I have not seen any WW2 prison guards here on the forum... and it is not likely that civilians would be allowed close approach to the perimeter. Do a YouTube Video and British Pathe Search for ww2 german pow camp. I have seen one British camp film where large numbers of POW's were standing right along the only (0uter) fence line looking out, though that might have been just for the benefit of the film crew. In American film clips you can see they were lined up on parade right up to the fence line. That's not to say they were allowed that close on free time though. "The terms of the Geneva Convention stipulated that prisoners of war should not be forced to work while in captivity. However, given the choice, many German prisoners of war chose to work rather than sit around the camp doing nothing. Those that chose to worked on farms - harvesting, digging ditches or repairing fences, in the construction industry - rebuilding homes damaged by bombing, or clearing bomb damage." http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/dixie/921/PoWs/pows.htm
Many thanks, Fred. I, too, have seen pictures of the German POWs right up to the fence line, and thought that security must have been tighter than that. But perhaps not.
The Geneva protocols on PoWs were mainly concerned with their humane treatment (housing, food, access to medical treatment, Red Cross aid, etc.) and were mostly silent on what security measures were to be used to keep them captive. Until the mass surrender of the Italian 10th Army in February 1941 the British held only a few hundred PoWs, mostly Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel, whereas the Germans held hundreds of thousands, mostly Poles, but also Belgians, Dutch, Norwegians, French and British (Though to be accurate the Germans never treated their Polish captives as PoWs, the Poles were Slavic untermenschen and were kept in the SS-run KZ system and not in camps run by the OKW. Only occasionally did the Germans allow the Red Cross to inspect the Polish camps, and only the "Potemkin" camps kept reasonably comfortable for that purpose.) Through the fall of 1940 the Germans established a parole system whereby many Belgian, Dutch Norwegian and French PoWs could be repatriated (Sometimes they were "repatriated" right into the German labor service!) which left the Wehrmacht's PoW camp system holding about 6000 mostly British prisoners by the spring of 1941. (And about 300,000 Poles, but they were mostly in SS labor camps and weren't the concern of the Wehrmacht.) Officers were segregated from the enlisted ranks and more closely guarded. (The Germans believed that officers were more intelligent and resourceful than enlisted soldiers, and therefore would need special measures to hold them. Actually their idea wasn't borne out by events at least in the case of British, and later American enlisted PoWs, who turned out to be just as rebellious and troublesome as their officers, though they didn't try escapes as often as they usually didn't have the language skills their better-educated officers sometimes had.) The Germans were confronted by manpower problems from the outset. They had a lot of prisoners and needed security measures that reduced the need for human guards. Consequently a typical German PoW camp had two perimeter fences, one within the other, and three meters high. The space between the fences sometimes had dog patrols. A so-called warning wire was strung at knee-level about three meters inside the inner perimeter to indicate that prisoners were not allowed to approach the fence, to cross the warning wire might get you a beating or even a bullet. The German also erected several "goon towers" to increase the effectiveness of their relatively small guard force. The British were much more ad hoc in their approach to the question of holding PoWs, and at first depended on the fact that England is an island to keep their captive Germans secure. Troublesome captives were made to understand that if they persisted in their nefarious behavior His Majesty's government would have no choice but relocate them to a PoW lockup in some exotic territory like Labrador or Saskatchewan. The idea of leaving England's green and pleasant land for the wilds of Canada was usually effective. The British netted their first really big load of prisoners in the Western Desert campaign, 130,000 Italians in one haul. The Italians were cooperative and the British found them more likely to fraternize with their captors than attempt escape or subversion. (The closest they came to subversion was to try and muscle their way into British chow lines.) A single strand of barbed wire and a Tommy every hundred paces with a fixed bayonet was sufficient to keep the Italians under control while they were held in Egypt. In 1943 the bulk of the Italian PoWs taken in North Africa were sent to the US and Canada where they worked in chiefly in agriculture. Again only minimal security was required or exercised. The only big problem created by the Italians was after Italy surrendered and a repatriation program was announced. Many of these men had dreamt of emigrating to North America all their lives, and now that they might lose the opportunity prompted escape attempts. German prisoners were also shipped to North American camps, but securing their captivity was considerably harder, not that they posed an escape hazard (though there were a few notable escapes) but because the Germans insisted on their right to keep their own military discipline within the camps. In trying to meet their treaty obligations the Americans and Canadians had to turn a blind eye on a few really horrendous incidents of savage punishments and even murders committed against German PoWs who wavered in their Nazi fervor. One highly successful escape was prompted by such brutality in the camps, the escapee made it to Chicago from a camp in Nebraska where he opened a bookshop. He even filed a tax return and got a refund! Another German PoW stayed at large for 41 years.
There is an old Italain POW camp about a mile or so away from were I live, South Lane, Bold in between Widnes and Penketh.
