Wartime Captivity in the 20th Century: Archives, Stories, Memories 9781785332593

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Wartime Captivity in the Twentieth Century

Studies in Contemporary European History Editors: Konrad Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Director of the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Studien, Potsdam, Germany Henry Rousso, Senior Fellow at the Institut d’histoire du temps présent, CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris) Volume 1 Between Utopia and Disillu­ sionment: A Narrative of the Political Transformation in Eastern Europe Henri Vogt Volume 2 The Inverted Mirror: Mythol­ ogizing the Enemy in France and Germany, 1898–1914 Michael E. Nolan Volume 3 Conflicted Memories: ­Europe­anizing ­Contemporary Histories Edited by Konrad H. Jarausch and Thomas Lindenberger with the Collaboration of Annelie Ramsbrock Volume 4 Playing Politics with ­History: The Bundestag Inquiries into East Germany Andrew H. Beattie Volume 5 Alsace to the Alsatians? Vi­ sions and Divisions of Alsa­ tian Regionalism, 1870–1939 Christopher J. Fischer Volume 6 A European Memory? Con­ tested Histories and Politics of Remembrance Edited by Małgorzata Pakier and Bo Stråth Volume 7 Experience and Memory: The Second World War in Europe Edited by Jörg Echternkamp and Stefan Martens

Volume 8 Children, Families, and States: Time Policies of Child­ care, Preschool, and Primary Education in Europe Edited by Karen Hagemann, Konrad H. Jarausch, and Cristina Allemann-Ghionda Volume 9 Social Policy in the Smaller European Union States Edited by Gary B. Cohen, Ben W. Ansell, Robert Henry Cox, and Jane Gingrich

Volume 14 Shaping the Transnational Sphere: Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s Edited by Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel Volume 15 Tailoring Truth: Politicizing the Past and Negotiating Memory in East Germany, 1945–1990 Jon Berndt Olsen

Volume 10 A State of Peace in Europe: West Germany and the CSCE, 1966–1975 Petri Hakkarainen

Volume 16 Memory and Change in Eu­ rope: Eastern Perspectives Edited by Małgorzata Pakier and Joanna Wawrzyniak

Volume 11 Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–1990 Edited by Frederic Bozo, Marie-Pierre Rey, N. Piers Ludlow, and Bernd Rother

Volume 17 The Long Aftermath: Cultural Legacies of Europe at War, 1936–Present Edited by Manuel Bragança and Peter Tame

Volume 12 Investigating Srebrenica: Institutions, Facts, Responsibilities Edited by Isabelle Delpla, Xavier Bougarel, and JeanLouis Fournel

Volume 18 Whose Memory? Which Fu­ ture? Remembering Ethnic Cleansing and Lost Cultural Diversity in East, Central, and East-South Europe Edited by Barbara Törnquist-Plewa

Volume 13 Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism Edited by Friederike KindKovacs and Jessie Labov

Volume 19 Wartime Captivity in the Twentieth Century: Ar­ chives, Stories, Memories Edited by Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis

Wartime Captivity in the Twentieth Century Archives, Stories, Memories

( Edited by

Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis Translation by

Helen McPhail

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Published in 2016 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com English-language edition © 2016 Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis Original title: La captivité de guerre au XXe siècle: des archives, des histoires, des mémoires Anne-Marie Pathé, Fabien Théofilakis © ARMAND-COLIN, Paris, 2012 ARMAND-COLIN is a trademark of DUNOD Editeur 5, rue Laromiguière – 75005 PARIS All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. The publication of this book was made possible by the following:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pathe, Anne-Marie, author. | Theofilakis, Fabien, author. | McPhail, Helen, translator. Title: Wartime captivity in the twentieth century : archives, stories, memories / edited by Anne-Marie Pathe and Fabien Theofilakis, translation by Helen McPhail. Other Titles: Captivite de guerre au XXe siecle. English Description: First edition. | New York : Berghahn Books, [2016] | Series: Studies in contemporary European history | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016024961 (print) | LCCN 2016027468 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785332586 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781785332593 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Prisoners of war--History--20th century. | Prisons and prisoners--History--20th century. | World War, 1914-1918--Prisoners and prisons. | World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons. Classification: LCC UB800 .C37 2016 (print) | LCC UB800 (ebook) | DDC 355.1/13--dc23 LC record available at hnps://lccn.loc.gov/2016024961

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78533-258-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78533-259-3 (ebook)

Contents

( List of Figures

ix

Acknowledgements

x

List of Abbreviations Editors’ Introduction. Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century: A Problematic at the Crossroads of Histories and Disciplines Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis Introduction. Wartime Imprisonment in the Twentieth Century John Horne

xii 1 13

Part I.  Camp Systems, International Law And Humanitarian Action Introduction Jörg Echternkamp Chapter 1 International Law and Western Front Prisoners in the First World War Heather Jones Chapter 2 German Treatment of Jewish Prisoners of War in the Second World War Rüdiger Overmans

25

30

45

vi | Contents

Chapter 3 ‘All Things Are Possible For Him Who Believes’ (Mark 9:23): The Regulation of Religious Life in Prisoner of War Camps in the Second World War Delphine Debons Chapter 4 From Allies to Enemies: Prisoners of the Third Reich in Italy – The Case of the Rimini Enclave, 1945–1947 Patrizia Dogliani Chapter 5 The Other Point of View . . . The Lawyer Jean-Paul Pancracio

54

65

74

Part II:  Languages of Captivity: Bodies and Minds Behind the Barbed Wire Introduction Annette Becker Chapter 6   Liminality and Transgression: Breaching Social Boundaries in First World War Internment Camps Iris Rachamimov Chapter 7   Half-naked Nazis: Masculinity and Gender in German POW Camps in the United States during the Second World War Matthias Reiss

79

84

95

Chapter 8   Fernand Braudel as Prisoner in Germany: Confronting the Long Term and the Present Time 103 Peter Schöttler Chapter 9   ‘The Trio is Growing like a Piece of Asparagus’: Hans Gál and the Trio of the ‘Huyton Suite’ Suzanne Snizek

115

Contents | vii

Chapter 10 The Other Point of View . . . The Ethnologist. The Internment of Spanish Republicans in French Camps: The Ethnologist Caught in the Net of Memory Véronique Moulinié

127

Part III:  Relations Between Captivity and Society: From Capture to Liberation Introduction. Beyond the Wire: Interactions between Prison Camps and their Surrounding Communities Felicia Yap

137

Chapter 11 Perceptions of Axis Captives in the British Isles, 1939–1948 Bob Moore

141

Chapter 12 ‘Voluntary’ Captivity: Russian Prisoners of War in Switzerland, 1942–1945 Georg Kreis Chapter 13 ‘Rodolph – How Nice He Is!’ Contact between German Prisoners of War and French Civilians, 1944–1948 Fabien Théofilakis Chapter 14 The Other Point of View . . . The Sociologist. The Boundaries between Friends and Foes Stéphane Dufoix

153

163

177

Part IV:  Captivity and Colonial Issues: The French Example Introduction Pierre Journoud Chapter 15 Wartime Internment of Algerians in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: For a History of Forms of Captivity in the Long Term Sylvie Thénault

183

189

viii | Contents

Chapter 16 Helping ‘Our’ Prisoners: Philanthropic Mobilization for French Colonial Prisoners of War, 1940–1942 Sarah Ann Frank Chapter 17 French Guards for French Colonial Prisoners of War in German Captivity, 1943–1944: An Anomaly in International Affairs Raffael Scheck Chapter 18 Why Release the Prisoners? The Algerian Army of National Liberation Raphaëlle Branche Chapter 19 The Other Point of View . . . The Doctor. Armed Conflict and Captivity: Aspects of Change between the Twentieth and the Twenty-first Centuries Jérôme Larché

199

213

228

240

Part V:  Captivity in Wartime: From One Century to Another Chapter 20 Round Table Discussion Hervé Drévillon Christophe Bouton Michel Goya Daniel Palmieri

257

By Way of Conclusion Henry Rousso

273

Bibliography

283

Index

317

Figures

( Figure 4.1 The Rimini Enclave on the Adriatic coast seen by the German prisoners Figure 6.1 ‘When We Get Home’ Figure 9.1 Hans Gál and the formation of the Edinburgh Madrigal Society, March 1940 Figure 9.2 Hans Gál and his daughter Eva in front of their flat in Edinburgh Figure 13.1 German prisoners of war in Savoie (1945–1948) Figure 18.1 Politico-military areas and location of ALN units, 1 October 1958

66 86 116 117 169 230

Acknowledgements

( This English edition is greatly indebted to its contributors, who have reviewed their texts, brought their bibliographies up to date since the French edition in 2012 and read and approved the translations. We extend our warm thanks to them for their time and help in this work. Our grat­ itude is also due to those who worked so hard and fruitfully for the success of the international conference in November 2011, where this pub­ lication originated. Their contribution lies beyond formal acknowledge­ ment: the photographer Edmund Clark and his work on Guantanamo (2010); the musicians – Mehri Bouraï and Clara Lefèvre – of the orches­ tra Mélo’dix (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre – La Défense) for their performance of the ‘Huyton Suite’ by Hans Gál, conducted by Suzanne Snizek, and its présidente Clémentine Richard. We thank also the actors – Camille Vansimaeys and Vashi Ramessur – for their readings of Georges Mongrédien’s works in captivity (Pathé, Potin and Théofilakis 2010); and the students of the Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre – La Défense (Amaury Bernard, Alban Broquet, Elsa Costes, Christophe Mikovic, Pedro Pereira Barroso, Amandine Robinet, Alexandre Sellem and Léonard Vaillant) who ensured the smooth running of this event. Thanks are also due to Sarah Frank and Deborah Barton for their careful re-readings. We are deeply grateful to all of them. The event of November 2011 and the publications that have followed from it have been made possible through the continuing support of many institutions and teams. We wish in particular to thank the Direction de la Mémoire, du Patrimoine et des Archives at the Ministère de la Défense, especially Laurent Veyssière and Joseph Zimet; the Institut d’histoire du temps présent and its directors Christian Ingrao and Christian Delage; the Institut universitaire de France and the Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre – La Défense, through to the unfailing engagement and support of Professor Annette Becker; the European research group EURHISTXX

Acknowledgements | xi

directed by Henry Rousso (IHTP – CNRS); the Centre national de la recherche scientifique; the Institut de recherche stratégique at the Ecole militaire and Hervé Drévillon, then Director of the section ‘Histoire de la défense et de l’armement’; the Etablissement Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense, its director Isabelle Gougenheim and the former head of the Archives section Violaine Challéat-Fonck; and the Centre national du livre for its support of the English translation. In 2012 the publishers Armand Colin (Paris) honoured us with the publication of the French edition in their ‘Recherches’ collection. For the English edition we wish to thank Berghahn Books for including it in their series ‘Contemporary European History’, and also Helen McPhail for her care in undertaking the English translation. Anne-Marie Pathé Fabien Théofilakis

Abbreviations

Abbreviations

( ACOE AD AGPG AICRC ALN AN ANAPI ANOM BARch BAVCC BBC BDIC CCAPG CCE CIMIC CMI CMO

Archives du Conseil oecuménique des Eglises/Archives of the Oecumenical Churches Council Archives départementales/Departmental Archives Aumônerie générale des prisonniers de guerre/French General Charitable Care for Prisoners of War Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross Armée de libération nationale algérienne/Algerian National Liberation Army Archives nationales/National Archives of France Association nationale des anciens prisonniers et internés d’Indochine/National Association for Former Prisoners and Internees in Indochina Archives nationales d’outre-mer/National Overseas Archives Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archives Bureau des archives des victimes des conflits contemporains/Archives Centre for the Victims of Contemporary Conflicts British Broadcasting Corporation Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine/Library of Contemporary International Documentation Comité central d’assistance aux prisonniers de guerre/ Central Committee of Assistance to Prisoners of War Comité de coordination et d’exécution/Committee for Coordination and Action Civil-Military Cooperation Centre militaire d’internés/Military Centres for Internees Civil-military operations

Abbreviations | xiii

CNAEF CNRS CPOW DEFs DGPG DIH DoD DRV DSPG EJPD EUFOR FARC FLN FRC FU GARAE GPRA GWOT ICRC IHTP ILA JO MAE MBF MCDA MI5 MOI MT NARA

Centre national des archives de l’Eglise de France/National Archives Centre for the Churches of France Centre national de la recherche scientifique/National Centre for Scientific Research Colonial prisoner of war Disarmed Enemy Forces Direction générale des prisonniers de guerre/Central office for prisoners of war Droit international humanitaire/International Humanitarian Law (IHL) American Department of Defence Democratic Republic of Vietnam Direction des services des prisonniers de guerre/Central Services Office for Prisoners of War Eidgenössisches Kriegskommissariat für Internierung und Hospitalisierung/Confederal Commission for Internment and Hospitalization European Union Force Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Front de libération nationale/National Liberation Front French Red Cross French Union Groupe audois de recherche et d’animation ethnologique/ Aude Group for Research and Ethnological Animation Gouvernement provisoire de la République algérienne/ Provisional Government of the Republic of Algeria (U.S.) Great War on Terrorism International Committee of the Red Cross Institut d’histoire du temps présent/Institute for the history of modern times International Law Association Journal officiel Ministère des Affaires étrangères/Ministry for Foreign Affairs Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich/Military Commander in France British Military and Civil Defence Assets Military Intelligence, Section 5 Main-d’oeuvre indigène/Indigenous Worker Programme Ministère du Travail/Ministry of Labour National Archives and Records Administration (Washington D.C.)

xiv | Abbreviations

NATO NCO NGO NSDAP OFALAC OKW ONLF PAV PCA PG PMSC POW PRO PRTs PWE RAF RG SDPG SEP SFHOM SHD STO TNA WWI WWII YMCA

North Atlantic Treaty Organization Non-commissioned officers Non-governmental organization The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) Economic and tourist office for the Government General of Algeria Oberkommando der Wehrmacht/Supreme Command of the Armed Forces Front national de libération de l’Ogaden/Ogaden National Liberation Front People’s Army of Vietnam Parti communiste algérien/Algerian Communist Party Prisonniers de guerre/ Prisoners of war Private Military and Security Company Prisoner of War Public Record Office (British) Provincial Reconstruction Teams Prisoner of War Enclosures Royal Air Force Record Group Service diplomatique des prisonniers de guerre/Diplomatic Service for the Prisoners of War Surrendered Enemy Personnel Societé française d’histoire d’outre-mer/Society of French Overseas History Service historique de la Défense/Archives of the Department of the History of Defence Service du travail obligatoire/Forced labour service The National Archives, London First World War Second World War Young Men’s Christian Association

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century

A Problematic at the Crossroads of Histories and Disciplines

( Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis

Good stories often start in old boxes, with the lid more or less firmly stuck down, full of papers turning yellow with age: as the German historian and theoretician Reinhart Koselleck reminds us, the researcher remains subject to the ‘right of veto over sources’, and the revival of the historiog­ raphy of captivity that underlies this work is no exception. But we must go back to the sources . . . On that gloomy November day in 2007 we were very far from imagin­ ing that we were embarking on an adventure, with the publication of this book as its ultimate conclusion and happy ending. In the course of that autumn afternoon, Jean Mongrédien,1 the son of a French prisoner who had spent his five years of war in an Oflag,2 was awaited in the library of the Institut d’histoire du temps présent, in Paris.3 He was carrying a little brown cardboard attaché case, a relic from another time – that of his father’s captivity: Georges Mongrédien, an officer in the reserve, was in civilian life a senior administrator of public affairs in Paris (he was the codirector of secretariats for the City Council and for the General Council for the Seine department) – and also a well-known specialist in the history of literary life in the seventeenth century.4 Opening the little case was magical. It proved to be the casket for a real ‘treasure trove’ of archives that awaited us. Side by side, carefully arranged and scrupulously preserved, were some fifteen little notebooks full of care­ ful handwriting, twenty bundles of personal reflections – ‘family chats’ – with photographs, a quantity of programmes from cultural events, menus from feast days, right down to a packet containing a literary prize. All

2 | Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis

these documents with their fine calligraphy and illustrations lit up the dreary afternoon and shed new light on French captivity in German hands. From his mobilization, Captain Mongrédien had been very conscious of living through a dramatic event and, as a man of letters, felt that he must preserve the details of this ‘strange defeat’, which had tipped him into the unknown world of captivity. As he wrote in his diary: 27 August 19405  . . . I am not hiding the fact that these notes, with minor material facts side by side with personal impressions and reflections, may be disorganized and incoherent. That does not worry me; I have three aims: 1, to make a chrono­ logical record, scrupulous and precise, of the material facts that make up our daily life; 2, if possible, to build up a complete documentation with a view to future publication, memoirs or souvenirs which will then require preparation in full; 3, finally, and above all, to enable me to reawaken my daily impres­ sions later, and to bring understanding to those of my nearest and dearest who are interested.6

Sixty years after his repatriation, deposited in the archives of the IHTP (Institute for the history of modern times), the Mongrédien archive was born. Its impressive totality provided a view of the full diversity of captiv­ ity, as an experience that was individual but also collective; as a trauma that was military as well as political; as an ordeal that was simultaneously social and cultural. Two archivists and a historian set out to make this voice from OPG 23657 resound in a publication, Archives d’une captivité, 1939–1945. L’évasion littéraire du capitaine Mongrédien (2010). As the explora­ tion of these files advanced, re-echoing their own work,8 the idea to try to understand this state of captivity as it had been experienced – as a totality, as a transnational history – came to life. This determination to set the state of captivity in the foreground in lectures and representations coincided with historical concerns that were moving the figure of the defeated individual from the rear of the battle­ fields to the forefront of research. Following an international conference at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, 17–18 November 2011, this work on war cap­ tivity in the twentieth century thus takes its place in a historiographical renewal that no longer forgets the prisoners. For more than a dozen years now, the history of captivity has benefited from a double dynamic: on one hand, the crisis in national narratives, little inclined to take into account those who were conquered, turning instead to international histories that look at side issues of the battlefields – and, on the other hand, the growing interest in the exits from war, which locate the prisoner-figure at the heart of the dynamics of demobilization – military and cultural, political and ideological, public and private.

Editors’ Introduction | 3

This book aims to take up a thematic challenge, to attempt a ‘total his­ tory’ of war captivity not through exhaustivity but in taking care not to isolate ‘captivity’ as part of military history (which itself is not restricted to the battlefields: on the contrary it is considered through a range of approaches – thematic, methodological, historiographical, archival, etc.). This approach takes into account the specificity of the experience of cap­ tivity while exploring its capacity to reveal dynamics at work in twentieth-­ century European societies. It is an essential step, if only in concern for intelligibility over a phenomenon previously unknown on this scale: although the wars of the nineteenth century were still being defined – although to a diminishing extent – within a certain Napoleonic heritage, the First World War marked an initial quantitative leap. The FrancoPrussian War of 1870–1871 – the war of reference up to 1914 – resulted in 380,000 French prisoners being held in Germany in January 1871 (Bendick 2003: 183­), but the figure of between 7 and 8.5 million combatants captured by the enemy during the First World War represented one seventh of the total number of soldiers mobilized. The Second World War extended this incremental pattern with ten million prisoners during the war in Europe and nearly twelve million Germans captured in 1945 (7.7 million in the west, 3.3 million in the east).9 Although the wars of colonization show far lower prisoner numbers, they were on the other hand part of the same dynamic of totalization10 at work for the duration of captivity: 90 per cent of French prisoners returned to France by mid August 1871, after a year in captivity, while in the Second World War the average German soldier spent more time in captivity than on the battlefield (Overmans 1999: 20). The treatment of prisoners in the wars of decolonization would in fact strengthen a broader evolution. In Indochina and in Algeria the treatment of soldiers who fell into enemy hands seemed to render the protective framework – national as well as legal – inoperative in these asymmetric conflicts. The numerical growth is part of the expression, in defeat, of the transformation of the link between societies and warfare. To account for this diversity and complexity, this work is divided into five parts. After an introduction (John Horne) setting out the field of research that wartime captivity has become, it opens with the framework in which this captivity was set and managed. The first part considers the links between camp systems, international law and humanitarian action; how administrative organization and the logics of surveillance were applied to the management of mass captivity, the definition and relevance of military and judicial norms, and the definition of regimes of captivity and violence. Although wars make manifest the backwardness of judicial norms on combatant practices, once peace has returned do war experi­ ences not contribute to the development of international human rights?

