The Königsbrück POW Camp, Soldiers at Ease

 

Most of the men walked there.

Those that couldn't walk
got a ride.

And those men from further away

came by train.

And for the next 4 years
this would be their home.

It was the time of the Great War
and these men were enemy soldiers
who had been captured on the battlefield.
They came from France, Russia,
Belgium, Britain, and Serbia.
Now they were in the heart of Germany.

They had arrived at
the Königsbrück Prisoner of War Camp. 

It was only the end of August 1914. 
They were removed from combat
but they now had a lot of free time on their hands. 

The first photo postcard shows French troops guarded by German soldiers marching along a dusty road. It was captioned Königsbrück, Ankunft der Kriegsgefangen ~ Königsbrück, Arrival of prisoners of war. The date was 28/8/1914, just 26 days after the first military action on the Western Front, a small skirmish at Joncherey, a commune on the border in the Territoire de Belfort. It was also only three weeks after the start of the Battles of the Frontiers on 7 August 1914 when a massive German force overwhelmed Belgium and Luxembourg and invaded France with a goal of crushing its capital Paris. The only resistance came from the French 5th Army and the smaller British Expeditionary Force. 

In this first month of World War One the battles were about rapid maneuver, unlike the static trench warfare that would later dominate most of the war on the Western Front. Over 30 days the German army suffered nearly 300,000 casualties while the French sustained 330,000 and the British 30,000. Both sides also captured thousands of enemy soldiers and immediately began sending them to  internment camps far back from the frontlines. 

The prison camp at Königsbrück, a small town in the eastern German state of Saxony, was just one of over 175 POW camps that Germany established during the war. By November 1918 there were over 2.4 million men held prisoner in Germany. 

The captured French, Belgians, and British soldiers came from the west, probably traveling most of the way on the same trains that had taken German troops westward for the invasion. The distance from the first battles along the French-Belgian border is about 440 miles from Königsbrück.

The captured Russians came from the east, transported along the railway lines that connected Prussia to eastern Europe. The German and Austrian-Hungarian rail networks had 32 routes that went to the Russian border with 14 having two-lane tracks. Russia had only 13 lines headed west with just 8 available for two-way traffic. This greatly hindered the mobilization of its armies delaying a full deployment of Russian troops by a month or more. 

During the Battle of Tannenberg, 23–30 August 1914, the German Eighth Army practically destroyed the Russian First Army in a great victory that strengthened German resolve to continue the war. The German army took only 13,873 casualties at Tannenberg but the Russians lost 30,000 – 78,000 soldiers killed or wounded and 92,000 taken prisoner. The Russian defeat severely crippled its army which ultimately led to its capitulation later in 1917. It is roughly 350 miles from that region, now in Poland, to Königsbrück.

Königsbrück is about 27 km (17 mi) northeast of the Saxon capital Dresden, and 114 km (71 mi) east of Leipzig, two major centers for German culture, music, and art. When the war began the town's population was only a few thousand, maybe less, but nearby was a large military base used for army training by the XII (1st Royal Saxon) Corps. As German forces advanced east and west and more enemy soldiers were being apprehended the troop barracks of this base were converted into a detention camp for French and Belgian soldiers. Within a year it would intern more than 15,000 men including many Russian and Serbian soldiers. 

This picturesque view of Königsbrück likely was produced before the war for German soldiers stationed there, but in October 1916 it was used by a French soldier to send a message home about the address of his new posting.   

Some years ago I discovered several photo postcards of large Sandplastik sculptures made by the soldiers held at the Königsbrück POW camp. I featured them in my story Art in a Time of War. 

I also found several postcards of the camp's orchestras and theater productions. As one thing led to another, I began to recognize that the photographers of the Königsbrück POW camp were very prolific and recorded a wider range of subjects than any other camp. So I began to collect these photos and now, after several years, have acquired hundreds of photos that depict the captive soldiers and their activities in the Königsbrück camp. I've previously written about some of them in The Prisoners of Königsbrück and Monument to the Fallen, Königsbrück 1918. 

My collection is far too big for just one story so I'm going to break it into parts. Today I will begin with pictures of soldiers at ease, resting and enjoying some light recreation by sitting down to table with their comrades. Or just standing around, goofing off for the camera.

