelope, and all this correspondence in which you will explain your hardships will be sent as express mail to England.

Starved to Death

It seems that the prisoners, from as early as August, 1916, were kept in large numbers at certain places in the west—Cambrai and Lille are frequently referred to in the evidence—but in smaller numbers they were placed all along the line. Their normal work was making roads, repairing railways, constructing light railways, digging trenches, erecting wire entanglements, making gun-pits, loading ammunition, filling munition wagons, carrying trench mortars, and doing general fatigue work, which under the pain of death the noncommissioned officers were compelled to supervise.

This work was not only forbidden by the laws of war, it was also excessively hard. In many cases it lasted from eight to nine hours a day, with long walks to and fro, sometimes of ten kilometers in each direction, and for long periods was carried on within range of the shellfire of the allied armies. One witness was for nine months kept at work within the range of British guns; another for many months; others for shorter periods. Many were killed by these guns; more were wounded; deaths from starvation and overwork were constant. One instance of the allied shellfire may be given. In May, 1917, a British or French shell burst among a number of British and French prisoners working behind the lines in Belgium. Seven were killed; four were wounded.

But there is much more to tell. The men were half starved. Two instances are given in the evidence of men who weighed 180 pounds when captured. One was sent back from the firing line too weak to walk, weighing only 112 pounds; the other escaped to the British lines weighing no more. Another man lost twenty-eight pounds in six weeks. Parcels did not reach these prisoners. In consequence they were famished. Such was their hunger, indeed, that we hear of them picking up for food potato peelings that had been trampled under foot. One instance is given of an Australian private who, starving, had fallen out to pick up a piece of bread left on the roadside by Belgian women for the prisoners. He was shot and killed by the guard for so doing.

Some Merciful Guards

It was considered, so it would seem, to be no less than a stroke of luck for prisoners to chance upon guards who were more merciful. For instance, one of them speaking of food at Cambrai says:

If it had not been for the French civilians giving us food as we went along the roads to and from work we should most certainly have starved. If the sentries saw us make a movement out of the ranks to get food they would immediately make a jab at us with their rifles, but conditions here were not so bad as at Moretz, where if a man stepped out of the ranks he was immediately shot. I heard about this from men who had themselves been working at Moretz, and had with their own eyes seen comrades of theirs shot for moving from the ranks.

At Ervillers in February, 1917, a prisoner's allowance for the day consisted of a quarter of a loaf of German black bread, (about a quarter of a pound,) with coffee in the morning; then soup at midday, and at 4:30 coffee again, without sugar or milk. On this a man had to carry on heavy work for over nine hours. The ration of the German soldier at the same time and place consisted of a whole loaf of bread per day, good, thick soup, with beans and meat in it, coffee, jam, and sugar; two cigars and three cigarettes. The food conditions at Marquion a little later are thus described:

We used to beg the sentries to allow us to pick stinging nettles and dandelions to eat, we were so hungry; in fact, we were always hungry, and I should say we were semi-starved all the time. While we were here our Sergeants put in for more rations, but the answer they got was that we were prisoners of war now "and had no rights of any kind; that the Germans could work us right up behind their front lines if they liked, and put us on half the rations we were then getting."

Flogged with Dog Whip

The ration was coffee and a slice of bread at 4:45 A. M., soup of barley and horseflesh at 2 P. M., eight pounds of barley and ten pounds of meat between 240 men. And they were compelled to work hard for eight or nine hours a day on this diet. The frequent cruelty of the guards generally is a matter constantly referred to:

The German Sergeant in charge at Ervillers (says one prisoner) was very harsh. Twice I saw him (this prisoner was there for a month only) using a dog whip, and heard of him doing so on another occasion. He used it mostly on men who were slow in getting out to work owing to weakness.

The description by a body of these men on their arrival at a camp in Germany, after being withdrawn from the front, may be taken as another example of this:

We were forced to work; we were given hardly any food, and when we fell down from sheer exhaustion we were kicked until we got up again, and it was not until we absolutely could not get about that we were sent back.

To add to their miseries, the accommodation provided for these prisoners was in many cases pathetically inadequate. The witnesses recur to this again and again. One sleeping place, for instance, for a large party was a barn with no roof. The rain poured in upon the men. They had to sleep in their wet clothes and work in the same clothes. They had no change of any kind. And some of these prisoners, if they survived so long, were kept behind these enemy lines for over a year. Their quarters at Cambrai are thus described by two of the men:

We slept about twelve in a room in our uniforms, without either greatcoats or blankets. There was no fire, and it was very cold. We lay on loose straw, which was full of vermin, and we consequently became verminous. We could only wash in a bucket of cold water, without either soap or towels.

The Germans did not supply us with any clothing, and as we had to work in all weathers, conditions were very hard. Our clothes used to get drenched through, but still we had to go back to barracks and sleep in them. It was terribly cold also, especially without our fur coats. We asked for clothing, but never got any.