There is one funny story here in Montana concerning our Italian POWs (we only had a few), as well the non-military Italian nationals who were interred at Ft. Missoula which made up the bulk of the detainees. The Italians all referred to Fort Missoula as Camp Bella Vista largely due to its beautiful mountain scenery and lush green valley. The Italians cooked for themselves in a fully stocked and supplied kitchen. They not only had no ration limitations on their food supplies (much to the envy of the local populace) they volunteered to work on area farms, fight forest fires and did other local labor for extra spending money. But back to the one funny incident, they had a number of highly talented chefs in their midst and one of them was outraged when it was found that he would have to use butter instead of olive oil for some of his dishes. We in Montana don’t grow olives, and olive oil would have to be imported from other states, too much trouble apparently. I At any rate, in frustration he slapped the local producer who delivered butter when he demanded olive oil, and the local man struck him with a fist. This degenerated into a general brawl, and the commander of the camp; fearing it could become a riot called the local sheriffs office for armed support. When the local deputies came screaming into camp with sirens blasting and lights flashing, one of them accidentally ignited a smoke grenade in the back seat of his patrol car, and in the ensuing excitement a guard in a watch tower discharged his rifle, shooting himself in the foot. Our only "camp injury" in Montana to a uniformed guard during WW2 was self-inflicted.
A few camps arround here...One original building still stands next to some of my sheep in South Littleton. The Italians and some Germans never just got close to the fences round here..They walked out and helped on the land.
Here's an interesting story of an atempted escape from a POW camp near my home in eastern Canada. The article describes the camp security also. My grandfather recalled that they rarly saw the POW's and you were not allow to stop on the adjcent highway that passes by the camp. Little remains of the camp except a small museum in the Village of Minto, New Brunswick. Operation Elster J_S
In fact CPL Punishment, one special camp for hardline Nazis was situated at Cultybraggan in Perthshire Scotland (although you seem to be under the mistaken impression that only ''England'' was involved among the four countries making up the United Kingdom in World War Two.) The Cultybraggan camp in Perthshire housed the hardest line S.S. types -who were not sent to Saskatchewan Canada. In fact , one of the great stories re Nazi Pows in a British POW CAMP relates to Cultybraggan because one of the former inmates who arrived in Cultybraggan a hardline fanatical S.S. Nazi -by his own admission- was all over the pages of the Scottish press not too long ago after he announced that he had left his house in Western Germany and his whole estate to the people of Cultybraggan -whose kindness turned him into a huge fan of the local Perthshire people. I don't recall any British inmates of Colditz doing identically this for local German residents around Colditz. post-war. On the original question- I'm (just) old enough to remember accompanying my mother in early 1945 to give German POWS working out in the streets of my local Edinburgh neighbourhood small gifts. My mother would approach the Sten gun toting British guard , ask for his permission to hand a German POW her gift and once prmission was givengive the German POW his small gift No fences anywhere in view at all. In fact, the scene I describe was in busy Dalry Road in the Scottish capital where-alas!- some 60 years later Fulham and England inside forward soccer great, Johhny Haynes, would die at the wheel of the van that he was driving from a heart attack.
There are many references to the 1945 breakout from Bridgend camp in Glamorgan being the German "Great Escape", but in actual fact 97 Italian prisoners escaped fron Doonfoot camp in Ayr, Scotland on 16th December 1944. Many only did so in protest at loss of some privileges, but a couple did genuinely try to reach the nearest port and get to neutral Eire.
There's a really fascinating place close to where I live in County Durham called Harperley POW camp. It was open to the public but ran into financial problems and closed. Last I heard it was up for sale - Prison camp used in World War Two goes on sale... on eBay | Mail Online Shall we all start a collection ;-)
The Italians do seem to have preferred prison camps. There is an excellent working museum at Malton in North Yorkshire which was opened after the Italian ex-prisoners approached the owner and asked to stage a reunion. the museum has gone from strengh to strengh and I can recommend it - my grandkids loved it. Apparently the Italians were much in demand from the local ladies being a lot better looking than the average scruffy yorkshire squaddy.
Yes, there are quite a few stories of some of the PoWs being over amorous! Mark, Harperley was recently the recipient of a finacial rescue bid- http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-today/54476-durham-pow-camp-rescued.html
For reasons unknown----forgive me but I ended up with two posts after trying to edit one........so this posting is just to say I deleted this one so as not to make you re-read my mistakes...sorry ......I don't know how to delete a post.
I live near Fort Wingate Army depot and like to read about this historic location which is not always easy material to find as it dates back to the time of Kit Carson who is not a hero of a great segment of the local population. However my interest in the depot is stirred from pictures I have seen of a field of white tents that are extremely large in size across the fields. In some accounts some 4000 prisoners were kept here during the Pancho Villa era of border problems. However, in other accounts this large group was here for "safekeeping" for fear they would be punished by certain rulers in Mexico. I suspect there may be some truth to both counts but if you can confirm one way or the other I would enjoy knowing about that. Or perhaps you may have read a source more authoritative that you can present this prisoner information on...... would be a help. There is a cave also in this area but is off of the depot and unavailable to the public where Kit Carson may have also kept captives and horses at times. I am curious about the "prisoner" stories from both locations. You can leave out the "amorous" accounts as I would not like my "literature created view" to be cluttered with an F troop version of through the chain link fence "expressions of affection". I only saw "tents" in the pictures I was looking at. That is description enough.