This photo shows one of the barrack lanes in the Königsbrück camp filled with a crowd of soldiers. French, Belgian, and British soldiers were housed in a section separate from the Russians and Serbians. This was likely because of the challenge of maintaining good order between men who spoke and wrote in different languages. Though all POWs remained soldiers and were obliged to obey orders, ordinary military rules were suspended in favor of those of their captors. However in this photo there is a mix of French and Russian uniforms so evidently the men were free to move around the whole camp.

The back of the postcard has a distinctive printed format as a Kriegsgefangensendung or Prisoner of War Letter from Königsbrück. This makes it easy to confirm that a photo came from this particular camp. It has a stamped date of 13 Août (August) 1915 and was sent to someone in Dejon, France, the center of fine French mustard. The spaces for the prisoner's name and barrack number were a way for the German postal censors to monitor prisoner's mail.

In this photo a group of seven French soldiers sit around a crudely-made low table for a simple meal. I think it is inside a barrack room. One man reads a thin magazine. This wasn't a spontaneous snapshot as the men appear distracted from each other, probably instructed to look away from the camera flash. Since all enemy soldiers were taken captive during a battle, they usually had only the uniforms the wore and the contents of their haversacks with maybe a blanket bedroll. Anything else had to be acquired in camp, either issued through the German camp authorities or bought using barter or camp scrip.

Here another group sit at a table and read. Hanging on the barrack wall behind them are several backpacks and cases. The photographer numbered the photo 3424 which implies there were many photos taken before this one. As postcards were a simple and efficient way for a soldier to communicate with his family, the Königsbrück camp may have commissioned one of the prisoners to take these photos. The images would both appeal to soldiers and, at the same time, work as propaganda to convey the impression that the POWs were being treated well.

This card was sent to Dejon by the same French soldier who sent the barrack street photo. I presume he is in this group but I think the name he has written on the bottom is that of a comrade. 

Card games have always been a favorite activity of soldiers since probably forever. Here a quartet of men play a game while a comrade watches from a bunk bed. There's no betting but the soldier on the left is keeping score. It's interesting to see coffee mugs hanging from pegs on the wall and an electric lamp is on the table. Penciled on the top right is Décembre 1915.

Board games were another way that soldiers could endure the interminable dullness of camp life, and here two men play a game of checkers, being closely followed by most of their comrades. A message in French is written on the photo along with place and date, Königsbrück 9 Mars 1917. 

Now reader can play a game too. Can you spot the differences between this photo and the previous one?  They were both taken at the same place in the same barrack but at least one year apart. Any message on the front of the 1915 card would probably have been verboten and rejected by the censors, but by 1917 the rules seem to have relaxed a bit. 

Here a larger game of cards is played outdoors at a table. The Königsbrück camp was intended for enlisted and noncommissioned ranks and their uniforms often provide clues to the soldiers' units. But over time wardrobes wore out and were often replaced with an assortment of hats, garments, and footwear not found in military handbooks.  

The enemy prisoners held in Germany were entitled to send and receive letters and parcels. This photo shows either a mailroom or a soldiers' library as these men seem intent on some serious correspondence. I'm not certain about the logistics of the POW camps' postal service. I presume it was conducted using a neutral country like Switzerland, Denmark, or Sweden. It seems likely though that there was a long delay. Most of the personal messages are carefully dated and refer to  recent letters to reassure correspondents that letters and parcels were received.   

A group photo was a popular style of photo for POWs. This one looks like a party as it includes a man seated on the floor playing a mandolin. Just to the right is a man at a table showing us his  winning hand of cards. It has two aces and I think it's a full house which is appropriate for the 42 men of this barrack. 

            

I finish with a colorized photo postcard from Königsbrück of a small group of French, English, and Turko (Algerian) prisoners of war and their two German guards. This style of postcard was produced for the domestic market and was sent by a German soldier on 3 January 1916. It would be nearly three more years before these men could return home to their families.

What I like about these photos is that we see individual men and not faceless masses of marching soldiers. The men were granted salvation from the hell of warfare but condemned to a purgatory that was both a prison and something like a holiday resort. Though there is an element of propaganda in the images, I don't think this was overt disinformation or political promotion of a false narrative. As I hope to demonstrate, the prisoners at Königsbrück had freedom within the camp that was unusually liberal for this era. It raises a lot of questions for which I have not yet found answers, but I think the pictures do tell a good story.

Next weekend is theatre night at the Königsbrück POW camp.
Mark the date! You'll not want to miss this show.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where tea and cake always sounds nice.