No Parcels or Letters

But, added to all these hardships, it was the total absence of parcels and the fact that letters or communications from their friends rarely reached them that placed these prisoners, for misery, in a class apart. Instances are on record where the very existence of some of them was undisclosed by their captors for many months. In March, 1917, for example, a body of these prisoners who had been captured as long before as August, 1916, and had been kept at work by the Germans behind their lines ever since, were returned to a parent camp in Germany weak and emaciated. On arrival there they found a number of their own names in the lists of missing men that had been sent from our War Office through Switzerland and posted in the camp. * * *

It seems almost incredible, but the committee do not doubt it to be the fact, that as late as November, 1917, there were at Limburg-am-Lahn undelivered between 18,000 and 20,000 parcels for British prisoners on the German western front. In July, 1917, the German delegates at The Hague plainly recognized that no distinction in respect of the receipt of parcels could be properly made between prisoners of war in occupied territories and others. The agreement then concluded contains provisions on that subject. Having regard to the condition of things at Limburg as late as November, 1917, the committee can only regret that the effect of that agreement was certainly at that date not so manifest as it ought to have been. The matter, they add, is of tragic importance to the prisoners concerned. It made and makes just the difference between starvation and existence to the unfortunate sufferers.

Extracts from Evidence

The committee extract from the great mass of evidence now in their possession statements as to the impression produced upon those who actually saw our men upon their escape to the British lines or after their transfer to camps in Germany. These statements, they believe, must convince every impartial mind that it is impossible in terms of exaggeration to describe the sufferings these prisoners had undergone.

In April, 1917, three of them escaped over "No Man's Land." They were received by a British General Staff officer, a Major in the 1st Anzac Corps. This is what he says of them, under date April 18, 1917:

Three men escaped from behind the German lines to us the other day. They had been prisoners three months, and were literally nearly dead with ill-treatment and starvation. One of them could hardly walk, and was just a skeleton. He had gone down from 182 pounds to less than 112 pounds in three months. I fetched him back from the line, and it almost made me cry. All that awful January and February out all day in the wet and cold; no overcoat, and at night no blanket, in a shelter where the clothes froze stiff on him; no change of underclothing in three months, and he was one mass of vermin, no chance of washing. The bodies of all of them were covered with sores. "Beaten and starved," one of them said, "sooner than go through it again I'd just put my head under the first railway."

The following is the substance of statements by two witnesses from a German camp:

About June, 1917, a party of about twenty English soldiers came in who had been working behind the German lines on the western front. I became friends with one of them. He was so weak that I have several times seen him faint on parade. Another of them told me that he was one of a party of 100 working behind the lines on the western front digging trenches and carrying up supplies. He said they were all very badly treated and starved. They were knocked about by the Germans if they did not march as fast as they wanted them to, although they were all so weak. He was only sent to Germany when he became so weak as to be useless for work. When I left he did not look as if he could lift a shovelful of sand. There was another whom I knew. He had also been working behind the lines. They had to work in clogs and no socks. He said they used to tie rags round their feet. He was employed on road making. I never could have believed the things I was told but for the terrible state the men were in, which caused me to feel that no horror I was told was impossible.

Many were brought into the camp who had returned from working behind the lines; they were in a shocking state, literally skin and bones, hardly able to walk, and quite worn out physically and mentally; their clothes threadbare and in rags, without boots, wearing old rag slippers. They told me that the conditions of work behind the lines, where some of them had been for months, were terrible; they had to work eight hours a day, and generally were made to walk ten kilometers out to their work, and the only food they were given was one cup of coffee, a slice of bread, and some soup a day—a day's ration.

"Shot at Sight"

From another camp comes the following testimony:

In May of this year a large party of British came into the camp, who had returned from behind the German lines. They were ravenous through being starved, and half savages. I spoke to several of them. * * * Men were shot at sight for a slight cause, such as dropping out to get bread from Belgian civilians. The state in which they returned was the worst sight I have seen in my life. Their clothes were ragged, they were half shaven, verminous, suffering from skin diseases, and were half savage with hunger and bad treatment. After their arrival the commandant in the camp issued an order (which I saw) that no more of these parties should be taken through the main street of the town, but should go by the byways on account of the feeling that had been caused among the population. I am told that the population showed a great deal of sympathy, tears, &c.

About May 1, 1917, about 300 prisoners of all nationalities were brought from behind the western lines. I spoke to those who came into the lazaret. All were starving, and had been kept there until they collapsed from overwork. Fifteen Russians died as soon as they were brought in. One man told me that on a march of eleven kilometers a man fell out ill, the guard gave him so many minutes to fall in again, and told him he would shoot him if he was not up by then; he could not go on, and the guard shot him.

From a third camp:

I knew two of our men who had been working behind the German lines in the west for five months. One was 29 years old, the other 25. The first weighed 180 pounds when captured. He left the firing line too weak to walk, and weighed 110 pounds. He was badly treated and knocked about. When I saw him in camp he was black and blue. The other man had the same treatment. They were both starved, and both were gray-headed with the five months' treatment. These men said our men were dying there every day through hardship and exposure. The food behind the lines was about half the camp rations.