4 | Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis

Heather Jones’s contribution underlines that the treatment of prison­ ers of war (POWs) in Western Europe in the First World War was based upon a tense dynamic between humanitarianism and international law on the one side and military necessity on the other. From 1914–1918, indeed, this tension ultimately led to significant protection for captives in Western Europe. Yet this success story regarding humanitarian mobilization was accompanied by the widespread development of forced labour and the increased use of violence against captives. The text explores next the ten­ sions between the cultural drive to ‘civilize’ prisoner treatment during the 1914–1918 conflict and the growing use of forced labour and violence against prisoners of war that the war also provoked. We are shown how the balance of forces between these two processes ultimately determined the kinds of captivity to which the Great War gave rise in Western Europe. International law played a major role in the treatment of POWs during the Second World War too, especially in the fate of the Non-Soviet Jewish POWs, which – as Rüdiger Overmans reminds us – is not often mentioned, although their number is also estimated to have been as high as 100,000. This group consisted mainly of French, Yugoslav and British soldiers, but there were also smaller groups from other nationalities, like the Poles. The German policy towards the Non-Soviet POWs stood in stark contrast to the treatment of Soviet Jewish POWs. Generally they were not murdered, and survived the Holocaust in the POW camps. Rüdiger Overmans explores the reasons behind such a difference in treatment, and gives an explana­ tion for this apparently surprising German policy, since there was no gen­ eral order concerning the treatment of Jews in German captivity. Delphine Debons’s contribution explores another key factor of conditions in captiv­ ity in which international law played a major role: the regulation of reli­ gious life in POW camps between 1939 and 1945. During the Second World War, alleviating the physical sufferings of the majority of French, British, American and British Dominion prisoners of war in German hands was one of the challenges for humanitarian actors. However, another challenge was to alleviate the moral torments to which captivity gave rise. In this light, the right to practise religion was endorsed. Debons’s contribution considers the interaction between international law and the domestic reg­ ulations put in place by captor states to legislate for prison camps. If inter­ national law was a key factor in the fate of POWs during the war, it did not disappear once the guns had fallen silent, as Patrizia Dogliani shows with the case of the Rimini Enclave along the Adriatic coast. It was the most important camp in Italy, set up after the German capitulation, on 2 May 1945. Lying along the Adriatic coast between Cervia and Riccione, the Rimini Enclave consisted of a complex system of no more than 10 camps with a set of supporting infrastructures to satisfy the principal needs of

Editors’ Introduction | 5

those interned. Between 1945 and 1947 an extremely diverse group of male and female prisoners was interned and guarded by an equally heterogene­ ous army. The contribution focuses on this pivotal period between the end of the Second World War and the immediate beginnings of a new division and ‘cold’ war. Prisoners and guards were touched by these events, living in close confinement on an everyday level, in contact with the local popu­ lation, which had to face the reconstruction of its territory and homes, and political parties. The second part of the book examines the phraseology of captivity, those traces on bodies and minds from being behind the barbed wire that took the form of artistic and intellectual productions during and after cap­ tivity, and the questioning of social and gendered norms. How to charac­ terize the society of captives within the camp and through their links with home fronts? As Iris Rachamimov stresses in the case study on internees during the First World War, this population was cut off from their previ­ ous civilian or military existence. These men therefore strove during their years in captivity to create meaningful social and cultural practices and preserve a feeling of self-worth. POW officers and civilian internees in particular developed elaborate practices that attempted to uphold their sense of privileged male authority. However some of these practices in fact challenged even undermined gender boundaries and sexual norms. By examining the social and cultural life of English- and German-speaking inmates, this contribution focuses on two mainstays of internment: theat­ rical productions (and especially drag performances) and camp domestic­ ity (i.e., the attempts to create a ‘home from home’). Relating to the Second World War, gender is a heuristic, analytical category for the examination of the captivity experience in American conflicts, as Matthias Reiss demon­ strates with the experience of more than 371,000 German prisoners of war who were interned in the United States. He argues that the perception of these prisoners as hyper-masculine soldiers influenced the way they were treated on American soil, particularly the members of the Army Group Africa, who went into captivity in Tunisia in May 1943. Prisoners’ continu­ ous performance of a soldierly masculine identity allowed them to build bridges with the Americans even before the end of the war and therefore may have contributed to paving the way for the rapid reintegration of the Federal Republic of Germany into the Western world. On an individual level, and also in the intellectual sphere, captivity in wartime could induce specific kinds of intellectual production. The text of Peter Schöttler devoted to Fernand Braudel as a prisoner at Mainz and Lübeck from 1940 to 1945 illustrates this convincingly. During these long years he famously edited a preliminary version of his book The Mediterranean. A close examination of a wide range of Braudel’s work

6 | Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis

as well as his behaviour reveals that Braudel, a historian with firsthand experience of war and of imprisonment, actually thought as much about contemporary history as he did about the sixteenth century. Music, another intellectual field, could also be used to express the experience behind barbed wire. By May 1940 the war had taken a critical turn, and the British government decided to intern, en masse, German and Austrian resident ‘enemy aliens’. These included numerous artists, scholars and musicians, amongst them a highly successful Austrian-born classical composer, Hans Gál, who is studied by Suzanne Snizek. While interned, Gál wrote a work for three instrumentalists in the camp and managed to craft a first-rate piece of chamber music that he called the ‘Huyton Suite’. Suzanne Snizek’s chapter explores the genesis of this musical work; the process by which it was first rehearsed and performed in the camp, the thematic connections between internment and its portrayal in the music and, finally, its reception. The third part of the book considers relations between captives and the cultures – in times of war or afterwards – that guarded them, employed them and lived alongside them. How do friend-enemy representa­ tions evolve in daily contact with the defeated? How does each one of the actors – from public authorities to local populations – respond to the tension between economic interests in employing this captive labour force and the ideological need to retain the enemy image? How do the expe­ riences of imprisonment differ between military prisoners and civilian internees? Bob Moore provides elements of a response with his comparative study. During the Second World War, the British Isles played host to both German and Italian prisoners of war. While the former were treated as danger­ ous enemies and Nazis, to be confined and removed elsewhere until they ceased to be a threat, the latter were assumed to be both harmless and uncommitted to the fascist cause. The 150,000 Italians were rapidly inte­ grated into the agricultural economy, often working unguarded and being billeted on individual farms. By contrast, Germans were only brought to Britain in 1944, primarily in the aftermath of Operation Overlord. Over time, their numbers grew and they were gradually seen as a useful sup­ plementary labour force, increasingly replacing the Italians, who were sent home 1946–1947. Bob Moore’s contribution examines both state and public perceptions of these POWs and questions whether they were deter­ mined by pre-existing cultural stereotypes or by practical encounters with an enemy ‘other’. Georg Kreis deals with similar issues even if they involve another geographical and cultural context, considering a specific group that between1942 and 1945 experienced a ‘voluntary’ forced stay in Switzerland for what was more or less a lengthy period. This group were

Editors’ Introduction | 7

Soviet nationals who had escaped from German captivity. The authori­ ties endeavoured to reduce to the minimum the contact between these prisoners of war and the native population. Unlike the stereotype of the Russians, continuously drunk and violent, the internees were considered by the native populations as likeable and amiable. The last chapter of part three offers a chronological counterpoint as Fabien Théofilakis focuses on German captivity in French hands after 1944–1945. This mass captivity constituted a challenge to foreign policy as well as to the military adminis­ tration once the enemy had been defeated on the battlefields. The economic use of captive labour and the decisions made regarding its management turned it into one of the issues of the French ‘sortie de guerre’: the whole of French society was concerned, even challenged, by their presence. This contribution goes back to look at the first cohabitation during peacetime between French and German people on a large scale. It tries to understand to what extent this second post-war period led to a true Franco-German rapprochement, unlike the first one of 1918–1921. Captivity is revealing, at both intra-state and interstate levels, as illus­ trated with acuity by the colonial question considered in part four. In the light of the French case, we can see patterns of domination both in the home country – in the consideration of ‘indigenous’ prisoners in the prism of Franco-German relations in the Second World War – or in Algeria, from colonial conquest in the nineteenth century to the War of Independence a century later. If the European twentieth century is the century of excesses, what can the treatment of captives reveal? It is equally that of the constitu­ tion of a judicial corpus – international humanitarian law – that develops in the wake of war. Sylvie Thénault’s chapter offers an enlightening framework on the internment issue in Algeria in the long term. Despite the chronological distance separating them, the colonial war to conquer Algeria (1830–1847) and the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) share at least one common characteristic: during both conflicts the treatment of Algerians taken prisoner by the French was described as ‘internment’. In the twen­ tieth century the term ‘internment’ only referred to detention within a camp; the treatment of Algerians at the time, however, did not diverge from the usual treatment of prisoners of war. In contrast, as the French authorities officially refused to apply the Geneva Conventions in the Algerian War of Independence, the ALN (National Liberation Army) pris­ oners were described as ‘internees’ to whom the status of prisoners of war did not apply. Comparing these two conflicts thus aims to underline the differences that separate them and to call into question the idea of any simplistic long-term continuity in colonialism over time, despite the use of the same term ‘internment’ in both wars. Sarah Frank opens the

8 | Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis

perspective to the colonial issue in France, with a case study on French colonial prisoners through the lens of the philanthropic organizations after France’s defeat in June 1940. Amongst the 1.8 million French sol­ diers captured in the debacle of June 1940, there were tens of thousands of colonial prisoners of war (CPOWs). While white prisoners from the Frontstalags were released by 1941, the colonial soldiers remained in cap­ tivity. Conditions in the Frontstalags were a major concern for CPOWs. Various national and international aid groups sprang up to help French and colonial prisoners by providing them with food, clothing and distrac­ tions, enabling closer interactions between CPOWs and local populations. Considering who was helping the CPOWs and why, Sarah Frank’s contri­ bution answers the question of how CPOWs interacted with the local and international charities and leads to reflection on whether helping CPOWs filled a political need to maintain sovereignty over a vulnerable popula­ tion or was based on purely humanitarian needs. Focused on the same period, Raffael Scheck’s contribution addresses another sensitive issue: the French colonial prisoners guarded by French officers. In January 1943, the German commander-in-chief in France requested that the Vichy gov­ ernment provide French officers and NCOs (non-commissioned officers) as guards for ‘indigenous’ prisoners of war. Vichy agreed, and the replace­ ment of German guards by French cadres began two months later. The origin and execution of this agreement were riddled with misunderstand­ ings and conflicts between German and French officials. This chapter examines the economic, social and diplomatic aspects of this agreement, arguing that it does not simply constitute a case of high treason but is rather a typical example of collaboration – mixing elements of opposi­ tion and compliance in the face of manipulative but poorly coordinated (German) initiatives. In this framework, the Algerian war appears once more as a war that is not being named as such. Between 1954 and 1962 the French colonial presence in Algeria was challenged by an enemy that used non-conventional tactics, including guerrilla warfare and terror­ ism, alongside diplomatic actions by the FLN (National Liberation Front). France responded to this attempt to challenge its power in Algeria by sending massive numbers of troops to Algeria while refusing to recog­ nize the situation as a state of war. It is in light of this tense dynamic that Raphaëlle Branche’s chapter discusses the question of French soldiers who were taken prisoner in Algeria. Yet – as discussed in part five, which takes the form of an interdisci­ plinary discussion between a historian (Hervé Drévillon), a philosopher (Christophe Bouton), a former officer (Michel Goya) and a historian (Daniel Palmieri) working with the International Committee of the Red Cross – it is precisely this dynamic that creates new wars, numerously since the

Editors’ Introduction | 9

end of the Cold War as asymmetry challenges the norms of warfare and opens the debate on captivity in modern times. This scientific revival can be applied equally to a vigorous social demand that finds expression in the deposit of archives – in museums, on Internet sites or in local libraries. The conclusion of the book (Henry Rousso) poses the challenge: ‘Tell me how you treat your prisoner, and I will tell you what kind of war you are pursuing’. These are the areas of current research that the book sets out to explore, inviting a new generation of international historians to pursue these new paths and in doing so to propose a different history of Europe and Europeans centred on Western Europe.11 The present work thus plays on the geographical and academic diversity of the contributors, enhancing echoes between the chapters in which the reflection of one war can be read in another; from one enemy to another, from one front line to another. As a thematic and archival work, the book also responds to a conceptual take on captivity, since it proposes that captivity offers excellent ground for an exchange between disciplines. In addition, the book anticipates con­ siderable benefit from its growing openness: at the end of each chapter it invites a specialist other than a historian to take an ‘alternative’ look at captivity. Each one – a specialist in international law; an ethnologist whose work concentrates on the memories of three generations of Spanish refugees interned in France; a hospital doctor who takes an interest in humanitarian matters; and a sociologist working on the diaspora – in his or her own way, and according to individual practice, offers a ‘countervoice’ and a way to escape from institutional logics. Captivity, under­ stood as a phenomenon that exceeds the battlefield and detention camps, encompassing whole societies both at war and emerging from war, thus represents a crossroads in the labyrinth. The outcome is propitious for an interdisciplinary reading capable of grasping the interwoven and longneglected dynamics of captivity, as summed up by Captain Mongrédien: This is why all these lectures and talks, this intellectual life . . . had a much greater range than our immediate diversion . . . but behind this picturesque vision was a very fine and strongly emotional symbol: the irresistible attraction of the mind over the unfortunate prisoners, who refused to believe in the fail­ ure of spiritual values, who stood fast in a praiseworthy effort to escape from intellectual collapse. It was the unconquered spirit which stood firm against the material forces which had attempted to eliminate it. This was, unrecog­ nized among many, an act of faith of the intellect.12

In return, captivity regains an actuality in the research that is laid out as evidence in these chapters.

10 | Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis

Notes 1. Jean Mongrédien (b. 1932) is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Université de Paris IV – Sorbonne. 2. A camp for officer prisoners of war during the Third Reich. Captured on 17 June 1940 in the Aube, Captain Mongrédien was interned in Mailly-le-Camp (22 June–11 August 1940) before being taken to Germany where he was held, successively, in the Oflags XIA (Osterode am Harz, Hanover, 15 June 1940–5 July 1941), IV D (Elsterhorst bei Hoyerswerda, Silesia, 6 July 1941–16 February 1945) and IV C (Colditz, Leipzig, now in Saxony, 17 February–6 April 1945). Liberated on 22 April, he returned to France on 1 June 1945 after 1,769 days in captivity. 3. The Institut d’histoire du temps présent (IHTP) is a laboratory within the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Set up in 1980, it took over from the Comité d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, founded in 1951. The IHTP is both a laboratory working on the most up-to-date history and a documentation centre where publications, periodicals and private archives are conserved. For a detailed presentation, see its website: www.ihtp.cnrs.fr 4. He has published some forty works on this subject, as well as around a thousand articles. 5. After six weeks of fighting, France signed an armistice with Hitler’s Germany on 20 June 1940. Of the approximately 1.8 million soldiers who were captured, nearly 1.5 million were taken by the Third Reich as prisoners of war. 6. IHTP, ARC 132, Journal, cahier 4, 27 August 1940, p. 106. 7. OPG: ‘officier prisonnier de guerre’, officer prisoner of war. 8. In particular Théofilakis (2014). 9. Around one third of all soldiers engaged in the war – between 85 and 110 million men – were taken prisoner. 10. On this concept, see John Horne’s introduction in Horne (2010). 11. Preparing this book for English-speaking readers has required an adaptation of the initial manuscript. For this reason the methodical presentation of European archival institutions has been withdrawn from the present publication as being less relevant from an international perspective. We direct the reader on this point to the French edition, which presents the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, the archives of the Musée royal de l’Armée et de l’Histoire militaire in Brussels, the Archives nationales at Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, the Etablissement de com­ munication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (photographie and film col­ lections of the Ministère de la Défense) at the Fort d’Ivry, the Bureau des archives des victimes des conflits contemporains at Caen, and the Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine in Paris. 12. IHTP, ARC 132, extract from the chapter ‘L’université d’Osterode’ in ‘Causeries familières’.

Anne-Marie Pathé is Director of the Centre des archives in the Institut d’histoire du temps présent (IHTP-CNRS). She has co-published ‘Témoignages autobiographiques 1939–1945. Catalogue IHTP/APA’ (with Dominique Veillon, Bulletin de l’IHTP, 2005, no. 85), co-directed Berthe

Editors’ Introduction | 11

Auroy, Jours de guerre. Ma vie sous l’Occupation (with Dominique Veillon, éditions Bayard, 2008) and Archives d’une captivité, 1939–1945. L’évasion ­littéraire du capitaine Mongrédien (with Yann Potin and Fabien Théofilakis, éditions Textuel, 2010). Fabien Théofilakis is currently DAD visiting Professor (DAAD for the German academic exchange service) at the University of Montreal (Canadian Center for German and European Studies). In 2010 he presented a thesis on the German prisoners of war in French hands and their repa­ triation to Germany (1944–1949), undertaken jointly at the universities of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense and of Augsburg; rewarded in particular by prizes from the Université franco-allemande and the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris, it was published by éditions Fayard in 2014. He has published several articles on the subject and co-directed the proceedings of a Franco-German conference on the camp at Dachau (2005). He worked on the exhibition ‘The Eichmann case, Jerusalem, 1961’, organized at the memorial to the Shoah (Paris 2001) and has continued since then with research on the notes taken by the Nazi criminal during his prosecution.

Introduction

Wartime Imprisonment in the Twentieth Century

( John Horne

Some subjects can be studied in two senses, for what they are and for what they say about the forces and circumstances that produce them. One of these is imprisonment in a time of war. Even though it has taken time for the theme to become established as a subject of research and scholarly reflection, imprisonment lies at the heart of the experience of war in the twentieth century, with 8.5 million prisoners of war (POWs) during the Great War and up to 35 million in the Second World War (Moore and Fedorowich 1996: 1; Rachamimov 2002: 4–5). Study of the question of war­ time imprisonment also allows a reading against the grain, seeing it as a marker that allows us to measure the development of violence over time, gradually determining the nature of the experience of various different imprisonments. I use the plural ‘imprisonments’ deliberately here because although the figure of the military war prisoner – from whatever branch of the armed services – represents the focal point in this volume, the identity of captives can vary widely and includes civilians. It is appropriate to use the plural ‘wars’: although the two world conflicts remain the dominant point of reference, the question of imprisonment during other wars is also with us – for example in Kenya, Algeria or Vietnam – in addition to civil­ ians taken hostage during asymmetrical warfare and the terrorist style of conflicts that have raged since the 1970s. The main purpose of this book is to focus on different kinds of war and different sorts of captivity. Both of them, war and captivity, are firmly in the plural.

