Stalag Luft IV, an Irishman's experiences

Discussion in 'Prisoners of War' started by dbf, Dec 13, 2009.

  1. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    From The Irish Times, June 6, 1945, a response to comments written by 'Nichevo' a regular columnist in the paper:

    PRISONERS OF WAR
    TO THE EDITOR OF THE IRISH TIMES
    Sir, - Having just returned from a P.O.W. camp in Germany, I read, with interest, Nichevo's remarks on the subject of our treatment. The treatment of P.O.W. is governed by an international agreement, drawn up in Geneva as long ago as 1929, of which the German Government of that day, and later the Nazi Party, were signatories. I have been in three of the four Luftwafffe Stalags, and I have never known a commandant abide by the Geneva Convention.

    Despite the wonderful food parcels sent to us by the Red Cross of Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, British residents in the Argentine and the U.S., I can honestly say we were always hungry, except in the oppressing heat waves of a Continental summer. Later, when transport broke down, parcels did not arrive, and malnutrition reared its ugly head. The Convention lays down that a P.O.W. must be given the same rations as the base troops in the particular district. No soldier could have carried out continuous guard duties on our rations. Here are our rations per head per week:-

    [NB Here I have left the measurements in grammes and omitted those in Imperial weights, as they are illegible and therefore any transcription by myself might be inaccurate. I will attach this part of the article to the post]

    (453 gms. per 1 lb)
    Meat - 200
    Margarine - 140
    Fat - 35 (cooking)
    Bread - 1,500
    Sugar - 140
    Jam - 140
    Cheese - 25
    Coffee (ersatz) - 28
    Potatoes - 3,360
    Veg. - 480 (mostly kohlrabi)
    Barley - 40
    Dehydrated veg. - 48
    Peas - 60
    Wehrmacht soup - 50 (powder)
    Dehyd. sauerkraut - 24

    This was the published issue, but since last July, when I moved to Stalag Luft IV, we rarely drew anything like our full allowance. To analyse the menu is difficult, in so much as it gives rise to the comment from writers like Nichevo that I am prejudiced. However, I am being as honest as I can, and am able to produce several Irishmen as my witnesses.

    The meat was usually horse, and the weight included bones and entrails, etc. Margarine was excellent. Cooking fat I have never drawn. Bread, though at the time it was like cake to me, was made from potato flour, rye, and had to have sawdust to bind it. We supplied our own men to bake at Stalag Luft I, Barth, and they confirmed this. (Names and addresses will be given to Nichevo if required.) Our ration gave us three slices per day - each slice being the size of our pan loaves and about 1/4" thick. Every loaf and every ration was drawn for by cards, and the unlucky "Kriegie" drew a blue-mouldy end or a badly broken 1-7th of a loaf.

    I had carrots (excellent) about four times; otherwise it was kohlrabi or, very occasionally, fresh cabbage. In the winter the kohlrabi was frostbitten, and at all times was unpalatable. Dehydrated vegetable has to be eaten to realise what it is like, but we simply had to use it. Peas were hard, but good. Dehydrated sauerkraut was absolutely uneatable. The wehrmacht soup was excellent and it amounted to about half-a-pint. I have had it about five times in over a year. Barley, though rather tasteless in itself, was very acceptable when one had sugar to spare.

    Even Nichevo will observe the absence of salt. Our ration was negligible, and in the past year has been practically unobtainable. The Canadian and U.S. Red Cross sent salt and pepper mixed, but the Abwehr dept. (run by a Gestapo expert in every camp) would not allow airmen to have pepper or mustard, as they thought we would use it to throw in the eyes of dogs and guards during escape attempts. Anyway, they needed it themselves. Jam was not issued for months, but they gave us a little extra sugar. Ersatz jam is not exactly nectar.

    Potato was our one real luxury. We ate them with most of the skin on and they were not as good as Irish potatoes. In fact, when the frost bite and bad was cut away our ration was pitifully small. For three weeks in January-February we had no bread, and last summer, for quite a while, we had no potatoes, but they did give us an extra slice of bread.

    During the month of March we had not Red Cross parcels, and men fainting from hunger was a daily occurrence. I put on over a stone in five weeks when the Red Cross supplies and later the Red Army arrived. A Dublin friend of mine lost two stone in a few months (name and address available for Nichevo).

    As to physical maltreatment. Hundreds of our boys have been shot or hanged on bailing out, and, generally speaking, American boys received even worse treatment. I have been clubbed wand bitten by dogs, but I was lucky throughout. I will just cite one instance of the low depths to which that despicable race can go. On arrival at Stalag Luft IV on Thursday, July 20th, 1944, we were subjected to a rigid search by Gestapo agents.

    There was a little chap beside me who had sewn an English pound note in the seam of his trousers; when it was discovered two of them set about him. They pulled a little gold chain and crucifix from his neck and stamped it to pieces. They removed a photo of his mother and sister, rubbed it on certain parts of their anatomy which they bared, spat on it, and then threw it in a corner. Having beaten him up they allowed him to go through to the compound in a shirt, underpants, a pair of socks and shoes. And he was not a "Terrorflieger," he was a medical orderly (name and address supplied to Nichevo).

    However, the really bad treatment was not so much our lot as that of the Poles and Russians. I wish I had the ability of Nichevo, and then I would describe adequately the sights I witnessed in January and February, when the evacuation of P.O.W.s from East and West Prussia was under way. It was a tragic spectacle.

    It may interest your readers to know that in 1944 all soldiers who had given addresses in Eire were collected in one camp. They were asked to join the "German Free Corps" to fight against Russia. Be it said to their everlasting credit and loyalty not one of them succumbed to the attractive, if transitory, blandishments. Their subsequent treatment was not a credit to "Deutsche Kultur."

    I had the privilege of circling Hamburg and Bremen on my way home, and it was an ample consolation for losing so much of my life behind barbed wire. Unfortunately Deutsch thoroughness ensured that the air raid shelters were most efficacious. If this had not been the case then I would agree with Denis Johnson that there were a great many "good" Germans. Perhaps the Allies will ensure that no P.O.W. of the Wehrmacht will return to their womenfolk for some ten or twelve years. In the meantime it might be interesting to follow up a "Deutsche Kultur" experiment. They fed some Polish officers exclusively on barley for a protracted period to find out if it produced sterility. I have never heard the result of the experiment, but it was not the kind of treatment which the Geneva Convention guaranteed to P.O.W.s.
    -Yours etc.,
    "MOLOCH."
    Co. Wicklow,
    May 30th, 1945.
     

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