"Worked to the Bone"

From a fourth camp:

In September, 1917, seventy-five noncommissioned officers, who had been behind the lines, were brought into our camp. They were in a bad physical condition, hungry, lousy, and worked out. One month after, a large body, all privates from behind the lines, captured since May, came in. They were in a terrible condition, famished beyond words. They had been worked to the bone, and were in a filthy condition. They made our camp lousy. The camp doctor said they were the worst cases he had seen, and said they could stay in bed for a week. They were so famished that two died of eating the food we gave them. They had been working on the Hindenburg line, and the railway Cambrai to Lille, and repairing it under fire. They said they were on very small rations and compelled to work. They told us that Frenchwomen who out of compassion gave them any trifling gift of fruit were knocked down by the sentries.

From the same camp:

I spoke to men who had been kept at work behind the German lines on the western front. The majority of these were there about twelve months, and they came into camp about the end of November or the beginning of December, 1917. They told me that they had been employed close up to the lines. They had been employed cutting trees, and had been under our own shellfire. They were half starved and in a terrible condition. On one occasion about 300 came in, about forty of whom had British clothes, the rest being dressed in odds and ends of French and German clothing—in fact, anything they could get hold of. We collected bread for them and cut it up in readiness for their arrival so as to save all possible time, but their hunger was so great they could not help raiding us and fighting for it. It was terrible to see them. I do not think many of them had been wounded, but their condition was so terrible that I cannot describe it.

They were absolutely the worst bunch of men I had ever seen. They were terribly thin and weak, and fell down as soon as they started to eat, as they were in an absolutely exhausted state. Their underclothing was in a dreadful state, and they were covered with vermin, and had been like that for about twelve months. This is the party which I mentioned as coming to the camp about the end of November or the beginning of December, 1917. About a fortnight after their arrival, and after their clothes had been fumigated and they had baths two or three times a week, they picked up wonderfully.

From a fifth camp:

In March, 1917, I saw fifty English prisoners come in to camp who had been working behind the lines near Cambrai digging trenches; they had been there three or four months. All of them were in a shocking condition, absolutely starved, with boils and sores all over them. We used to share our parcels with these men. During the whole time I was in camp—that is, up to December last—men were drifting in who had been working behind the lines on the western front; they always arrived in the same shocking condition. I remember particularly one, in November, 1917, coming back from Cambrai district. He was very bad and starved; he told me they had been very badly treated; all huddled together in barns, no sanitary arrangements, no blankets, and he said he had seen a native woman shot for giving them food; that they were well within range of guns, and within six kilometers of the lines, shells frequently falling about them, and that he had seen many of his own comrades wounded while working, that they were knocked about by their guards, and, generally, his account of their treatment was appalling. To my knowledge from conversation with them, men were coming in who had been working close up behind the lines right down to the time I left Germany in December, 1917.

From an army Chaplain:

On Feb. 16, 1917, there arrived in Minden Hospital sixteen men who had been working behind the western front, attached to Camp E.K. 5. The thermometer registered 10 degrees, Fahrenheit, below zero. They had walked seven kilometers from the station. Their clothing consisted of tunic, trousers, and thin shirt, boots and socks, and an old hat—no coat and no underclothes. They had been two days and two nights in the cold train with very little to eat. * * * Two of these men died later of consumption in Minden. They had all been captured in November (this was February) and their relatives did not know that they were even alive. These men report, too, that they are brutally treated; human life is not worth so much as horseflesh, because the latter can be eaten. They are worked until they either die or so completely collapse that they are useless. I believe this was the first party that arrived from the western front. I had the names of the men in a notebook, but it was taken from me. They said it was nothing to wake up in the morning and find the man sleeping beside you dead. I got the names of several who had died, and wrote to their people to inform them.

Lives Made Unbearable

The committee close these statements with the following striking extract from the evidence of a young wounded British officer who was placed in a ward in a German hospital in France, filled with prisoners of all nationalities:

The German in charge of the ward was a university professor, and, seeing several of our men, also Russians and Rumanians, come on to the hospital in an emaciated condition, I asked him the cause, and where they came from, when, without giving me details, he told me they came from working camps behind the lines. There, he said, the conditions were frightful, so much so that he himself was ashamed of them—the men were overworked, under shellfire, very much underfed, had not much clothing, and slept in sheds and shelters in the snow under filthy conditions. I ascertained from him and from some of our own men that many died behind the lines; all were thoroughly ill-treated by the Germans, and the lives of those who did not die were made quite unbearable.

I am sure the German who informed me had no personal grounds which made him complain against the system, it was merely on humanitarian grounds that he told me he was shocked; and the independent stories I received from our own soldiers simply bore out the fact that the Germans were ill-treating their prisoners behind the lines at this time. While I was in hospital the German I have mentioned above did his best to get the men from the hospital marked unfit for work behind the lines; and I must in fairness add that as a result very few, if any, went back to work there once they had been sent to hospital, and they seemed to be marked for camps in Germany instead.

The report concludes: "The committee in their survey of the evidence dealt with in this report have failed to find a trace even of lip service either to the obligations so solemnly undertaken by the German Government in time of peace for regulating their conduct in time of war or to these principles from their War Book which that Government professed as their own. Further comment appears to the committee to be superfluous. The facts speak for themselves."

---