14 | John Horne

Practices of Detention in Warfare and International Law The Third Geneva Convention of 1949 (with the additional protocols of 1977) has shown remarkable stability in terms of the norms it sets out concerning the treatment of POWs in the course of the twentieth century. The principles that were presented in a rudimentary manner at the Hague Convention (IV) of 1907 and, in a more developed form, at the Geneva Convention of 1929 are here reiterated and reinforced. This applies par­ ticularly to the regime of protection, which is the prisoner’s right and the provision of which is, correspondingly, the responsibility of the country that holds him; the same applies in relation to limits on the work that he can be required to perform by the nation that holds him prisoner. We thus find a reaffirmation of the exemption of officers and the ban on employing soldiers in work that could directly benefit the war economy of a detain­ ing state. The standards of prisoners’ medical care and diet are intended to be equal to the provision for the detaining power’s soldiers. The same conditions apply to the prisoner’s religious practice and contact with his home country (Reisman and Antoniou 1994). In comparison to the earlier texts, the significant difference emerging after 1945 concerns the definition of the combatant. In 1949, this was extended to take in ‘organized resist­ ance movements’ and, in the 1977 protocol to anti-colonial wars, reflecting in this respect the nature of the wars that had preceded these updates in international law relating to prisoners. The durability of these principles, which provide the captive soldier with a legal identity and constitution, contrast strongly with other areas of international law relating to the conduct of war. Limitations on new weapons, crimes against humanity and genocide are among the themes and concepts struggling to at least contain – if not master – types of vio­ lence that were unleashed in the two world wars. In the case of prison­ ers of war, on the other hand, a tradition going back to the seventeenth century has established a basic distinction between the soldier and the state of which he is a subject or the citizen, the latter being the juridical person who conducts the war (Overmans 1999; Scheipers 2010). Once he has laid down his arms, the soldier is no longer the enemy and becomes the responsibility of the state that has captured him which, following a principle of reciprocity, is under a duty to provide humanitarian treatment. The recognition in the late eighteenth century of the wounded soldier’s right to care marks the foundation of international law governing the sol­ dier’s wartime status, in addition to the humanitarian practice embodied in the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), founded in 1864 by Henri Dunant (Moorehead 1998: 1­–22).

Introduction | 15

Within the reality of twentieth-century wars, the gulf that opened up between these humanitarian and legal norms regarding war pris­ oners was often large, sometimes flagrant, extending to total ignorance. Relatively stable norms can thus represent something like a historical standard against which different treatments can be measured, while at the same time, depending on circumstances, the efficacy of international law and control (or lack of it ) in this context can be measured. A simplistic conclusion would be that the absence of international agreements on the treatment of POWs corresponds to less acceptable treatment than when norms are at least recognized, if not applied. The reasons explaining such an absence can vary: the Soviet refusal to sign the Geneva Convention of 1929 was meant as an ideological rejection of ‘bourgeois’ law, while the absence of agreements governing the wars of decolonization (Kenya, Algeria) stemmed from a refusal by colonial powers to recognize the con­ flicts as wars. But even in the absence of appropriate conventions, humani­ tarian norms can be invoked and help from the ICRC requested. Further, simple calculations of utility can have their own influence on the treat­ ment of captured enemy soldiers. Hence the crucial imperative of having a sufficient workforce for economic mobilization: the Battle of Stalingrad pushed Nazi Germany to exploit Soviet war prisoners rather than extermi­ nate them – something naturally contributing to a lowering of their mor­ tality rate (which nonetheless remained extremely high). And in contexts where humanitarian law is supposedly in force, rules can be transgressed and treatment varied. This was particularly the case for POWs during the Great War, at a time when nearly all the major powers had signed the Hague Convention. This diversity of practice needs to be explained. Nevertheless, throughout the wars of the twentieth century, captiv­ ity concerned more than the combatants alone. The ‘totalizing’ logic of that century’s national and ideological wars tended to mean the loss of a distinction between ‘combatant’ and ‘non-combatant’, and the considera­ tion of the population as a whole – men, women, even children and old people – as the enemy, either by association or by a form of mobilization (military, economic or political) that tended to become total in itself. With the outbreak of the 1914 war, many civilians living in an enemy country became ‘enemy aliens’ and were confined in internment camps. The goal was twofold: on the one hand to remove from society an element seen as an ‘internal enemy’ and, correspondingly, a danger to national security; on the other hand to prevent the repatriation of combat-aged men, who were considered to some extent – both through anticipation and as a pre­ ventive measure – as prisoners of war. This logic is open to modification by means of exchanges between enemy states, but only when these are clearly

16 | John Horne

possible and offer reciprocal advantage. This was the case for POWs who were gravely wounded and civilians without value for the enemy’s war effort, who were exchanged with the help of Swiss and Swedish mediation during both the Great War and, to lesser extent, the Second World War. The fate of Japanese immigrants in the United States, who were some­ times American citizens but were isolated in internment camps located in remote areas of America’s west from 1942 until the end of the Second World War, attests to a reflex that defined the national body by exclusion, confinement or expulsion in wartime.1 Even if it results in a type of captivity similar to that imposed on enemy aliens, the imprisonment of civilians in invaded or occupied countries is different because of its military logic. In general terms of course, occupied populations exist under a measure of confinement;2 but given that the occupier can hardly incarcerate the entire population it becomes common practice to detain those elements seen as posing a particular danger. During the invasion of Belgium in August and October 1914 the German forces were wrongly convinced that they were facing an uprising by the civilian population. They had recourse to the deportation of civilians under suspicion to internment camps in Germany – a practice that was part of the occupation of north-eastern France and Belgium throughout the war (Horne and Kramer 2005: 257–58). During the Second World War, this (sometimes anticipatory) logic of repression of an occupied population presumed to be hostile was integrated into the Nazi concentration-camp universe; and the Japanese took the same approach to captured European civilians after conquering British, French and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia (Yap 2012: 317­– 46). The legal status of civilian captives was however entirely contrary to that of military prisoners. The Hague Convention IV of 1907 had little to say on the topic, and the ICRC’s efforts in the interwar period did not result in a convention equivalent to that of 1929 for military prisoners (Best 1980: 232­–33); the protection of civilians in wartime would only be addressed in 1949, in Geneva Convention IV.3 Although the detention of civilians as a means of supervision and control was not called into ques­ tion, the transgressions, excesses and extreme violence that had occurred in the Second World War underlined the need to establish protection through judicial regulation of the detention of civilians; Convention IV thus calls for humane treatment in the case of the captivity of civilians for security reasons (Articles 37 and 42) and formally forbids the deportation of inhabitants from an occupied territory to that of the occupying power (Article 49). None the less, civilian detention in wartime continued as a means of control. It only became a directly judicial topic in the wake of the frenzy of violence associated with it during the Balkan war in the 1990s.

Introduction | 17

This was when, in international opinion, the civilian captive won a degree of visibility that was equal, if not superior, to that of military prisoners.

Military and Civilian Captivities: Revealing the Nature of War Examination of the varieties of wartime captivity enables us to understand how war was transformed in the course of the twentieth century – devel­ opments that profoundly influenced the experience of the captives them­ selves, most often despite the moral and legal norms that were in force. I would now like to offer a brief review of four such developments, which emerge throughout this book. The first development involved the nineteenth century reinforcement of a sense of national affiliation. The laws of nationality, the efforts to control currents of migration, the formalization of resident alien status and the universalization of both education and male military service were all fac­ tors that reinforced divisions between different national communities. The stage was set for the emergence of quasi-existential enmities once war had broken out – a phenomenon that occurred overnight in August 1914. The concept of national affiliation as the origin of indestructible loyalty was the basis for the introduction in 1914 of the internment of enemy civilians in what were termed ‘concentration camps’ (Farcy 1995; Stibbe 2008) (the term ‘enemy aliens’ was established in the British law of 1905 on immigra­ tion control). This followed the same principle as that which operated to protect both civilians in occupied countries and war prisoners from the obligation to work on behalf of the enemy’s war effort and against their own national interest; and in the relative indulgence stipulated for mili­ tary prisoners who tried to escape, an action stemming ‘naturally’ from their national status.4 In general, while nationalist logic has led to the maltreatment of prisoners existentially endowed with ‘enemy’ status, the fact that the nation states are multiple and equal under national law has an inverse effect. Following a logic of reciprocal interest, it has prompted each camp to grant protected status to prisoners in the other camp. Despite the many exceptions that can be identified, this logic underpins the different successive conventions. Matters were very different with the ideologies of class and race that emerged from the crucible of the Great War, which had the effect of sup­ pressing such reciprocal recognition in favour of a hierarchal vision of humanity that might go so far as the extermination of a designated por­ tion of its members. More than any commentary, the Soviet refusal to sign the 1929 Geneva Convention (in addition to the maltreatment of cap­

18 | John Horne

tured German soldiers stemming from it, with a mortality rate of 36 per cent) illustrates clearly the treatment according to racial criteria, which was meted out to Soviet POWs in Germany – with a mortality rate of 57 per cent. This did not prevent the maintenance of a regime of mutual national recognition for Western prisoners in German hands, founded on international law. Only 3.5 per cent of British POWs in Nazi Germany died in detention (Ferguson 2004: 148–92). The management of captivity in the Third Reich responded to a range of logics and systems, with varying degrees of treatment bordering on straightforward inhumanity, inflicted not only on racial and political enemies of the regime but also on resisters in Nazi-occupied countries, in other words on individuals who under the convention of 1949 would have been accorded POW status. Jewish war prisoners from Western countries were relatively well treated (while other European Jews were being exterminated) and the Allied governments were extremely concerned at the possibility that their captured soldiers could be used as hostages in reprisal for massive aerial bombardment of German cities, considered illegal in Nazi eyes. In a world confronted with all degrees of brutality, the fragility of accords and internal principles underlying such differences in treatment is clearly illustrated. The third development in the transformation of war that can be observed through analysis of twentieth-century war imprisonment con­ cerns different types of work in a logic of totalization of economic produc­ tion. The POWs attested to this; starting in 1915, they were used in different ways to support the enemy war effort, often in contempt of the restric­ tions stipulated by the Hague Convention IV of 1907. Each of the powers engaged on the Western Front in 1914–1918 used considerable numbers of enemy prisoners for work behind the front and sometimes under fire from their own armies. In fact, what was manifest here resembled other types of forced labour, notably those of colonial and Chinese workers for the Allies and civilians in the regions occupied in the German case. Both during and after the Second World War, this same logic led to the large-scale employ­ ment of POWs as a workforce, usually, again, in violation of international law. As a reminder that work dominates the experience of both military prisoners – and frequently of civilian captives – we need only think of the manner in which the Japanese (who were not signatories to the 1929 Geneva Convention) made Allied war prisoners work on war projects; or the Soviet use of German POW labour in a camp system parallel to the Gulag. The Second World War thus produced a world of forced labour of different kinds and under varying conditions but where both military prisoners and civil internees were involved at all levels. Finally, a fourth development that left its traces in various forms of war captivity was the emergence of guerrilla warfare and armed resistance,

Introduction | 19

allowed by the pre-1949 conventions only in the case of invasion and under certain conditions, but broadly recognized since then. In effect, the lines of demarcation between regular soldiers and irregulars were continually shifting and being redefined throughout the twentieth century, the speed of change accelerating after 1945. The definition here has major conse­ quences for wartime captivity. As indicated, in 1914 the German army was already justifying the arrest and detention of supposed ‘guerrillas’. The question of an army’s confrontation with irregular forces is an old one; it was already being urgently posed during the American Civil War. Indeed, it was one source of the Lieber Code, a first attempt to distinguish legally between combatants and non-combatants.5 During the Second World War this became a major theme for the Wehrmacht, who refused to acknowl­ edge any legitimacy for the armed resistance in Western Europe (except in rare cases where the logic of reciprocity prevailed), with an even more absolutist stance vis-à-vis the Soviet partisans. Later, despite the 1949 con­ vention, which drew lessons from the anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi resistance in granting legal status to combatants in this category, the refusal by the colonial powers to identify the decolonizing struggles as wars effectively prevented irregular forces from benefiting from any legal protection. Nevertheless, within the paroxysm of these wars of decolonization – in Malaysia, Kenya and Algeria – certain forms of ‘war imprisonment’, long practised in the colonial domain, were perfected. In particular, this involved the internment of insurrection leaders in camps, a practice tried out by the British for the first time in Ireland, during the country’s inde­ pendence struggle, 1916-1921, together with the displacement of a large portion of the ‘civilian’ population and its ‘concentration’ in zones sur­ rounded and controlled by the colonial power (Townshend 1975). The logic of this second step consists of cutting the guerrilla campaign off from support that it is presumed to be receiving from the civilian popula­ tion. In the 1950s these two practices became generalized in a context of anti-colonial struggle, with the colonial forces at the same time remaining reluctant to grant war status to what they considered a rebellion (Thénault 2005: 102–7).6 Parallel to political internment (and the use of torture), ‘con­ centration’ of the civilian population was applied to a million individuals in Kenya and 2.3 million in Algeria, amounting to a quarter of the Muslim population (Townshend 1986; Elkins 2005; Klose 2009). Despite appeals to the ICRC in the case of Algeria, these undeclared wars against an unac­ knowledged enemy created extraordinary forms of captivity. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (with the cases of Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba), together with the abduc­ tion of hostages by ‘terrorist’ movements, expose the continued explosive topicality of war imprisonment outside international-judicial norms.7

20 | John Horne

In this manner, moving beyond the position of the classic POW in the light of international law, which lies at the heart of this book, we begin to perceive a more nuanced picture of ‘captivities of war’ in all their civilian, military, legally recognized or clandestine diversity. The question imme­ diately arises of the porosity of these categories; above all when we exam­ ine the reality beyond the legal and normative dimension.

Stakes and Experiences The nature of the captivities at stake here thus offers exceptional oppor­ tunities to assessment of the twentieth-century transformation of war. If we reverse the scale of reference to measure these same captivities against war’s violence, we can identify a number of questions regarding the stakes relating to captivity and the experiences of the captives. The camp lies at the centre of all military captivity. But what does the camp consist of? A simple adaptation of barracks emptied by armies that have gone off to war? A model of detention resembling Bentham’s ‘pano­ pticon’8 for the incarceration of civilians in the rationalist nineteenth cen­ tury? Or a relative of the ‘concentration camp’? Camp internment thus incorporates different modalities and objectives, but it has its origins in the nineteenth century, in a wish to isolate an anticolonial resistance from its presumed base. Two episodes that come to mind here are the Spanish repression of the popular Cuban uprising in 1898 and the British effort to end Boer resistance in the Southern African war between 1899 and 1902. The aims of these internment camps were of course different from those in operation in respect of war prisoners and civilian internees starting with the Great War. Nevertheless, consideration of the various forms of internment (wooden barrack buildings, barbed wire, watchtowers) certainly reveals a potential circulation of models and common practices and the birth of a world of collective incarceration with no relation to nineteenth-century practices. Because camps for military detainees and civilian internees function as a world apart in the midst of a war, in an original form they constitute a locus for the expression of what is at stake nationally and ideologically. Here, the enemy is disarmed and deprived of his potential for action, but in principle – and in the best of cases – finds himself granted certain rights that demonstrate respect for his national affiliation and cultural autonomy (for example: the right to religious practice; contact with his homeland; regulation of the measures taken in response to attempts to escape). Such a situation poses many questions: Do the camp’s occupants demobilize or remain mobilized in relation to the war? In the latter case, escape would

Introduction | 21

take on all its symbolic value as a form of displaced combat. Is there a difference between officers – who, as we recall, are not to be used as work­ ers – and private soldiers? What margins of autonomy are available to the prisoners to build their own cultural and political life? Creativity, ritual and entertainment are constituent aspects of every community, however ill-balanced it may be. But at what point does simple survival take prec­ edence over every other consideration? And in the case of internal splits within the captive population (for example, ideological opposition in a group of Italian or German prisoners in the Second World War), is the detaining power in a position to turn a portion of the prisoners against the regime in power in their own country or even against their fellow POWs? (Fedorowich 1995: 119–47). The richness of the present collection owes much to its illumination of the identity stakes at work in the twentiethcentury camps, approached in all the variety and complexity of that topic. Nevertheless, in the light of the importance attached to labour in the different forms of military imprisonment, we should perhaps revise our perception of the camp as their main framework – or at least pose the question. To be sure, the two elements of camp and labour are not mutu­ ally exclusive, for labour units are often located in camps. But the military prisoner or civilian detainee can equally find himself assigned to external residence, thus becoming subject to a considerable range of experiences and treatment. He can then establish various relationships with other types of workers, including other military captives, and with the civil society surrounding him; in a factory at Krefeld, Germany in 1942, for example, we find Agnès Humbert, who was condemned as a member of the Musée de l’homme (Museum of Mankind) resistance group in France, enduring forced labour alongside common German criminals, deported Russian workers, and POWs (Humbert 2008: 116–48). Although the offic­ ers were free from of any obligation to work, as would be reiterated in the 1949 convention – a reflection of the tenacious endurance of class distinc­ tions and the military hierarchy – did this group nevertheless emerge as being particularly well suited to embody a certain vision of both the POW and camp spirit as a nucleus of an enemy national culture and setting for resistance? The distinction between social classes clearly has its place in the wartime universe of imprisonment and detention. In placing normal life in parentheses, sometimes for decades, the vari­ ous forms of military captivity also place the sexual aspect of existence under particular pressure and give a central status to gender. As an almost exclusively masculine locus of sociability, the camp necessarily becomes a site of compensation and re-equilibrium of sexual identity in a world that has to be self-sufficient emotionally – with the share of hopes and memories that this entails. Dressing up and drag shows, theatre, friend­

22 | John Horne

ships – the resources are multiple but are determined, here too, by living conditions and the detention regime. For military prisoners, the fact of being removed from a combat that most often is proceeding without them places the modalities of a fighter’s masculinity in question, with different reactions. But the same question is in play for camps for civilian internees, whether mixed or strictly reserved for one sex. The case of Henri Pirenne comes to mind here – retaining his dignity as both a man and a patriot, he organized talks on Belgian history for his compatriots detained in Germany’s Holzminden camp during the Great War. In his view, they were the most receptive listeners in his entire life as a teacher (Lyon 1974: 247). It thus seems equally important to give the questions of gender and work equal attention. In contrast to the sort of work excluding considera­ tion of anything except survival, there is another type: allowing prison­ ers to be employed far from the camp, sometimes accommodated in the intimacy of a house or farm and thus enabling relationships to develop that are marked by respect, and indeed by friendship and even love, for ‘enemy’ individuals. The resulting cases of paternity, numerous in the context of both French prisoners working in Germany during the Second World War and German prisoners detained in France afterwards, show eloquently that at least in certain cases captivity can offer an exit from war (Théofilakis 2008: 203–19; Virgili 2009). Finally, the question of the prisoners’ experience leads us back to our starting point – the moral norms and international law governing the treatment of war captives. What do the sources tell us about their real impact? Wherever there is a legal agreement founded on shared values and supported by a feeling of reciprocal interest, we might expect to find the fullest possible realization of humanitarian treatment and most effi­ cient regime of international inspection. And there can be no doubt that in many cases humanitarian control exercised by the Red Cross and Red Crescent has proved capable of improving conditions of detention and saving lives. Nevertheless, even in the case of the European powers who were signatories to the relevant conventions during the Great War, the fate of military prisoners was sometimes fragile and subject to the conflict’s vagaries: the intensity of battlefield violence, the degree of hatred felt for the enemy, economic imperatives, the need to exploit a captive workforce (Jones 2011: 151–251). If one of the belligerents changes its attitude towards the prisoners it is holding, the other will be tempted to punish its own detainees in return. And it is clearly the case that reprisals (or the threat of them) are often more efficient in limiting violence against war prisoners than the simple invocation of international agreements – all the more so when such accords have not been signed (ideological conflicts and civil wars or wars of decolonization).

Introduction | 23

It is of course the prisoner who pays the price in his body and spirit. In addition, even after peace has been arranged, he remains a bone of conten­ tion between formerly hostile countries. For despite the intent declared in international conventions to see him returned as quickly as possible to his own country, in reality the military captive from a defeated state will very often find himself retained as a hostage or for the value of his labour long after the end of hostilities, indeed even after the signing of a peace treaty. The last German prisoners from the Great War remained in France until the early 1920s, and even longer in the Soviet Union. The last POWs from the Wehrmacht did not leave France until 1948 and the Soviet Union until the 1950s – returning as phantoms in the country of the economic miracle (Moore and Hately-Broad 2005; Jones 2011: 296–312). Once repatriated, the POW is not necessarily free from an experience that has already consumed an important part of his life. Even without the physical and mental effects of his odyssey, he may take years to achieve rehabilitation in his community of origin. An incontestable hero if he was an Allied aviator in the Second World War, suspect in the eyes of the Italian or Austro-Hungarian authorities during the Great War, even more so for Stalinist Russia after Germany’s defeat, the former war prisoner remains a man whose status and experiences are absorbed into society’s collective memory, over the longer term, in a manner that varies accord­ ing to circumstances. As for civilian captives, they risk double margin­ alization in respect to a memory of war tending to privilege the military dimension.

* * * * * Whether focused on the military transformations that shaped captivity during twentieth-century conflicts or on the experiences of the captives themselves, this book offers a broad range of analyses, information and documentation. It does not claim to be definitive or exhaustive, but the extent of the period covered, the variety of the experiences treated, the discussion of archival material, and the contribution of a range of schol­ arly disciplines cast fresh light on a condition and experience that hold a central place in the history of the last century and that, unfortunately, continues to have great relevance today.

24 | John Horne

Notes Translated from the French by Helen McPhail. 1. For an eye-witness portrait, see Alistair Cooke (2006: 145–48). 2. For the Great War see chapter on ‘Les souffrances des civils occupés’ in Annette Becker (1998: 27–88); see also Becker (2010). 3. Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/ (consulted 9 July 2012). 4. Article 120 of Geneva Convention (IV) of 1949 stipulates that punishment in case of attempts to escape is to be only disciplinary, non-cumulative in case of repeated attempts, and inapplicable in case of a successful escape followed at some point by a new capture. 5. See Sibylle Scheipers (2011: 394–409) (esp. 400–3). 6. On the intervention of the ICRC in Algeria, see Caroline Moorehead (1998: 588–92). 7. See Alia Brahimi (2011: 184–201) (esp. 186–92). 8. In his Panopticon in the Inspection House: containing the idea of a new principle of Containment applicable to any sort of establishment in which persons of any description are to be kept under Inspection (1787) the British philosopher Bentham imagines a prison structure enabling detainees as a group to be observed and controlled from a single point, creating a ‘feel­ ing of invisible omniscience’.

John Horne is Professor of Modern European History and Director of the Centre for War Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He is a Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy and member of the International Research Centre of the Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. He is the author and editor of a number of books and over eighty chapters and articles, many relating to the history of the Great War. Among these are: (with Alan Kramer), German Atrocities, 1914. A History of Denial (Yale, 2001), translated into German (2003) and French (2005); (ed.) A Companion to World War One (BlackwellWiley, 2010); (ed.) Vers la guerre totale: le tournant de 1914–1915 (Tallandier, 2010); and (with Robert Gerwarth) (ed.) War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War (Oxford University Press, 2012). He also edited Our War: Ireland and the Great War (Royal Irish Academy, 2008), and (with Edward Madigan), Towards Commemoration: Ireland in the Decade of the Great War, 1912–1923 (Royal Irish Academy, 2013).

Part I

Camp Systems, International Law and Humanitarian Action

( Introduction Jörg Echternkamp

The law of the jungle did not apply in the prisoner of war (POW) camps of the twentieth century, or at least not when matters were conducted according to international law. In view of the military mass mobilizations resulting from general conscription, the problem of how the victor should deal with thousands of POWs had become increasingly pressing. The First Hague Peace Conference of 1899 was a manifestation of the international efforts made to establish rules for war captivity that were in accordance with international law. Military personnel were no longer subject to the caprice of those who had taken them prisoner, but were held in the cus­ tody of a belligerent state. How these standards evolved as part of inter­ national law – from the First Hague Convention of 1899 with respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and the Hague Peace Conference of 1907 to the Geneva Convention of 1929 and its amendment of 1949 – is primarily an issue of the history of law (for an overview see Fischer 1994: 260–300; Echternkamp 2013: 255–59). Historians who are interested in military history contexts in a broader sense, however, focus on other aspects. Their research interest focuses on war captivity as a complex historical phenomenon and on the actors in this context. The international dimension of the object of study is expressed in an obvious, but by no means exclusive, reference framework. Methodically, the canon of precise international standards can be seen as a heuristic means that increases awareness of the historical practice of war

26 | Jörg Echternkamp

captivity. For each specific historical case, the central question focuses on the chances, limits and mechanisms of putting the standards into legal practice: did the detaining power comply with international law? Which applicable provisions were considered and which were not? What were the underlying reasons for this? The issue becomes more complex and appealing because we are dealing with different, usually multilateral relations. It concerns the relationship between (at least) one detaining power and (at least) one specific group of POWs and its dynamics in the course of the war being fought. Taking a comparative look at the subject promises to yield additional knowledge. The central criteria of comparison can be derived from the provisions of international law. How does a detaining power comply with a specific standard when it deals with different groups of POWs? Or conversely: how are different groups of POWs treated by various detaining powers in this respect? Despite all moral undertones, the approach is not a norma­ tive one. Rather, it is about considering the issue from a multitude of per­ spectives: about the range of experiences and about exploring scopes for action, about the significance of opposing ideologies, economic constraints, utilitarian considerations, military logic and situational factors. According to the actor-based approach taken by historians, POWs are perceived not only as objects, but also as acting subjects. New insights into the web of cause and effect not only help to draw out the figure of the POW from the shadows of a history of war and military affairs that focuses on warfare, but also to communicate a deeper understanding of the social, political and cultural dimensions of both a war society and a post-war society. The comparison can be operationalized further by choosing a specific norm as an example. For a systematic illustration of individual effective factors, Delphine Debons (Lausanne) examines the degree to which Allies and Germans were allowed to exercise their right to practise religion in the Second World War. At least three factors can be identified: the first was the economic factor. On the one hand, the upkeep of thousands of prisoners was twice as difficult if the majority society – like France and Great Britain after 1945 – itself groaned under the burden of economic reconstruction. On the other hand, the detaining power was able to profit from its prisoners. Both sides used the cheap labour, largely in accordance with the Convention. Such an ‘employment’ could, in turn, have a posi­ tive effect on pastoral care and nutrition, as the detaining power had an interest in maintaining the productivity of its POWs. The second factor was the ideological aspect: in the Third Reich the anti-Christian attitude of National Socialism sometimes had a negative impact on the way POWs were treated, while in France and Great Britain religious assistance was seen positively as a means of re-educating German POWs. The third

Part I. Camp Systems, International Law and Humanitarian Action

| 27

factor was the military concern about security. Preachers were regarded as potential agitators who engaged in propaganda under the guise of providing pastoral care. For this reason, their sphere of influence was limited. Conversely, pastoral care was able to benefit from propaganda efforts. The National Socialists, for instance, promoted the religious life of Muslim POWs in North African colonies in order to alienate them from their (Christian) colonial power. These three examples at the same time emphasize the interaction of the individual elements. POW research that starts out from international law regulations is not only concerned with ‘real’ ideological, economic or military factors. The effectiveness of the law depended not least on how it was perceived at the time. Heather Jones (London) uses this approach, which in turn outlines the connection to society in the war and post-war period, in a case study on the relevance of POW law in 1914–1918 in the cases of Germany, Great Britain and France. According to her own initial judgement, violations of norms were not so grave as to justify talk of their being a failure. An analysis of the situation from the perspective of the history of perception emphasizes the contrary impression that prevailed in the post-war period: this was that, on the one hand, the international law established before 1914 was not suitable for industrialized mass wars and that, on the other, general violation of the law would result in all the parties acting solely in accordance with the tit-for-tat principle and exacting vengeance. In con­ trast, the idea of having compliance with the regulations monitored by a transnational organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, with the support of a neutral state, met with approval. The Third Geneva Convention of 1929 finally marked the breakthrough for regulating how all POWs, not just those who were wounded, were to be dealt with. However, treatment in accordance with international law does not necessarily mean that the treatment is attributable to international law. Rüdiger Overmans (Freiburg) argues along these lines when he examines the treatment of non-Soviet Jewish POWs in Wehrmacht camps. Of the 1.5 million or so Jews from the British Commonwealth, the United States and the Soviet Union who fought against the Third Reich, some 200,000 were captured by Germany as POWs, among them Polish, French and Yugoslav Jews. Generally speaking, all these Jewish POWs – including the Jewish Poles allied with the British – were not treated any differently from their fellow countrymen. Jewish POWs were not forced to wear the yellow star. Rank and file personnel were ordered to work, and officers lived in separate officers’ camps. In some camps, Jews were even able to practise their religion. They were discriminated against by being forced to do particularly hard and dangerous work. But with the exception of Soviet Jews, Jews in German war captivity were safe from annihilation

28 | Jörg Echternkamp

by the Germans. Overmans accounts for this by citing the principle of reciprocity: he claims that it was neither regard for international law, an economic interest in the workforce nor any sense of humanitarianism on the part of the Wehrmacht that saved the Jews from anti-Semitic terror; it was Germany’s intent to protect its own soldiers who were in Allied war captivity. He says that the principle of reciprocity did not apply in a converse case: war captivity on the Eastern Front. Since Hitler had ‘written off’ German military personnel who became POWs of the Soviets, he did not need to take any consideration of Soviet military personnel and the Jews among them. These articles are supplemented by the approach suggested by Patrizia Dogliani (Bologna): a microhistory of the enclave of Rimini, a town in the region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy where military person­ nel were held in Anglo-American war captivity between May 1945 and 1947. Analysing the camp system and its infrastructure, considering both the heterogeneity of its prisoners and their guards and the way in which the camp was integrated into its economic and political environment, as well as taking account of the collective memory, Dogliani points out how certain administrative norms evolved and how war captivity was experi­ enced on both sides of the barbed wire in the post-war period. Has Bellona really allowed herself to be tamed? This is often doubted with regard to the first half of the twentieth century. In contrast to this, and contrary to the basic scepticism about attempts to constrain war by way of international law that was common after the First World War, the counterfactual question of what war captivity would have looked like without the Geneva Convention could be posed. For further research into this issue, there is the international regulation itself, which both raises further questions and provides valuable foundations for answering them methodically – and there are the sources to which historians today have access due to the activities of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and other relief organizations. Jörg Echternkamp received his Ph.D. at the University of Bielefeld in 1996. His accomplishments include habilitation at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 2012; Assistant Professor at the University HalleWittenberg, senior research fellow at the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the German army (formerly MGFA), Potsdam; project director of ‘European Military History in the 19th–20th centuries’ and ‘West and East German military history 1970–1990’; co-editor of Germany’s journal of military history (Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschift); Alfred Grosser visiting professor at the Institute of Political Studies (Sciences-Po), Paris,

Part I. Camp Systems, International Law and Humanitarian Action

| 29

2012/13; and visiting professor/fellow at the Université Paris-1 (PanthéonSorbonne), the University College London, the German Historical Institute in Paris and the University of Calgary in Canada. His recent publications include: (ed.), Europäische Militärgeschichte (DeGruyter/Oldenbourg 2016) and Soldaten im Nachkrieg (DeGruyter/Oldenbourg 2014); (ed.) Germany and the Second World War, vol.9/1–2: German Wartime Society 1939–1945, (OUP 2008–14); Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945–1969 (Utb 2013); (ed.), Kriegsenden, Nachkriegsordnungen, Folgekonflikte. Wege aus dem Krieg im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Rombach Verlag 2012); Militär in Deutschland und Frankreich 1870–2011 (co-ed. with S. Martens) (Schoeningh 2012); Experience and Memory. The Second World War in Europe (Berghahn 2010/2013) (co-ed. with S. Martens).

CHAPTER 1

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War

( Heather Jones

At the heart of the First World War lay a clash between globalizing ideas about new ways that the international sphere could be regulated through law and newly radical nationalisms that privileged state prerogatives. The war broke out just as a legal framework was being set in place that epito­ mized the values and impact of the first wave of globalization: it was the first major European conflict to occur following the codification of inter­ national laws of war in the late nineteenth century, a codification that was ongoing at the moment war erupted in 1914. This codification was in large part based on the belief that universal legal norms should apply in European conflict. In this regard, the war proved a test, not only of ideas of ‘total’ war but also of ideas of ‘total’ law. The international laws on prisoner of war treatment that applied during the conflict developed out of this prewar context and provide a good illustration of this test of the role of law in regulating conflict behaviours; indeed this context is crucial to understand­ ing the role of law with regard to captivity practices between 1914 and 1918. To what extent then did this new framework of international law pro­ tect prisoners of war during the First World War? In order to assess this question, this chapter will first set out the Hague and Geneva traditions regarding prisoner of war treatment as they existed by 1914; second, it will explore how robust and effective international law proved in influenc­ ing prisoner of war treatment when faced with the world’s first totalized, industrial war; finally, the chapter will explore the legacy of the war in the interwar period upon international laws regarding prisoner of war treat­ ment. The aim here is to provide insights into the historic role played by international law in regulating prisoner treatment in the Great War, and its potential to determine wartime practices.

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War | 31

The Hague and Geneva Traditions At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 there were effectively two main evolving lines in international law regulating prisoner of war treat­ ment in wartime – the Hague Conventions on the Laws and Customs of War and the Geneva Conventions, which had both grown out of rising public expectations in the second half of the nineteenth century, with regard to international law and its reach. While customary law had long applied to warfare in Europe, international legal agreements negotiated at conferences and ratified by numerous states to legally codify jus in bellum were a late nineteenth-century idea (Horne and Kramer 2001: 145) intended to humanize warfare, and sprang from the positivist and Whiggish zeit­ geist of the time with its optimistic belief in human progress, as well as the boom in interest in the idea of international law more generally during this period – it was no accident that the Institut du Droit International was founded in 1873 and that it was during this era that international lawyers began to form a distinct profession (Lemnitzer 2014: 4). The two lines of origin – Geneva and the Hague – interacted very closely: the 1907 Hague Convention respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV)1 stipulated that treatment of sick and wounded prisoners should be in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, leaving this group’s care to the Geneva tradition. However, they also differed: the Geneva impetus was driven by a new idea of neutral international human­ itarianism, and, in particular, by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which had been established in the late nineteenth century and which, during the First World War, greatly expanded and consolidated its role and reputation (Tate 2015). The 1864 Geneva Convention, triggered initially by Henri Dunant’s response to poor care for the wounded at the battle of Solférino that led to the foundation of the Red Cross movement, marked the start of international laws of war as we understand the con­ cept today (although now termed ‘international humanitarian law’) and was ratified by all the major European powers. The Hague Conventions were initially an initiative of autocratic Tsarist Russia, which issued the invitations to the conference that led to the drafting of the first 1899 Hague Convention, but were also modelled partly on the Lieber Code, developed by the Union side to fix a basic standard of prisoner of war treatment and combatant-civilian interactions in the American Civil War (Scott 1908). They had military and government needs at their core. These different origins help to explain why the two sets of conventions had slightly different priorities: the 1864 and 1906 Geneva Conventions were aimed at protecting wounded prisoners, who were to be cared for by the captor state to the same standards as the captor side’s own wounded

32 | Heather Jones

and neutral status was assigned to medical staff, who, if captured, were to be exchanged and not held as prisoners of war. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 focused on the unwounded prisoner of war and upon his utility as a potential worker and upon his property rights and his protec­ tion from being looted. In other words, the Hague regulations were much more about redefining prisoners so that they were no longer treated as loot or as the property of armies but fell under the remit of governments: the Hague Conventions stipulated that prisoners were now the captives not of the individuals or army corps that captured them but of the captor gov­ ernment (Kramer 2010: 76). In this regard, the Hague Conventions were about expanding the power of the modern state over its military and how they treated prisoners (and waged war), while Geneva was about inter­ nationalizing the wartime locus of power and diluting national govern­ ment powers over prisoners. Taken together, the Geneva and Hague Conventions represented a significant breakthrough in establishing norms and expectations regard­ ing the treatment of prisoners of war. The Hague Convention of 1907, for example, established that Other Rank prisoner labourers could be made to work, but were to be paid a wage. It also established the principle of reciprocity – prisoners were to be fed to the same standards as the captor state’s own troops. They were also to be treated ‘humanely’.

International Law, 1914–1918: A Protection for Prisoners of War? Yet to what extent did this new international law protect combatant pris­ oners of war in the First World War? The first evidence has to be death statistics: how many prisoners survived captivity? Here the main point is the glaring contrast between the Western Front and the Eastern Front: in Western Europe, overall prisoner death rates for most nationalities remained under 10 per cent, while prisoner of war death rates remained far higher in wartime Eastern Europe – Russia (17.6 per cent), Serbia (25 per cent), Romania (23 per cent) and Turkey (13 per cent) (Rachamimov 2002: 39–42; Jones 2011: 19–26). In contrast, in the west, French and British pris­ oners in Germany had an estimated maximum death rate of 7 per cent; German prisoners in France had an estimated maximum death rate of 6.5 per cent (Jones 2011: 19–26). German prisoners in the United Kingdom had a maximum estimated death rate of 3 per cent (ibid.). Overall, however, these statistics show that the majority of prisoners survived captivity – evidence that points to a successful implementation of humanitarian norms. Relatively good survival outcomes cannot, how­

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War | 33

ever, be simply attributed to the success of international law in the First World War. The protective legal norms that may have led to the relative safety of prisoners in Western Europe did not necessarily stem from inter­ national law alone: as the Hague Convention stipulated, prisoners of war were subject to the military law of the captor state. Thus it was national military law – and its directions on prisoner treatment – that largely set the most proximate protective framework for captives, particularly with regard to discipline regimes. In this sense, First World War prisoner of war camps were not spaces devoid of legal jurisdiction – as Giorgio Agamben argues was the case for Second World War concentration camps – rather, 1914–1918 camps were spaces of hyper-jurisdiction with multiple, over­ lapping legal codes applying (Agamben 1998: 166–76). This hyper-legal framework of overlapping wartime laws, both national and international, was at times bewildering for commentators: as the Michigan Law Review lamented in 1915, there was widespread confusion as to the difference between ‘international law in war and the international law of war’ and ‘the fact that they are not carefully enough distinguished has been the source in the present war of certain misunderstandings . . .’ (Niemeyer 1915: 175). The extent to which a web of legal frameworks was constructed around First Word War prisoner of war captivity, however, signifies the cultural importance that was attributed by wartime contemporaries to its ‘modernization’ and ‘civilization’: well-managed, legally codified mass captivity was perceived as the height of modern advancement, in Western Europe in particular. Germany was the slowest of the major Western belligerents to accept this trend. At the outset of the war, senior echelons of the German military set little store by the concept of international laws of war and proved reluc­ tant – as Isabel Hull (2014) has shown – to recognize the need to respect the new corpus of international legal agreements. This influenced German military attitudes to the laws on prisoner treatment. The 1902 publication of the Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege, known in English as the German War Book, referred to how ‘the tendency of thought of the last century was dominated essentially by humanitarian considerations which not infre­ quently degenerated into sentimentality and flabby emotion’; it argued that reciprocity and custom should define war practice, not international legal agreements (Horne and Kramer 2001: 148). And while the Hague Convention Annex 4 on Land Warfare (which contained the articles con­ cerning prisoner of war treatment) was added to the Felddienstordnung in 1911, it was not referred to in the main text (ibid.: 149). During the German invasion of Belgium and France in 1914, there were instances of German commanders on the ground referring to international law as not relevant, as ‘military necessity’ took precedence: when one British officer prisoner

34 | Heather Jones

reminded a German military doctor of the Geneva Convention he was told that ‘he was not complying with the Conventions’.2 As Isabel Hull has argued, ‘military necessity and the laws of war are at opposite ends of a seesaw – the more power you grant to military necessity, the less the law applies or is obligatory, so the stakes at issue are very high’ (2014, preface). The Allies came to see Germany as a rogue state that ignored all interna­ tional law in favour of a doctrine of military necessity – a ‘German way of war’ as it was termed at the time. However, as the conflict continued, Germany became much more aware of the importance of the laws of war relating to prisoner treatment, particularly given the propaganda defeat it suffered in international public opinion as a result of the legal furore sur­ rounding the 1914 invasion atrocities in Belgium and France, which firmly established international law as a key paradigm of the conflict. In fact, what happened after 1914 with regard to international law on prisoners of war is that a divergence occurred: the Geneva Conventions were overall quite successfully implemented off the battlefield by the Western Front belligerents, with regard to the hospital treatment of wounded prisoners of war, while the Hague Conventions were frequently breached or ignored. It is important to make a distinction here: the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of enemy wounded on the battle­ field were very frequently breached – giving wounded enemy soldiers the coup de grâce rather than taking them prisoner was an all too common affair on the Western Front. However, where the decision was taken to capture a wounded enemy, then the medical treatment that he went on to receive, in terms of first aid, treatment at a Casualty Clearing Station and then later evacuation and treatment in hospital, was usually very good and certainly comparable with that afforded to the men of the captor side. Moreover, in 1915, many medical personnel who had been taken prisoner were exchanged back to their home state, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions – going on to provide their home state with a range of valu­ able human intelligence about the enemy. In fact there was an ongoing debate throughout the war as to which groups constituted ‘medical per­ sonnel’ and were entitled to qualify for such automatic repatriation – in the German army stretcher-bearers were usually ordinary soldiers who doubled as medical aides and wore a red cross, rather than medical staff, who did not fight, leading to confusion and to British and French reluc­ tance to repatriate them. In contrast to the relatively surprising success of the Geneva Conventions in the context of the totalizing violence of the First World War, however, the Hague tradition fared worse during the conflict with regard to prisoner of war treatment. There were five particularly serious breaches of the 1907 Hague Convention respecting the Laws and Customs

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War | 35

of War on Land (Hague IV) prisoner of war stipulations (all set out in the Convention annex). First, the stipulation in article 6 of the 1907 Convention that stated that prisoners of war could be employed by the captor state but that ‘the tasks shall not be excessive and shall have no connection with the operations of the war’ was flouted by all belligerents.3 Second, the stipulation in article 7 that ‘prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who captured them’ was also breached in Germany; in 1915, with the impact of the British blockade looming, the decision was taken that prisoner rations should never be greater than those received by German civilians – the link set out in the Convention tying prisoner rations to those received by German soldiers was abandoned (Hinz 2006: 217). Third, article 20, which stated that ‘after the conclusion of peace, the repatriation of prisoners of war shall be carried out as quickly as possible’, was not kept: Britain retained German prisoners until late 1919; France only repatriated its German prisoners of war in spring 1920.4 Holding on to the prisoners was a way of gaining leverage to ensure that Germany signed and complied with the Treaty of Versailles. Fourth, the stipulation in article 4 that prisoners of war must be ‘humanely treated’ was breached during the reprisal sequences that broke out during the war (Bower 1915, see p. 24 and p. 31). During the first half of the war, all sides grappled with whether or not to use reprisals as a way of gaining leverage over enemy prisoner of war treatment, which unleashed a public debate as to the legality of reprisals that were not specifically outlawed in any existing laws of war – Hague or Geneva – at the time of the First World War; the clause specifically outlawing the use of reprisals would only appear in the 1929 Geneva Convention (Wylie 2010a: 52–53). Although Britain did adopt a short-lived reprisal regime against captured German submarine crews in spring 1915, it was rapidly abandoned in the face of Germany responding with reprisals against British prisoners. For British public opinion, in 1915, the association of the German prisoner of war with enemy war crimes – such as unrestricted submarine war­ fare – was not enough to justify reprisals that risked British prisoners’ well-being; indeed for some commentators in the reprisals debate the sub­ marine prisoners could not even be considered as the perpetrators of war crimes. As one former naval commander wrote in 1915: ‘. . . the action of the German submarine officers cannot be classified as espionage or as a war crime’; reprisals were likely to be ‘denounced as methods of barba­ rism’ and prove counterproductive (Bower 1915: 24, 31). The Director of the Department of Prisoners of War at the War Office viewed reprisals as un-British: ‘our national characteristics are opposed to the ill-treatment of a man who has no power to resist and this especially in the case of one

36 | Heather Jones

who is not personally responsible for the acts complained of’ (Belfield 1920: 57–58). In contrast, Germany saw reprisals as an ever more effective way of ensuring the enemy improved its prisoner treatment as the war went on. This was particularly evident in two sequences of reprisals against British and French prisoners of war carried out by the German army: the first occurred in 1916, when over 2,000 British, and an unknown number of French, prisoners were sent to work on starvation rations under shell­ fire in temperatures well below freezing on the Eastern Front; the second took place in 1917, when the German army high command ordered that all newly captured, unwounded non-officer British and French prisoners of war on the Western Front be held in the front line to carry out harsh labour on starvation rations under shellfire (Jones 2008: 335–56). Both these reprisals were in retaliation for perceived Allied mistreatment of German prisoners – the most significant being the permanent use of German prisoner workers under shellfire on the battlefield at Verdun in 1916; both resulted in improved Allied treatment of German captives (ibid.: 344). Thus the 1907 Hague Convention stipulation that prisoners be treated ‘humanely’ was severely breached by German military leaders in their decisions regarding reprisals, in particular those that affected pris­ oners of war working directly for the German armies. Indeed, overall, the war’s most significant innovation was that increasing numbers of captives were not sent to home front camps but retained in working units to labour directly for armies – this was true for Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia by 1917. It was in these prisoner of war labour com­ panies that the worst breaches of ‘humane treatment’ occurred. Working near to the fighting zones, far from the norms of the civilian home front world, these men were often mistreated; in the German case, by 1918, pris­ oners working for the German army endured widespread malnutrition and constant beatings (Jones 2008: 335–56, 2011: 167–209). Finally, the last serious breach was not of an individual article per se but of the spirit of the 1907 Hague Convention, which set out a ‘universal’ definition of the prisoner of war regardless of ethnic origin or nationality. The only group specifically mentioned in the Convention as designated for special treatment were officer prisoners, who were to receive better conditions and could not be made to work (their exemption from work was inserted into the 1907 Convention; it was not in the 1899 Convention) – thus the only specific group distinction was a class-based one. No ethnic or national distinctions were made. Yet during the war, many of the bellig­ erent states instigated differentiated regimes towards particular prisoner groups, privileging those they considered as ‘friendly’ ethnic or national groups, who were perceived as likely to change sides. The Germans privi­

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War | 37

leged the Irish, trying unsuccessfully to create an Irish corps that would fight against Britain in Ireland. They also privileged colonial Muslim pris­ oners of war, who they tried to convince to fight for the Ottoman Turks, and also German-speaking Russians from ethnic German groups within the Tsarist Russian Empire to whom they offered the option of naturaliza­ tion. The French privileged ethnic French prisoners from Alsace-Lorraine, who were captured fighting in the German army, as well as some Poles. The British tended not to set up privileged groups among prisoners of war but did create a special camp for ‘friendly’ enemy alien civilians interned due to the war, which was located at Feltham. The belief that the Hague Conventions were being widely breached during the First World War also led to wartime bilateral agreements between the belligerents that were negotiated and agreed with the help of neutral states – in this process, the pre-war idea of one set of universal prisoner treatment standards for all war belligerents largely collapsed. For example, on 13 May and 19 December 1916, German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Red Cross representatives negotiated the Stockholm agree­ ments to improve prisoner treatment; British and German political del­ egations met at The Hague in June 1917 where they negotiated a bilateral prisoner of war agreement; a second Anglo-German prisoner agreement was negotiated and signed in July 1918 (Kramer 2010: 77). The French and Germans negotiated their own accords on prisoners of war at Bern in 1917 and 1918. However, few of these bilateral agreements were effec­ tive – in particular those with Germany, which were negotiated with the Prussian Ministry of War which had little actual control over prisoners of war who were in the power of the German army and its high command. The recourse to bilateralism was a feature of a falling away of faith in the Hague Conventions.

The Interwar Outcome Ultimately, however, none of these breaches of the Hague Conventions can be considered catastrophic; moreover, as the death statistics show, most men survived captivity. The First World War did not produce the deliber­ ate annihilation of prisoners of war seen during the Second World War in Germany and Japan, and also to a considerable extent, through deliberate neglect, in Soviet Russia. Moreover, most contemporary documents reveal that for contemporaries the Hague Conventions did matter in 1914–1918: they were never completely abandoned. As Annie Deperchin has argued, although on the eve of the First World War the laws of war were ‘still incomplete and fragile’, and ‘although they were broken in a generalized

38 | Heather Jones

way between 1914 and 1918’, they ‘nonetheless remained a constant point of reference in the ‘lawful war’ (guerre du droit) in which all the warring nations believed they were engaged’ (Deperchin 2014: 615). In fact, con­ temporaries used the standards of the Conventions in order to assess what constituted a ‘breach’ of correct prisoner treatment; they were also the basis for the limited number of post-war war crime trials that did take place after the conflict (Willis 1982; Hankel 2003; Kramer 2006: 441–55). Thus the laws of war did provide a functioning measure of protection in the First World War and certainly served as the international benchmark for what was seen as acceptable or unacceptable captivity practice. They had not entirely failed. On the other hand, the war led to the widespread perception that the laws had failed. This was what mattered. It had fatally undermined their reputation by 1918. By far the greatest damage done to the Hague Conventions in the First World War was in this reputational sphere. The very public and serious breaches of the Conventions led to two common­ place beliefs in the interwar period: first that the Conventions were out of date, as their clauses had not been designed for an industrialized war and the mass captivity systems that it created; this led some to campaign for a new Geneva Convention; second, that everyone had breached the Hague Conventions to such an extent that the only recourse left was to fall back on a policy of reciprocity and use this to regulate prisoner treatment; in other words, to match what the enemy did to its prisoners, action by action, and in the case of enemy mistreatment to adopt harsh reprisals against their prisoners in order to punish the enemy’s behaviour. This approach was the subject of particular discussion in interwar Germany, where a large number of Ph.D. dissertations testify to the German interest in the concept of reprisals during this time.5 The German legal view of reprisals was summed up in a 1923 commentary by the international law expert Clemens Plassmann who wrote that  . . . the Laws of War on Land are silent regarding reprisals, however, they are recognized as a permissible method of force in customary international law. They can also hardly be renounced as a method. The one condition, however, has to be that they are only considered as an ultima ratio. (1923: 151)

Indeed, in his 1925 thesis on ‘Reciprocity measures and reprisals in pris­ oner of war law: their causes and effects assessed with regard to their use between France and Germany during the World War’, for Wurzburg university, Rupert Thiesing argued that reprisals could even operate as a means of bolstering international law, since during the 1914–1918 conflict, reprisals did, in the end, lead, through their pressure, to new bilateral agreements between belligerents and to the upholding of inter­

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War | 39

national law, although it is ‘in the interest of prisoners of war if they can be avoided’.6 The accusation that the Hague Conventions were outdated and unsuit­ able for the new forms of captivity brought about by mass industrialized warfare does have some truth: the Hague Conventions were designed for a pre-1914 idea of warfare. They did not anticipate the scale or the dura­ tion of mass captivity. Worse were the many aspects of First World War prisoner treatment to which the Hague Conventions simply contained no reference – for example, prisoner transport conditions or protecting pris­ oners from the enemy public. The Hague Conventions were not detailed enough in many regards to offer guidance to the belligerent states – they had always envisaged national military law covering the more precise details of prisoner treatment. The problem was that national military law in certain states, such as Germany, allowed for very harsh corporal punish­ ment of captives, which clashed with the Hague Conventions’ stipu­lation that prisoners be treated humanely. And again, for many elements of the war for which there was no precedent, such as prisoner of war labour companies working for their captor state’s armies, national military law was also not detailed enough and offered little legal framework or guid­ ance. What was left in some quarters after the war ended was a sense of the bankruptcy of the pre-war attempts to develop ‘laws of war’ that the Hague Conventions represented. But if the accusation that the Hague Conventions proved outdated and too vague was a fair one, the common wartime and post-war belief that the Conventions had been useless and completely breached was inaccurate. In many internal German, French and British wartime military memos on prisoner treatment, right up to the Armistice, the Hague Conventions were constantly referred to as the moral yardstick by which policies were defined as acceptable or radically transgressive. The Hague Conventions provided a measure against which behaviour could be gauged and no belligerent state was prepared to openly abandon them publicly and in their entirety – even if they all chose to deliberately breach aspects of them during the conflict. This residual power of the Hague Conventions does appear to have slowed radicalization of prisoner mistreatment overall in 1914–1918 – although broader cultural limitations stemming from religious and political traditions also played a role. The Geneva tradition fared much better, not least because the Geneva Conventions’ association with a neutral supranational body, the ICRC, backed by the neutral Swiss government during the war, had meant that the Geneva Conventions had their own organizational system to cham­ pion them and promote their reputation as neutral in a way that the Hague Conventions did not. Thus the Geneva tradition exited the war associated

40 | Heather Jones

with both universalist supranational regulation and neutrality, while the Hague Conventions exited with no national or supranational champions after 1918 – Tsarist Russia, their original champion, having met its demise in the revolutions of 1917, with its successor state the USSR reluctant to embrace what it saw as a ‘bourgeois’ liberal international law tradition. The damage to the Hague Conventions’ reputation was such that their moderate, but real, impact during the war was overlooked in the interwar period. All of this helps to explain why the interwar period saw a shift in responsibility for prisoners of war towards Geneva and away from the Hague tradition. Although the Hague Conventions remained in force after 1918, the third Geneva Convention of 1929 marked the effective shift of all the details of prisoner of war treatment to the Geneva tradition – all the precise aspects of prisoner treatment and captivity were now legally regu­ lated by this new Geneva Convention, solely dedicated to prisoners, and not just to the treatment of wounded prisoners as had been the case prior to 1929. It was this new Convention that now dominated debates about wartime practices, stemming from a strong sense in the ICRC after the war that the Hague Conventions had failed to protect prisoners. The ICRC drafted a new code on prisoner of war treatment at the 10th international conference of the ICRC in 1920: this would form one of the main pillars of the 1929 Geneva Convention, along with a 22-article code adopted by the International Law Association (ILA) in the autumn of 1921 (Wylie 2010b: 99, 97). The only other interwar addition to the laws of war was the new Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical warfare. An attempt by the ICRC to organize a new convention in 1934 that would protect civilians in wartime failed, as states refused to support it. The 1929 Geneva Convention thus indicates that prisoner mistreatment was unusual in the interwar period in leading to a revision of international law, unlike other war issues that were left unaddressed after the conflict; this reflected the work of activ­ ists, who believed that while the laws of war had proved inadequate in 1914–1918, they should be revised rather than abandoned. Clearly, overall, the verdict by 1929 was that the First World War had not been a success story for international law as far as prisoner treatment was concerned. Thus to answer our initial question: the laws of war had worked better in the First World War than was generally believed. But it was the damage to their reputation as a result of serious breaches that had occurred that mattered and that discredited them.

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War | 41

Conclusion The paradox was that after 1929 the group with the best protection in inter­ national law – prisoners of war – suffered some of the worst wartime hor­ rors in the Second World War. Most infamously, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of extermination against Soviet prisoners of war on the Eastern Front: 5.7 million Soviet prisoners were captured by the Germans, of whom between 3.3 and 3.7 million died (Speed 1990: 2). More Russians died in German prisoner of war camps in the years 1941–45 ‘than in all of World War One’ (Judt 2005: 19). This was despite the fact that after war broke out the USSR had offered to de facto accept the 1929 Geneva Convention if Germany agreed to do likewise for Soviet prisoners; Germany refused. Soviet treatment of German prisoners was also appalling, with high death rates from negligence, although it was never as systematically murderous as the Nazi approach. Likewise Japanese prisoner treatment was appalling in the Pacific theatre. Yet these Second World War horrors were largely perpetrated by those states that had not ratified the Geneva Convention – with the exception of Germany. The Soviet Union and Japan who had very poor prisoner treatment had not accepted the 1929 Geneva Convention; the USSR never signed the 1929 Convention; Japan signed it but did not ratify it. And the Nazis felt enough qualms about openly flouting international law that they needed to use the spurious excuse that the Soviets had not signed up to the 1929 Geneva Convention as a cover for their atrocities against Soviet prisoners of war. The fact that the Western Allies, and the Axis Power Italy, all successfully kept the 1929 Geneva Convention with few breaches – and the fact that even Nazi Germany largely kept the Convention towards Western prisoners of war – was a success for international law, particu­ larly given the brutal context of extremely radical total warfare of 1939–45 (Wylie 2010a). Even after the Allies had de facto abandoned the policy of not targeting enemy civilians deliberately in aerial bombardment, they never dared abandon the 1929 Geneva Convention towards prisoners of war. Reciprocity of course played a role in this: while Germany kept the Geneva Convention towards Western powers the Allies were unlikely to abandon it, but the cultural weight of the Geneva Convention and its status in international public opinion was every bit as crucial. It is this suc­ cess that explains why, after 1945, the 1929 Geneva Convention remained in force and remains the main international law on prisoner of war treat­ ment to the present day. In contrast, the Hague Conventions – which covered an array of issues and not just prisoner of war treatment – were not revised after 1918. Indeed a very popular view among lawyers specializing in international

42 | Heather Jones

law at the time was that international law should focus upon outlawing war itself rather than regulating it – hence the drafting of the 1928 KelloggBriand Pact, which focused upon making aggressive law as a tool of for­ eign policy illegal. This shift in international law to the utopian attempt to outlaw war itself was not entirely bereft of value. It was, after all, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 that later provided the international law basis for trying leading figures in the Nazi regime at Nuremberg for launching an ‘aggressive’ war, although after the horrific atrocities of 1939–45 this would have come as little comfort to the idealists who drafted it. Overall, however, what the comparison with the Second World War reveals is the extent to which both the Geneva and Hague traditions had actually proved relatively successful in protecting prisoners of war in 1914–1918. Yet by the 1930s the First World War was being remembered as a conflict in which international law had failed. This is best illustrated by a 1935 lec­ ture on ‘International law in the wars of the future’, given by James Garner, a leading interwar expert on international law during the First World War, to the Nazi regime’s think tank on legal matters – the Akademie für Deutsches Recht – which was headed by Hans Frank (later Governor General of Poland and a notorious war criminal). The lecture audience included Hans Frank and Hjalmar Schacht among others. Garner argued strongly for the need to revise the laws of war and con­ tended that they had not failed as badly in the First World War as was commonly believed.7 He made this contention despite acknowledging that he ‘knew that the laws of war had been discredited through the events of the world war’.8 Garner recognized that the trend in international law was towards strengthening international law to outlaw war – the laws of peace as he termed it. But he contended, rather presciently given his audience, that in fact he did not believe that there would never again be another war – and asserted that the idea that the laws of war had com­ pletely collapsed in 1914–1918 was incorrect. Certainly breaches of the laws of war had occurred but, Garner contended, this did not negate the value of having such laws as they set important universal ‘norms which none of the nearly 30 belligerents in the world war had contested that they were bound by’.9 One should ask, Garner suggested ‘what character the world war would have had had there been no binding norms upon any of the belligerents’.10 He argued that the war had shown that the laws of war needed urgent revision, not abandonment, and emphasized the success­ ful conclusion of the 1929 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war as an example of how other laws of war could be revised – if states showed the will to do so. Otherwise, he predicted, in the absence of new laws should a future war break out escalation risked occurring and reprisals alone would be used to enforce norms.11

International Law and Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War | 43

Garner recognized that the advent of total war in 1914–1918 did not mean that law was futile; rather that more powerful modern wars required a more effective, more total legal framework to contain them. Unfortunately, this insight was not heeded and his audience would shortly wage war without respect for international law, with appalling conse­ quences for certain categories of prisoners of war. Ultimately, by 1939–1945, the rise of radical nationalism had fully won the clash between interna­ tional law and the prerogative of states that had been so evident in the sphere of prisoner treatment during the 1914–1918 conflict.

Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. The articles referring to prisoner of war treatment are set out in the Annex to Hague IV. 2. The National Archives, Kew (TNA), WO 161/95, interview no. 22, Captain H.O. Sutherland. 3. See the full text of the 1907 Hague Convention, online at the Avalon Project, Yale: http:// avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/hague02.asp; accessed 30 November 2011. 4. The Avalon Project, Yale: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/hague02.asp; accessed 30 November 2011. 5. See: Harald Heyns, ‘Die Anwendung von militärischen Repressalien unter Völkerbundmitgliedstaaten’ (Kiel university, 1938); Wilhelm Ritter, ‘Die Repressalien­ handlung’ (Giessen university, 1928); Robert Roth, ‘Die Repressalie’ (Erlangen uni­ versity, 1918); Alfred Müller, ‘Wandlungen im Repressalienrecht’ (Gottingen, 1933); Georg Kappus, ‘Der völkerrechtliche Kriegsbegriff in seiner Abgrenzung gegenüber den militärischen Repressalien’ (Frankfurt University, 1935; published Breslau, 1936). For a book on similar themes see Keller (1934). 6. Rupert Thiesing, ‘Gegenseitigkeitsmaßnahmen und Repressalien im Kriegsgefangen­ enrecht in ihren Ursachen und Wirkungen, beurteilt nach ihrer Anwendung zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland während des Weltkrieges!’ (Würzburg, Ph.D. dissertation, 1925), p. 129. 7. Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde (BARCh L), R 61 Akademie für Deutsches Recht: James Garner Vortrag, R 61/8, 9. Vollsitzung der Akademie für Deutsches Recht, Sonnabend den 30 November 1935, f. 1. 8. BARCh L, R 61/8 ff. 29–30. 9. BARCh L, R 61/8 ff. 29–56. 10. BARCh L, R 61/8 ff. 29–56. 11. BARCh L, R 61/8 f. 37.

44 | Heather Jones

Heather Jones is an Associate Professor in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a gradu­ ate of Trinity College Dublin, where she was a foundation scholar and a Government of Ireland Research Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and of St John’s College, Cambridge. Dr Jones has held a Max Weber Fellowship at the European University Institute, Florence and is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Research Centre of the Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. Her monograph Violence Against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914–1920 was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011, with a paperback edition published in 2013; she has published over 25 scholarly articles and chapters in edited volumes on the First World War and is cur­ rently researching the British monarchy at war 1914–1918.

CHAPTER 2

German Treatment of Jewish Prisoners of War in the Second World War

( Rüdiger Overmans

The contingents of the British Army based in Germany in 2008 left their headquarters in Quebec Barracks at Osnabrück (Lower Saxony), in the north of the country. During the Second World War this site had been the prisoner of war camp for officers known as Oflag VI C, Eversheide. The old barrack huts are still standing and may become a museum. This camp was distinctive in that out of the 5,000 Yugoslav officers held there, 400 were Jewish. Not only were they not assassinated, but they were even able to form a Jewish community, to have their own prayer room, bury their dead in the local Jewish cemetery and, to cap it all, survive the war. After the conflict their rabbi became the chief rabbi in Lower Saxony; yet today the members of the German Jewish community do not appear to take any interest in the site, preferring to ignore this episode of Jewish life in Germany and not become involved in its preservation (Asaria 1975; Lahmann-Lammert 2011a, 2011b). The aim here is to demonstrate that the fate suffered by Jewish pris­ oners of war in German hands in the Second World War depended on whether or not they were of Soviet nationality. Although the Soviet Jewish prisoners were murdered, most of those who were Jewish but not from the USSR survived captivity. Why was there such a difference in the treatment meted out by the Wehrmacht? The response to this question constitutes the heart of this contribution. Having evoked the engagement of the Jews in battle and their fate as captives, depending on their nationality, it is then necessary to decipher and analyse the Nazi policy on Jews in the prison camps. Finally, the prisoners themselves are considered; the way in which they lived through their captivity in Germany as well as their return home.

46 | Rüdiger Overmans

Jewish Soldiers in the Second World War During the Second World War, 1.5 million Jews fought against the Germans. Estimates suggest that around 200,000 of them were imprisoned. Their origins were mostly British, American, Soviet, Polish, French and Yugoslav. It should be stated at the outset that these figures, like all the data to follow, must be approached with care, for they do not correspond to the figures presented in other sources and by general opinion are con­ sidered too high. It is important then to consider them not as precise data but rather as points of reference (Spector 1992: 215). Polish soldiers were the first to fall into German hands. Approximately 400,000 men were captured, including 60,000 Jews, of whom 1,000 were officers. The Nazis did not have the necessary infrastructure to house all the Polish prisoners of war, or the intention to retain those whom they judged unsuitable to remain in Germany as a source of forced labour. They therefore liberated potential resistance fighters, intellectuals, Jews and other ‘undesirables’, who were sent back to the General Government during the winter of 1939–1940. In February 1940, however, the lack of manpower in Germany was so serious that it was no longer possible to liberate prisoners. Nevertheless, space had to be found in the camps for the French prisoners of war, who were expected to be received as soon as the French campaign began. It was therefore decided that 90,000 Polish would remain in captivity and that the others would remain in Germany as ‘free’ workers forced to work in the Reich. The ‘undesirable suspects’ such as Jews and officers could not be affected by the measures of libera­ tion. Consequently, all the Polish Jewish officers, around 1,000 individuals, and all of the Polish Jewish rank and file who had not been identified as Jewish and released during the winter, remained in captivity until the end of the war (Overmans 2005: 745–46). The second national group to fall into German hands in large numbers consisted of French Jews. Precise figures do not exist, but the estimate lies between 10 and 15 thousand. Among them were two cousins, Elie and Alain de Rothschild, the historian Henri Brunschwig, the philoso­ pher Emmanuel Lévinas and the future Grand Rabbis Ernest Guggenheim and Simon Fuks. Many French Jewish prisoners of war were from Alsace and as such had the right to declare themselves German, in which case they were liberated and sent home – as long as they had not yet been identified as Jewish; however they then risked being identified at home as Jewish and deported. Despite being held captive, the status of prisoner of war could prove providential, not only for the French Jewish prison­ ers but also for their families. The Vichy government tried to improve its

German Treatment of Jewish Prisoners of War in the Second World War | 47

reputation among the French by assuming social and political protection for all French prisoners in German hands, without distinction of religion, despite the anti-Semitic measures taken by this same government. As a result, Jewish women and their children could not be deported to the con­ centration camps while their husbands remained in captivity – but if the latter were liberated and repatriated, the whole family could be deported (Durand 1980: 354, 1987: 205). In April 1941, Germany conquered Yugoslavia. Among approximately 700,000 soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans, almost all were swiftly liberated, with the exception of the Serbs and the Jews, who had to remain in captivity until the end of the war. The Jewish prisoners of war knew very well that they would be better off remaining in prison camps in Germany: the forces of Nazi occupation and the Serb government were murdering their families in Serbia. Despite the dissuasive efforts of their comrades, twelve Jewish officers volunteered for the first transport to return to Serbia in 1942. They were all murdered by the Gestapo within few weeks after their arrival (Overmans 2005: 781). The Jews in the armed forces of the United States and United Kingdom, including the Commonwealth, formed the largest group of Jewish sol­ diers – around one million men. In captivity they were treated like their compatriots. This applied equally to Jews of the Jewish Brigade and the Palestinian units. All these non-Soviet Jews remained safe in the prisoner of war camps in Germany. Ordinary soldiers were used as forced labour, while officer prisoners lived in the camps designated for officers (Spector 1992: 214–15). In June 1941, Nazi Germany began its offensive on the Eastern Front. Arguing that international law was not applicable on the “Eastern Front” because the Soviet Union had not signed the relevant international con­ ventions, the Germans treated Soviet Jewish prisoners of war differently. It was an argument that should never have been invoked, since all the belligerent powers should have submitted to the usual international law forbidding the maltreatment of prisoners of war. On the Eastern Front, however, neither of the two parties considered themselves bound or hin­ dered by international law (Overmans 2005: 799–804). The Germans classified Soviet prisoners of war in three categories: • Those who were worthy of confidence – individuals who could be useful to the government of occupation; • Non-suspects, prisoners of war and civilians who could be liberated and/ or used as forced labour; • Suspects, Jews, intellectuals, officials of the Soviet government or the Communist Party. (ibid.: 813–15)

48 | Rüdiger Overmans

All those who fell into the last category were handed over to special detachments of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, who executed them. Generally, the only people to survive were those who succeeded in hiding their identity. In the Jewish case they amounted to 5,000 out of the 80,000 Soviet Jewish prisoners of war captured by the Germans (Polian 2005: 23).

German Policy Concerning Non-Soviet Jewish Prisoners of War The German civil authorities had numerous orders, regulations or legal cases dealing with the treatment of the Jews.1 Surprisingly, however, there is little to be found on this subject in the Wehrmacht files: orders concern­ ing Soviet prisoners of war mention the treatment of prisoners of war who were Jewish, but there is no general order of rules concerning those who were non-Soviet Jews. The only order entitled ‘Treatment of Jewish prison­ ers of war’ was published in December 1944; of its mere four paragraphs, the most important stipulates that the Jews must be treated in the same way as other prisoners of war. But this order probably had little impor­ tance, since it was sent out five months before the end of the war, when the Wehrmacht was already in the process of collapse.2 One of the rare distinctions in the treatment of prisoners was that some­ times – but not always – the Jews were housed in separate barrack huts. The Wehrmacht regulation stipulated that the Jews must not be grouped in separate camps but spread out, if possible, in special zones. This arrange­ ment could be justified on the basis of Article 9 of the Geneva Convention, which ordered the separation of prisoners of war by ‘race and nationality’, but it did not allow the Germans to treat prisoners of war differently. It was only in December 1944 that the order was given to formally separate the Jews from their non-Jewish comrades. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the protective powers, the Allied governments and the Jews themselves feared that this could mark the beginning of depor­ tations to the concentration camps, but these fears proved groundless. To date, the motives behind the origin of this order of December 1944 remain unknown. The guards at Oflag X C at Lübeck (Schleswig-Holstein), on the other hand, told certain British prisoners of war that it was the Nazis who should guard the Jewish prisoners of war for reprisals or as exchange currency with the Allies (Favez 1989: 282–83). Unlike civilian German Jews, Jewish prisoners of war were not required to wear the yellow star. There seem to have been several attempts to discriminate against Jewish prison­ ers, since the order forbidding the yellow star had to be repeated several times. Private soldiers were the most affected by this measure, because

German Treatment of Jewish Prisoners of War in the Second World War | 49

their labour detachments operated, without distinctive signs, within the civilian population (Gelber 1981: 108; Durand 1987: 206). Religious practice was another important aspect of camp life. Generally, it was guaranteed by international law and German regulations that no distinction would be made between the different religious faiths. Nothing, in theory, prevented the Jews from practising their faith. Jewish services took place in some camps, sometimes secretly, sometimes with the per­ mission of the German administration itself. The most significant example is supplied by Rabbi Hermann Helfgott, a captain in the Yugoslav army and a military chaplain. With some 400 other Jews he was interned in the prisoner of war camp VI C at Osnabrück (Lower Saxony) mentioned above. Having previously obtained permission from the German camp commandant, he managed to obtain a prayer room. The Jews celebrated all their feast days. When a Jewish officer died, a detachment of ten Yugoslav Jews – and an equal number of German officers – escorted the body to a Jewish cemetery. After 1942, the German officers ceased to escort the cof­ fins (Asaria 1975: 32). The non-Soviet Jews were not threatened with extermination, but that did not mean simply that they did not suffer discrimination. They suf­ fered discrimination at lower levels that was sometimes ridiculous, or even against German interests. On 10 August 1942, for example, the High Command of German armed forces issued a regulation under which pris­ oners of war were no longer authorized to give blood to German hospitals; this was in order to avoid any risk of Jewish blood being used. Other restrictions were more serious in their consequences: the members of the French protected personnel – such as chaplains, doctors and medical orderlies – were repatriated if they were not needed for the medical treat­ ment of their prisoner of war comrades, but the regulation did not apply to Jews, who had to remain in captivity.3 The most serious discrimination related to work was that Jews and other POWs seen as genuine, or potential, troublemakers were assigned to the hardest labour, normally reserved for non-skilled workers. The story of a labour unit at Berga-an-der-Elster (Thuringia) is an extreme example. In December 1944 the German government decided to build a new under­ ground factory in this small town in eastern Germany. The POW camp IX B at Bad Orb had to send a labour unit for this task. In the end it con­ sisted of 350 American prisoners of war, including eighty Jews. Everyone probably knew that this was a particularly hard assignment. No one was therefore surprised at a certain over-representation of Jews in the make-up of the unit, knowing that at the time Jews represented around 3 per cent of the American POWs in the camp. According to this ratio, the unit should have included about eleven Jews. Because of the particularly difficult con­

50 | Rüdiger Overmans

ditions of life and work, seventy of these American prisoners of war (i.e., 20 per cent of the labour unit) died at Berga-an-der-Elster. Compared to the average mortality rate among detainees from concentration camps who also worked on this site, this rate of 20 per cent does not appear very high – but the mortality rate for all American prisoners of war generally did not exceed 1 per cent. It is true that 270 prisoners of war in this group were not Jewish and received no better treatment as such; but it remains the fact that the Jews ran a greater risk of being allocated to difficult and laborious work (Cohen 2005; Whitlock 2005).

Why Jewish Prisoners of War were Treated Differently from Jews who were not Imprisoned As far as the Western theatre of operations is concerned one should bear in mind that where Jewish prisoners of war were concerned, the Wehrmacht had no rules of principle, no central orders. Decisions were taken accord­ ing to circumstances. For the government of the Third Reich, conforming to international law or profiting from the labour of prisoners of war did not figure among the most important questions. Its chief concern was the good treatment of German soldiers in enemy hands, and the administra­ tion in charge of prisoners of war tried to avoid any action that could be harmful to German prisoners of war (Overmans 2005: 867). This principle of reciprocity proved effective in many cases. On several occasions the Reichsfűhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler tried, to the detriment of the Wehrmacht, to extend his control over Polish officers or, at least, over Jews among their numbers without success: the Wehrmacht retorted that the Polish were allies of the British.4 If the Germans maltreated Polish officers, the British would carry out reprisals on German prisoners of war in their hands. As a general rule, such arguments of reciprocity won the day over the anti-Semitic views of National Socialism. Anti-Semitic orders were issued only in cases where no reprisals could be expected – gener­ ally in cases of minor importance - such as that of the blood donations mentioned above. For France there was no counterbalance, as it held no German prisoners of war. Nonetheless, the Germans preferred not to crush the French, with whom they wished to maintain reasonably good relations. This tendency to limit the use of force towards Jewish prison­ ers of war for reasons of self-interest was strengthened by an ‘interna­ tional regime’, as defined by Neville Wylie (2010a: 13–38). An international regime is an ensemble of regulations that arises from repeated negotia­ tions on more or less comparable questions. These rules applied to all actors who met certain criteria; for example, those who had ratified the

German Treatment of Jewish Prisoners of War in the Second World War | 51

two Geneva Conventions of 1929. A good example of such regulations is the stipulation that the nationality of a combatant was to be defined by the uniform he wore. Under this rule, as long as he was wearing a British uni­ form, a partisan of the Polish government in exile was treated as British, not Polish. Similarly, members of the Wehrmacht who were French, Swiss and Dutch, or from other nationalities, were considered as Germans because they wore a German uniform. This principle was established at the outbreak of the war and was respected by all states at war in the Western theatre of operations. Without good reasons – that is, substantial legal reasons – it was therefore not possible for Germans to treat Western Jewish prisoners of war differently from those who were not Jewish. This held true equally for Jews from states without a counterbalance, such as the Yugoslav Jewish prisoners of war. Their government in exile had no political importance, and their national government was as anti-Semitic as the German government. Nonetheless, the Germans respected their prisoner of war status: there was no justification to deprive them of it. Overall, the moderately fair treatment reserved for non-Soviet Jews cannot be attributed to the ‘humanity’ of the Wehrmacht, or to any dys­ functioning in the German administration; it arose from the principle of reciprocity and the international regime, which forced the Germans to treat non-Soviet Jewish prisoners of war relatively well. The situation was different on the Eastern Front. Hitler personally laid down the doctrine that it was impossible to survive Soviet captivity and that, in consequence, each soldier must retain his last bullet for himself. Hitler did not want to see German soldiers returning alive from Soviet captivity. This allowed him, in return, to treat the Soviet prisoners of war in general, and the Soviet Jews in particular, as he did. In this respect he was in perfect agreement with Stalin, who had declared at the beginning of the war that anyone taken captive was a traitor and would be punished on his return to the Soviet Union. There was, in fact, no one to protect Jewish Soviet prisoners of war (Overmans 2010: 127–40).

The Experience of Captivity from the Perspective of the Jewish POWs Captured Jewish soldiers had every reason to fear the worst, and their captivity was therefore passed in uncertainty and distress, as witnessed by many survivors’ accounts. Rabbi Helfgott, for example, was seen at prayer by a German officer, who screamed at him: ‘Who gave you permis­ sion to pray? Who gave you permission to learn Hebrew? Pigs of Jews, you are forbidden everything! Understood! From today, you are forbidden to

52 | Rüdiger Overmans

pray!’ (Asaria 1975: 26). A few days later, the commandant of this camp announced publicly: ‘. . . as far as I am concerned, I shall never forget that you are officers and soldiers. I will try to ease your life . . .’ (ibid.: 37). Making a show of anti-Semitic feelings was not frowned upon in the Third Reich although it was, on the contrary, ill-advised to show sympathy for the Jews in public. A non-Jewish prisoner of war from a Western country could address his complaints to the camp commandant with a reasonable chance of being heard. For the Jews, on the other hand, such a step was ill-advised if one was not entirely sure that the commandant was not profoundly anti-Semitic, since the drawbacks could be greater than the hoped-for advantages. With time, the Jewish prisoners of war learned that to some extent they were safe in their camps in Germany. Like all POWs, they were anxious for their families. The majority of families of non-Jewish prisoners of war were not threatened with death – this applied also to the families of British and French Jewish POWs. But the situation was radically different for the Jewish prisoners of war from Poland or Yugoslavia: powerless, they learned through letters from home that their families had been deported or murdered. This helplessness must certainly have been the heaviest burden for them to bear. Depending on nationality, different possibilities were open to Jewish prisoners of war who were liberated at the end of the war. The families of British and American Jews had not been affected more by the war than their non-Jewish compatriots. The wives and children of French Jewish prisoners generally survived the war thanks to the prisoner-of-war status of their husbands and fathers – but this status did not protect other mem­ bers of the family (brothers, cousins, uncles, etc.). For Yugoslav and Polish Jewish prisoners of war, returning home had no meaning, because if those close to them had not left the country, they had been murdered. As a result, many of them remained in Germany or emigrated elsewhere. Finally, as we have seen, very few Soviet Jewish prisoners of war returned home: nearly all had been massacred, like their families.

Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. The remarks in this section refer exclusively to non-Soviet prisoners of war; the Jewish Soviet prisoners of war did not reach the camps – they were identified and murdered beforehand.

German Treatment of Jewish Prisoners of War in the Second World War | 53

2. Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Fribourg-in-Brisgau (BARch F), RW 6/270, Der Befehlshaber des Ersatzheeres/Chef des Kriegsgefangenenwesens, Befehlssammlung no. 48/876, 15 December 1944. 3. BARch F, RW 6/270, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht/Chef Kriegsgefangenenwesen/ Allg.: Betr.: Krgef als Blutspender, Befehlssammlung no. 15/111. 4. Between the French defeat and the beginning of the “Ostfeldzug”, the Poles had been the only active allies of the British.

Rüdiger Overmans is a Doctor of Economy and History. Researcher emeritus, since his retirement in 2004, at the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Potsdam), he lives at Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) and now works as a researcher and consultant for audiovisual produc­ tion companies. His research is concerned with the demographic, social and economic consequences of wars, in particular of the Second World War. In particular he has published Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Oldenbourg, 1999), and numerous articles and con­ tributions on the German prisoners in enemy hands as well as captives in German hands, but also on captivity in general. Recently, he has coedited Rotarmisten in deutscher Hand (with Andreas Hilger and Pavel Polian, Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2012).

CHAPTER 3

‘All Things Are Possible For Him Who Believes’ (Mark 9:23)

The Regulation of Religious Life in Prisoner of War Camps in the Second World War

( Delphine Debons

The Geneva Convention signed on 27 July 1929 covered the treatment of prisoners of war, making it the first treaty of international humanitarian law to be devoted entirely to the conditions of detention of soldiers cap­ tured in times of armed conflict. By the end of the First World War, the conflict in which mass war captivity became general, such a normative text appeared indispensable. Along with prescriptions relating to the con­ ditions of capture that included dispositions concerning the end of cap­ tivity and rules for organization and aid in the camps, some sixty articles dealt with the conditions of captivity – the ban on cruel treatment; penal sanctions; hygiene, food and clothing; and even the intellectual and moral needs of prisoners of war. All were treated in sufficiently universal terms for the states to give their adherence. The Second World War offers the historian the opportunity to study the first implementation of this new text of international law and its repercus­ sions on war captivity. It is particularly interesting to identify the patterns of thinking behind the attitudes adopted by the detaining states vis-à-vis the conditions of captivity. The fear of reprisals and the principle of the reciprocity of treatment are generally evoked to explain the respect – or non-respect – of the Conventions – but this reasoning on its own appears simplistic. In an article that appeared in 1994, Simon P. MacKenzie made an initial demonstration based on a relatively general comparative study of the conditions of wartime captivity in the three main theatres of opera­ tion in the Second World War (MacKenzie 1994: 487–520):

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Examining the POW policies adopted by the belligerents more closely, without immediate recourse to the deceptively simple dichotomy of civilized versus barbaric, should shed more light on the fundamental ideological and practical motives behind captor behavior on all sides. (ibid.: 489)

To take his reflection further, it is interesting to focus the historical point of view more closely on a specific captivity or a particular point in the Geneva Conventions. This contribution establishes a first marker in this sense, looking clearly at the logic behind regulations of the law on reli­ gious practice among French and British prisoners of war held by the Third Reich, and among German prisoners of war in French and British hands.1 This contribution seeks to clearly define the motives determining the belligerent nations’ degree of application of the international treaties, even without establishing a clear hierarchy. Such an exercise appears to have its perils, with factors of influence being many and interdependent. Simon P. MacKenzie applies his skills here, in the first place locating the belligerents’ code of politico-cultural belief – in other words the ideologi­ cal factor.

Ideology and Propaganda For a state to sign and ratify an international convention, there is a pre­ condition: its adherence to the system of values and beliefs – the moral code – that it conveys. In the case of war captivity, a minimum of respect for the enemy should take precedence. Good conditions of detention for the majority of prisoners of war on the Western Front resulted from the recognition of a certain shared ‘humanity’. The situation on the Eastern Front was different: the Soviet Union was not party to the Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, while Nazi Germany had been led by its own racial theories to a total denial of the moral code under which it had signed and then ratified the Convention. Religious support was of course only rarely accorded to prisoners of war regarded by the Nazis as mem­ bers of the ‘Slav race’ – even when they were held in camps with prisoners of war from the Western Front, who benefited from it. The treatment of the ‘native’ prisoners of war, with their origins in ‘black Africa’, in particular, reflected the same logic (see Mabon 2008: 79–91). Although ideology undoubtedly holds a central place in the legal reasoning of the detaining states, other considerations can supplant it. This can be seen clearly in the treatment meted out by Nazi Germany to Jewish prisoners of war, who, thanks to this statute of international law, avoided the humiliations suffered by the civilians (see Overmans’s

56 | Delphine Debons

contribution). In the domain of religious support for prisoners of war, it seems that the anti-Christian nature of the National Socialist ideol­ ogy was equally played down in the face of other considerations. The government of the Reich effectively gave proof of a certain tolerance on this matter, no doubt in order to avoid international condemnation from the Church or awakening the suspicions of the Allied governments, and not to lose the support of the German people. Orders from the highest levels of the hierarchy support this interpretation (see Montclos 1991; Kershaw 2010). These strategic positions were not, however, always respected at lower levels. In the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag III B (now in Brandenburg), for example, religious services were banned following the discovery of two dead cows in the adjoining field.2 Any pretext was evidently good enough to restrict religious practice. In Stalag IX C (now in Thuringia), the chaplain noted that the management appeared favour­ able, but not the junior officers or the soldiers who were responsible for the camps: They interpret the orders as they like or do not follow them at all. Most of the time, they do not pass them on to the chaplain concerned . . . If the latter would like, as is his right, to write a letter to the chief chaplain or the confidential agent in the camp, his letters were stopped by the camp commandant and never reached their destination . . . When we wanted to be informed of this, through secret notes, we generally won the day with the management. But a fortnight later, the victimization began again in another way.3

The limitations imposed on the mission of chaplains in the camps in Germany also reflect the fear that they might be active in undermining their fellow detainees. The chaplain was a potential agitator, as stated by the NSDAP (The National Socialist German Workers’ Party or Nazi Party) and the OKW (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces) in a circular signed by Martin Bormann in February 1942. Sanctions were available in such cases: any agitator-priest would be relieved of his functions and his behaviour brought to district attention; in periods of tension, visits to the camps would be limited, and in particular cases the authorities had the capacity to withdraw entirely his freedom to exercise his spiritual activities at all levels in the camps.4 A chaplain in Stalag IX C (now in Thuringia) was apparently sent to a concentration camp for having criti­ cized the German army in a sermon.5 What appears here, at the level of the prisoner of war camps, was the same divergence of opinion between the Party secretary, Martin Bormann, and Hitler as in the struggle against the German Christian churches. During the same period, Bormann regener­ ated the struggle, opposing the truce ordered by the Führer until the end of the war (see Montclos 1991; Kershaw 2010).

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The treatment of prisoners of war could thus be damaged by the fear of propaganda within the camps – but it could equally be improved by a wish to propagandize among the detainees. The government of the Third Reich notably favoured the religious practices of Algerian and Tunisian Muslims in the Frontstalags (German prisoner of war camps in occupied France). In order to counter the French colonial power, in 1940 the administration of occupation created a special propaganda bureau for the Maghreb with a programme designed to promote Islamic values. Koranic readings were broadcast and barrack buildings were reserved in the camps to serve as mosques (Thomas 2002: 657–92). It is difficult to establish the relative degrees of sincerity and manipu­ lation, concession and accommodation in the orders from the High Command of the Third Reich, or to know which directives were genu­ inely received in the camps. To work out where a regulation came from and its subsequent route before reaching the prisoners of war requires a lengthy labour of enquiry for very uncertain results. The historian is confronted with a complex administrative mesh: several decision-making powers were generally consulted – the ministries of War, Foreign Affairs and sometimes Home Affairs – and an order, once confirmed, was dif­ fused down different ranks – military regions and districts, principal camps, sectors of camps and work detachments. Thus, directives might be sent out to satisfy observers and to respect the Geneva Convention in the knowledge that at lower levels they would not be applied. The fear of propaganda was equally present in the Allied countries, even if it was of another order and was not attended by similar sanctions. Great Britain notably refused a demand from the Church to negotiate with Germany to obtain access for voluntary British Christians to intervene in the camps; it feared that the Reich would demand reciprocity and select ministers of religion for their adherence to the National Socialist cause rather than for their spiritual qualities. Further, after the war, voluntary offers to act as chaplains in German prisoner-of-war camps were very carefully examined and selected. It was a matter of avoiding any risk of propagation of Nazi ideas and ensure the quality of the clergy mission; the Churches worked on this but so did the French and British governments, since the diffusion of Christian values was part of the moral code of these states and was seen as an integral element in these programmes of denazi­ fication. Let us note, however, that ‘slip ups’ were observed among the camp authorities or among French and British civilian populations, who felt the need for vengeance.6 Certain commandants or employers deprived prisoners of religious support; civilians complained that the prisoners’ conditions of detention were too comfortable, particularly the favourable regime accorded to seminarists gathered together in the camp at Orléans

58 | Delphine Debons

(Loiret) and then in Chartres (Eure-et-Loir). In certain regions the chap­ lains found themselves forbidden to visit any working group in order to avoid provoking reactions of hatred in the population.7 In this case, the ideology factor was linked to considerations of security.

The Logic of Security The question of security is mentioned explicitly in Convention texts, and notably in Article 16 of the Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war: ‘All latitude shall be granted to prisoners of war for the exercise of their religion, including attendance at their faith’s acts of worship, on the sole condition that they conform to the measures of order and policing prescribed by the military authority’. In order for states to adhere to the Convention, they must be assured that the conditions of detention did not challenge the security of their territory. Based on this clause, Germany matched France and Great Britain in taking care to limit spiritual support. As a general rule, religious services should be organized in the camp; attendance at a service in the church nearest to the camp was possible on condition that it was organized only for the prisoners of war at different times from services for the local civil­ ian population.8 It mattered above all to avoid escape, contact with the civilian population and propaganda. For these reasons, a varying degree of restriction was introduced on the freedom of circulation for chaplains between the main camp and the labour detachments, together with a pre­ liminary censorship of sermons. During the war the directives laid down by the Third Reich were clearly more prohibitive than those of the Allied nations, with the argument of security often used to disguise other less admissible motives. In contrast, these dispositions were gradually sof­ tened in relation to the captivity of German soldiers after 8 May 1945.

The Cost of Captivity For the French and British nations, one of the problems created by the con­ ditions of captivity of German prisoners of war was the cost of detention on such a vast scale when the national economies needed to be rebuilt and rationing was still imposed on civilian populations. In every instance of captivity, this factor plays an important role – respecting the minimum criteria of the Conventions in times of war risks becoming a difficult financial exercise. It is, in particular, one of the rea­ sons why the United States and Great Britain did not want to acknowledge

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those soldiers who were captured after the German capitulation as pris­ oners of war; for this purpose the unprecedented status of ‘Surrendered Enemy Prisoner’ or ‘Disarmed Enemy Forces’ was created (Beaumont 1996: 277–99). This step was intended notably to enable them to reduce food rations and hygiene conditions in the camps without contravening their international obligations. Spiritual support could also have a high cost. That is why Great Britain, initially, interpreted Article 16 of the 1929 Convention as an obligation to allow prisoners of war to practise their religion, but not to organize spiritual support, which would imply expenses for the remu­ neration of religious personnel and administrative authorities, and for the supply of communion wafers and wine.9 When the number of British prisoners of war in German hands increased, under pressure from the Church the government changed its stance and participated in the organization of spiritual support, probably in order to claim reciprocity for its prisoners. The Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war gives no details on the supply of materials essential to the faith. Only Articles 4, 36 and 39 – which stipulated that the detaining powers must ensure maintenance for prisoners of war and that gifts and help in kind are authorized – made it possible to organize this. The detaining government generally assumes the cost of supplying basic materials. In Germany, the statute of 12 May 1941, which regulated religious support, specified that ‘the wine for Mass and communion, the wafers, candles, etc., for the services must be sup­ plied by the camp commandants, the costs to be paid by the Reich, and made available in suitable quantities’.10 However, the economic aspect and a limited interest in spiritual sup­ port restricted state engagement. Aid societies and the Church had to give their support to enable the exercise of religious practice and for the Conventions to be respected. It was a considerable task, since it was a matter of responding to the needs of every faith, and in every camp. In Stalag X B (now in Lower Saxony), which included 110 ecclesiastics, the daily consumption was one hundred large communion wafers, eighty small wafers, a litre of Mass wine and four candles; and Oflag X B (now in Lower Saxony) required two to three litres of wine and two kilos of candles monthly. In addition, there were liturgical objects and books.11 The organization of funeral rites could also pose problems: in Stalag 315 at Épinal (Vosges), or at Frontstalag 221 at Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), for exam­ ple, the camp commandants authorized the Sikh funeral ritual in the form of cremation on a wood fire in the open air. At Rennes, 200 kg of wood and 12 kg of butter were consumed in this ritual. During the visit of the dele­ gate from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the camp

60 | Delphine Debons

authorities demanded reimbursement for these expenses and provision for the next case of this kind. ‘Let us hope that the Frontstalag is not hold­ ing Parsees,12 for then they would have to make arrangements to supply the detaining authorities with vultures!’ wrote the delegate in his report at the time.13 He meant that the Convention could lead to considerable material problems, and be difficult to apply, even for the aid organizations.

Prisoners of War as Labour Force Although the captivity of prisoners of war carried a cost, it could also be a source of profit. It is well known that the Third Reich saw work as an overriding requirement.14 Viewing these prisoners as a cheap labour force available at will led to terrible living conditions and even resulted in death from exhaustion for numerous categories of victims: the Service du travail obligatoire (forced labour service, STO), civilian internees, Soviet prison­ ers of war, independent labourers, etc. Working conditions for French or British prisoners of war were relatively humane, as with the majority of German prisoners of war in France and Great Britain from 1945. In Allied countries, too, the labour law was accorded its full weight. Seeing prisoners of war as a labour force could have a positive or nega­ tive effect on the application of the Conventions. The detaining state could ensure good conditions of captivity for the prisoners of war in order to achieve good repatriation; for example, as well in France as in Germany mentioned the positive effect of spiritual support on the morale of prison­ ers and thus on their productivity. But for the Third Reich the obsession with output became so important that it overrode all other considerations, impacting religious support for the camps. Religious expression was allowed only on Sundays, and on condition that no work was planned – a relatively frequent occurrence in certain detachments. Further, according to the terms of the order of 12 May 1941, although prisoner-of-war priests or pastors were to be distributed throughout the camps to meet the religious needs of their fellow believers, they were not to be relieved of their pris­ oner of war status. For this reason they were very often required to under­ take the same manual labour as the other prisoners: their ministry had to be organized alongside this duty. A chaplain in the camp at Stalag III C (now in Western Poland) complained, for example, of the difficulties that he encountered in exercising intellectual activity after ten hours of factory work.15 Apart from the wish to utilize the productive value of prisoners of war, it is equally possible to see in this evidence the intention to exhaust the chaplain physically in order to diminish his mental activity and thus prevent him from spreading the ‘good word’, whether religious or political.

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The Contingencies of the War Finally, the unfolding of the war also influenced national attitude. All the patterns of thought cited above were open to fluctuation according to events and circumstances. The process was relatively complex in the captivity of Allies in Germany. After the defeat at Stalingrad, for example, a genuine softening could be felt: the fear of reprisals pushed the government and the camp comman­ dants towards cooperation, and some of the latter who were judged as too harsh were replaced by others with a more moderate attitude.16 In contrast, the situation deteriorated after the Normandy landings. Indeed, in August 1944 Switzerland, Great Britain’s protecting power, noted that, according to the latest reports, the availability of religious support was increasingly limited since the OKW had issued an order forbidding chaplains from spending the night away from the camps.17 A measure such as this, taken for reasons of security, deprived the remote camps of support in matters of faith. Occasionally, events could equally modify the attitude of the camp authorities. For instance, in May 1942, the escape of a Roman Catholic chaplain from a camp at Stalag XI B (now in Lower Saxony) was probably the cause of certain interdicts of religious services and other restrictions on the religious ministry observed in various camps.18 The captivity of German prisoners of war in Allied countries appears to have followed a simpler progression: limited detention during wartime shifted to massive post-war detention.19 The detaining authorities’ chang­ ing attitude occurred principally after this transition from a captivity of war to a peace time captivity in continuity.

Limiting the Range of International Law The inventory of patterns of thought governing national attitude towards the conditions in which prisoners of war were detained and the examples chosen to illustrate them indicate the various means adopted by the bellig­ erents to restrict the impact of the Convention texts – without, nonetheless, contravening them directly. The act of withholding the status of the pris­ oner of war from the detainee was applied notably on the Eastern Front, in the case of the Polish ‘civilian workers’ or, on the Western Front, for the Italian soldiers captured after the armistice of 1943. The Allies also abused the system after the war, creating a new status for German prisoners of war after 8 May 1945. This exclusion of the legal status of a prisoner of war arose from the interpretation applied to the definition by the various states. It offered an

62 | Delphine Debons

alternative way of getting round international law. Formulated in rela­ tively generous terms, the conventional arrangements were open to several different readings, sometimes diverging from the spirit in which they had been conceived – for example, the term ‘minister of religion, prisoner of war’ in Article 16 was defined in various ways: in Germany it was limited at first to military chaplains, thus withholding the ministry from priests and pastors who had fought – that is, the majority of religious person­ nel.20 They were integrated into the definition in 1941. An analysis of the different ways of communicating and diffusing the regulations adopted would be interesting, since in all probability these served equally as the instruments enabling ‘tracks to be blurred’ in order to dissimulate certain arrangements that might have appeared too restrictive. As an example, the OKW communicated only a summary of the regulation of 12 May 1941, on religious support, to the ICRC for transmission to the states of origin of the prisoners of war.21 Notably, the summary states that a preliminary censor­ ship was imposed on sermons – even though the regulation stipulated that only sermons edited by the OKW were authorized. The terms of the first proposition could contain, implicitly, those of the second; any accusation of falsification could, depending on circumstances, be rejected – only a simplification had taken place. Understanding of governmental attitudes in relation to the treatment of prisoners of war and the provisions of the Geneva Conventions was evidently important. Such a study however does not reflect – or only very partially – the reality of the camps and daily life of prisoners of war. While each captivity is individual, it seems that only a study of the atti­ tude of the authorities in each camp – the regulations laid down at the local level – truly make it possible to draw conclusions on the system as a whole. In fact, several examples mentioned here indicate this possibility: the camp authorities enjoyed considerable independence and were the real barometer of captivity. It is a matter of an essential factor of influence over application of the Conventions. Equally fundamental for an overall understanding of the organization and regulation of captivity was the role played by the prisoners of war themselves, and more particularly by the chaplains and confidential agents, who were in touch with the camp authorities. The results that some among them achieved in their camps at the level of religious organization shows that their degree of will, deter­ mination, their strength of persuasion, had an equally direct influence on the application of the Conventions and the conditions of their captivity.

‘All Things Are Possible For Him Who Believes’ (Mark 9:23)  | 63

Notes 1. This theme is studied in Delphine Debons (2012). 2. Centre national des archives de l’Église de France, Fonds de l’Aumônerie générale des prisonniers de guerre (CNAEF-AGPG), Issy-les-Moulineaux, 6 co 93, dossier 1942, signed and dated note. ‘Rapport de l’aumônier Jean Dongradi’, 20/01/1942. 3. CNAEF-AGPG, 6 co 93, dossier 1942, signed and dated letter from Père Lucien Lechântre (Belgian chaplain), Saulnes (Stalag IX C), Meurthe-et-Moselle, 09/09/1942. 4. Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde (BArch B) NS 6/344, circular Nr. 14/43 g of the NSDAP, signed by Martin Bormann, 17/02/1943. 5. CNAEF-AGPG, co 93, signed and dated letter from Père Lucien Lechântre, Saulnes, Meurthe-et-Moselle, 09/09/1942. 6. Several statements of evidence attest to this in the collections consulted in the Archives du Conseil oecuménique des Églises (ACOE) in Geneva and in the CNAEF-AGPG. 7. See particularly ACOE, 303.003/12, signed and dated letter from Pasteur Sturm at Béguin, Paris, 14/01/1946. 8. See BArch B, NS 6/334, regulation of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht no. 2411/41, ‘Religionsausübung der Kriegsgefangenen’, 12/05/1941; for Great Britain, these direc­ tives were presented in the paper by Archbishop Lang (Lambeth Palace Library, London, Lang Papers, 88); for France, see the service notes no. 37 DIPG/Cab., Paris, 14/10/1944 and no. 658/DIPG/Cab., Paris, 28/12/1946. Notably, extracts are available under CNAEF-AGPG, 6 co 146. 9. The National Archives – Public Record Office (TNA-PRO), Kent, WO 32/9884, signed and dated letter from Lambert (War Office) to the Foreign Office, London, 24/02/1941, fo. 2A and handwritten reply from the War Office to a telegram from the Indian govern­ment, 02/11/1941. 10. BArch B, NS 6/334, regulation of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht no. 2411/41, ‘Religionsausübung der Kregsgefangenen’, 12/05/1941, fo. 155, point 22. 11. CNAEF-AGPG, 6 co. 94, chaplaincy problems. Correspondence and discussions with the German authorities. Prisoners and workers, signed and dated letter from Countess Edith von Bernstroff (German Red Cross), Paris, 12/06/1941. 12. Parsees practised Parseeism, a faith derived from Zoroastrianism. 13. ICRC archives, Geneva, B G 35/6999, service note by Dr J. de Morsier to the ICRC, Geneva, 05/01/1944. 14. On the importance of prisoner of war labour, see particularly Helga Bories-Sawala (2008: 95–104); on the engagement of foreigners in the German war effort, Herbert (1985); on the German economy under National Socialism, Tooze (2007). 15. CNAEF-AGPG, 6 co 93, dossier 1942, signed and dated letter from P. Haramburu, Stalag III C (Poland), 26/06/1942. 16. Several sets of evidence recount this and notably: ACOE, 303.007, dated unsigned note, ‘Rapport sur l’aumônerie du stalag II A’ (Mecklenburg –Western Pomerania), undated letter, p. 2; ACOE, 303,007, dated and signed note from Francis Meuret, ‘Aumônerie du stalag IV B’, Montpellier (Hérault), 07/05/1941, p. 2. 17. TNA-PRO, FO 916/869, dated unsigned letter. Federal political department to the British legation in Bern, Bern, 29/08/1944. 18. ICRC, thematic file of the reports from delegates during the Second World War (1939– 1947), Germany, blue slips: religion, Stalag II A (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), visit of 13/07/1943.

64 | Delphine Debons

19. For France, the period of the Occupation was excluded from this pattern, since the country no longer had the status of a state detaining prisoners of war. 20. A regulation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the OKW on 1 April 1940 set out the prerogatives of military chaplains detained in the prisoner of war camps. 21. CNAEF-AGPG, 6 co. 94, dossier 5, unsigned note in German transmitting to the ICRC the principal points of the regulation of the OKW of 12 May 1941, no date, and AICRC, B G 5, Germany, dated letter signed Jacques Chenevière to General Besson, the Service des prisonniers de guerre, Lyon, s.l. (Geneva), 08/09/1941.

Delphine Debons gained her doctorate in history at Geneva University in June 2010, with her thesis ‘L’assistance spirituelle aux prisonniers de guerre: un aspect de l’action humanitaire durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale’ (2012; published CERF, 2012). Specializing in the history of humanitarian action and wartime captivity, she co-directed and co-edited the proceedings of a conference on ‘Katyn et la Suisse: experts et exper­ tises médicales dans les crises humanitaires 1920–2007’ (Geneva, 2007). She has published several articles linked to her doctoral research and lec­ tures at the Centre d’enseignement et de recherche en action humanitaire, Geneva. She is currently affiliated to the Institut universitaire d’histoire de la médecine et de la santé publique, and has taken part in several research projects on national and regional history.

CHAPTER 4

From Allies to Enemies

Prisoners of the Third Reich in Italy – The Case of the Rimini Enclave, 1945–1947

( Patrizia Dogliani

In Italy, soldiers fighting for Nazi Germany suffered a drastic shift of status in the space of twenty months: from being allies until September 1943, they became enemy combatants and then prisoners of war. The German military presence in Italy was reinforced after the Anglo-American landing in Sicily at the start of July 1943, but, after the Italian armistice with the British and Americans, Marshal Badoglio proclaimed a state of occupation. Solid work has appeared on the German occupation of Italy (Klinkhammer 1993), and on both the German detention of war prison­ ers and the presence of American and British soldiers in Italy, but little research has been undertaken into the fate of captured Wehrmacht sol­ diers; the subject has generated one very general unpublished Ph.D. and a historical reconstruction of the weeks following the German surrender in Italy (Aga-Rossi and Smith 2005­). The present contribution summarizes the findings of a research group at the University of Bologna, which – in cooperation with institutes for the study of the history of the resistance located in Forli and Rimini – has examined the largest network of camps for captured Wehrmacht soldiers in Italy. Located in the Romagna region (Dogliani 2005), it was known as the Rimini Enclave. The research drew on documents, local memory, camp diaries and above all the information on the camps supplied by the ‘Maschke Commission’. Instituted in 1959 by the West German Ministry for Exiles, Refugees, and Disabled Veterans, the Wissenschaftliche Kommission für deutsche Kriegsgefangenengeschichte (Commission for the History of German Prisoners of War) produced 22 volumes between 1962 and 1974. In contrast to the large amount of infor­ mation on the situation in other countries, these volumes in fact contain

66 | Patrizia Dogliani

Figure 4.1. The Rimini Enclave on the Adriatic coast seen by the German prisoners. Source: Rimini-Riccione. Die Geschichte einer SEP/POW-Enklave in Italien 1945–47, Deutsche Verbindungstelle für SEP/POW, Deutsche Druckerei, Miramare, June 1947, p. 6.

very few pages on German POWs in Italy (Böhme 1971; Wolff 1974). The German research was mainly based on reports on camp visits by the ICRC and other associations aiding and assisting the prisoners, such as the YMCA. Also consulted were the military archives in Freiburg/ Bresgau, which hold the files on the activities of the so-called Deutsche Hauptquartier, consisting of Wehrmacht officers whom the British held responsible for leading the internment camp known as the Deutsche Generalslager, both situated near the seaside resort of Bellaria.1

From Allies to Enemies: Prisoners of the Third Reich in Italy | 67

The German Military Prisoners in the Italian Peninsula after May 1945 The German surrender in Italy was signed at Caserta on 2 May 1945, the date when the German High Command ordered its fighting troops and reserves stationed in Italy to give themselves up to British and American forces. Under the agreements reached between the Allies at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the provisions of the 1929 Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of war prisoners were not to be applied to prisoners who were registered under the categories of Disarmed Enemy Forces and Surrendered Enemy Personnel, created by the Americans and British respectively. In particular, these classifications denied the Third Reich’s combatants the rights specified in the Convention relating to the housing, aid and food rations intended for distribution by the states holding the war prisoners. The prisoners were now to be held in what were termed Prisoner of War Enclosures (PWEs; see below). Unconditional surrender in the ‘Yalta spirit’ meant a definitive defeat of Nazism and German militarism – an Allied determination to eradicate fascist ideology in Europe. In addition, the Allies believed that Germany should contribute personnel and other resources for the reconstruction of the countries it had destroyed. In any event, the adult male popula­ tion, consisting to a great extent of former soldiers, was to be detained for an indeterminate period – a measure that both furnished important free manpower and furthered the aim of rigorous denazification. The estimate is that around four million Third Reich soldiers were considered ‘capitulation prisoners’ under the control of the British and Americans in Western Europe, out of a total of around eleven million German soldiers captured during the Second World War; 1,600,000 of these were captured by the Americans and 2,400,000 by the British. Of these four million soldiers, around 700,000 were captured on Italian soil, 400,000 ending up in British hands, the remaining 300,000 with the Americans. Although imprisonment in the Soviet Union continued until 1955, in Western Europe it drew to an end between late 1947 and late 1948, but with several national variants. In the countries that had been occu­ pied and were considered not to have collaborated with international fas­ cism, the Germans were handed over to the national authorities who used them – as in France and Belgium – for reconstruction and the extraction of natural resources, above all in the mines. In Italy the prisoners were kept under the direct surveillance of the Allied armies, with distinctly different aims on the part of the Americans and British. The U.S. policy was centred on repatriating its troops, and hence its prisoners, as quickly as possible. After a total engagement in controlling the prisoners between

68 | Patrizia Dogliani

May and September 1945, the task the Americans set themselves was fundamentally to identify war criminals and transfer them to camps in Bavaria. For its part, the multinational British Eighth Army detained its prisoners throughout 1947.

Why an ‘Enclave’ in Rimini From early 1944 until the surrender, German prisoners were kept at a dis­ tance from the front line, south of the first German line of defence – the Gustav Line – as part of a territorial division between the two Allies. The American Fifth Army remained to the west, along the Tyrrhenian Sea, and created its own camps in Campania, near Naples, with a network of camps in the Aversa zone. The British Eighth Army opened its camps in the south-east, between the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea, more precisely in Apulia, in the provinces of Taranto-Grottaglie-Afragola. With the capitulation, the American PWEs were set up in north-western Tuscany, between Florence-Scandicci, Pisa, and Livorno, in the broad open areas of San Rossore and Coltano. These camps were somewhat different from those established by the Americans in the Rhine region of Germany; in essence, they were gathering points with no housing, where Wehrmacht soldiers and Italian fascist military formations arrived at irregular inter­ vals. Because of the heat and the lack of food and water, living conditions were precarious in the first weeks of the enclosures; beginning in August they were gradually emptied and the situation became more acceptable, with prisoners moved to the Bavarian camps, the British army or the pro­ visional Italian government. During those first weeks, around 300,000 prisoners were counted in American hands and 150,000 in British hands, with a great deal of mobil­ ity among the prisoners and random transitions from one PWE to another. The surrender marked a halt in the transport of prisoners over great dis­ tances. The British were better organized than the Americans; the other Allies had granted them responsibility for military and political control in the Mediterranean region. Installed along the length of the Adriatic coast, they set up a vast network of camps in the north-east of the Italian penin­ sula: the Po valley, the Venezia and Venezia Giulia regions, and primarily Romagna, a northern region still far from the Austrian and Trieste borders as well as the border with Yugoslavia – and from the first signs of the Cold War. The Eighth Army chose the Rimini zone in particular to develop its main PWE network, consisting of a dozen enclaves containing around 10,000 prisoners divided along the lines of age, nationality, military rank and division. The prisoners remained organized according to the military

From Allies to Enemies: Prisoners of the Third Reich in Italy | 69

hierarchy of their armies of origin, and arrived equipped, with trucks filled with the material necessary to install their own hospitals (the three main ones were at Miramare, Cesena and Cervia), kitchens and even a cemetery, between Cervia and Ravenna.

Camps System and Mass Captivity: To be a Prisoner at Rimini-Enclave The territory, located between the cities of Cervia and Rimini and soon part of the administrative territories of Forli-Cesena, Rimini, and Ravenna, thus constituted a vast zone of military internment. This was a strategic location, with a north-south Adriatic route leading to the north-central part of the country, to the Po valley along the Emilia route, to the Brenner Pass and the Austrian border, and then to the Bavarian transit camps. The territory had two airports, Miramare di Rimini, where the general staff had installed their quarters, and Forli. The eastern border was the beach. The camp network quickly gained the name Rimini Enclave, with the installation of the British command at Miramare di Rimini, responsible for a dozen auxiliary camps and containing the central infrastructure, includ­ ing a hospital. The airfield became the main camp, and the most long-last­ ing one for detention of ordinary soldiers, while several hotels in Rimini were requisitioned to house Wehrmacht commanding officers under guard. Between mid May 1945 and the spring of 1947, around 300,000 prisoners spent time in the Rimini Enclave from a broad range of enemy combat forces: the Wehrmacht, units of the Waffen-SS, the police, engineering and medical services, etc. Over the few days following 2 May around 150,000 men passed through the enclave, together with trucks, mobile kitchens, ambulances and medical matériel. They were immediately imprisoned in structures whose capacity was 10,000 people at most. While most of the men came from territory of the pre-1938 Reich, many ethnic and linguistic groups were also present, consisting of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutschen), men from national groups enrolled in the Wehrmacht during the war – Italian, French, Flemish, Danish, Baltic, Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian soldiers – together with men from other Slavic countries and also men who had belonged to the Cossack and Caucasian ‘Eastern troops’. This last group of former soldiers had been sent into combat in Italy in the last weeks of the war to resist the Yugoslavs and Soviets on the eastern border and in some cases had arrived with their families. The Rimini Enclave was thus a holding zone for former enemy soldiers representing up to twenty-four different nationalities. At the same time, the range of origins was just as wide among those holding them; while the

70 | Patrizia Dogliani

high command was made up of British and Canadian officers, the troops represented the various nationalities present in the British army: Brazilian and Indian soldiers, fighters from the Jewish Legion and, above all, Polish soldiers, who were some of the first to arrive in Italy under the command of General Władysław Anders, and Italian soldiers who had been mem­ bers of the army reconstituted in southern Italy by Marshal Badoglio. On arrival, the prisoners were confined in open spaces and on the beaches, then, with the summer heat, in tents while awaiting construc­ tion of the winter-camp barracks where they were housed between 1946 and their repatriation at the start of 1947. The villas housing the German officers and generals under guard were located in Bellaria; and the Rimini hotels requisitioned for the same purpose included the Grand Hotel, whose interwar belle époque splendour was recalled a little under three decades later by Federico Fellini in his film Amarcord. Repatriation came swiftly for those not suspected of war crimes. The first soldiers to be sent home were from the Italian province of Southern Tyrol – annexed by the Reich during its occupation, as in Alsace – and from Austria, whose nationals were still considered more as victims than active participants in the conflict. The coexistence of multiple nationalities in the Rimini Enclave was complex and difficult to manage; but it never led to deadly conflict. The enclave was simultaneously a microcosm of the vanquished and the victors, with a single nationality sometimes represented on both sides. For many of them the future of Europe, and above all of their country, had not yet been decided. This situation generated anxiety and tension at the core of the enclave: for the Germans, who had no news from their various Länder, occupied by armies from states with opposing political regimes; for the Poles, some of whom anticipated future exile; among ethnic groups from Soviet territory, whose return was being demanded by Red Army commissars present in Italy and for whom the most certain fate appeared to be either a death sentence or deportation to Siberia. By reason of cul­ tural, linguistic and often ideological proximity, the men under General Harold Alexander’s command, Poles controlling other Poles, certainly felt closer to their compatriot prisoners than to the local population, espe­ cially young men from Romagna who had participated in the resistance, mainly in communist brigades. The region was by tendency secular, antifascist, and, above all, communist, while the ‘liberation’ troops, most of them Polish, were Catholic and increasingly anti-communist. The local and national archives reveal the difficulties facing the British command and Italian forces of order in maintaining control in the cities and villages: petty criminality; thefts on the part of semi-released prisoners, often with the cooperation of guards of the same nationality; but also violent confron­ tations between Polish soldiers and local young men in public places like

From Allies to Enemies: Prisoners of the Third Reich in Italy | 71

ballrooms, theatres and coffee houses, and this for trifles such as socializ­ ing with young women. But such episodes revealed a deeper rage, anxiety and malaise (Dogliani 2007: 21–50). Discipline within the camps remained under German command, in agreement with the British. In the summer of 1945 the German officers organized two ‘special’ camps for punishment and isolation. The isolation categories were defined not only by military criteria but also in line with Nazi ideology. Indeed, they would seem to have answered a need to iso­ late those considered ‘different’ from the majority in order to ‘protect’ or rather punish them, identifying them as a threat to the German communal microcosm. Among the isolated men were ‘communist agitators and radi­ cals’, anti-militarists and pacifists including priests, deserters – ‘those who had collaborated with resistance members’,2 for example, by not revealing resistance locations to German officers. We also find cases of homosexual­ ity. In fact, those subjected to isolation were all those who could have been punished as traitors, asocial individuals or anti-Nazis in the Third Reich. Although in July 1945 the British command had declared that the choice of those to be isolated was ‘solely the discretion of the Allies’, in practical terms the British confirmed the decisions of the German officers. Men were isolated on the basis of categories defined by the Nazis, while the British would have had to consider the same people in a highly positive light, as ‘virtuous’. Generally, an effort to denazify and democratize the prisoners was never­theless instituted, offering them an opportunity for free discussion in the pages of an early number of the Lager-Zeitung (‘Camp Newspaper’). Its publication began on 9 June 1945; from October it appeared in a shorter form, with its name changed to Die Brücke. Freie Deutsche Lagerzeitung in Italien (‘The Bridge. Free German Camp Newspaper in Italy’), with a print run of up to 12,000 copies and distribution that even extended to places outside the enclave where prisoners’ units were located. In early 1947, at least sixty prisoners were employed by the newspaper to manage editing and typography. In December 1945, a second, Catholic, journal appeared: Christophorus. Wochenschrift der deutschen katholischen Kriegsgefangenen in Italien (‘Christophorus. Weekly news of the German Catholic War Prisoners in Italy’). And on 26 July 1945 a university campus recognized by the German university system was likewise inaugurated: the ‘Alma Mater Bellariensis’, near camp 5d in Bellaria, reserved for officers. Nearly 2,280 students, including 780 officers, 700 non-commissioned officers, and 800 regular soldiers took courses here in philosophy, theology, the natural sciences and law and economics. These were young men either already registered in universities at the time of their mobilization or who had been in their last year of secondary school; others were admitted as auditors,

72 | Patrizia Dogliani

informal students. The teaching body was made up of eighty-six men who had been university or college professors or public officials in civilian life. During the second autumn semester, courses in language and professional training were added. Beginning in July 1945, the youngest prisoners were incorporated into work units, composed of roughly 400 former soldiers and their officers, and into smaller groups engaged in daily labour – restoring roads and territory, recovering war material and the bodies of fallen soldiers, car­ rying out mine clearance and fire-prevention services, replanting the coastal area and mountains. The very youngest soldiers, around 25 years old, were grouped into units of 1,000 prisoners, called Tausendschaften, and often transported by train from Rimini station to work in southern Italy. In Romagna, everyday contact with the local population became quasiobligatory. Despite strong opposition from the inhabitants, the Germans remained ‘occupiers’ of a wide agricultural and touristic zone, territory that was also strongly urbanized and gravely damaged by bombing. At the time, the city of Rimini was called ‘the Adriatic Cassino’ – a reference to the central Italian town nearly destroyed by ferocious bombardment during the war. Because of the Eighth Army’s requisitioning of hotels and villas, the tourist season could not be resumed (before the war an average of more than 100,000 people would visit during the season). At the beginning of 1947, 40 hotels and boarding houses, 147 villas, and 16 seaside vacation resorts were still being requisitioned by the army; large stretches of the beach remained off limits to civilians, while behind them the city lie in ruins. Nevertheless, in the course of those two years material and mental reconstruction became a priority shared by the local residents with the ‘occupiers despite themselves’. Customs were created and rela­ tions formed within this microcosm consisting of the local population, the guards and semi-released prisoners. Small artisanal enterprises, common spaces of life and leisure, and even relationships between prisoners and Italian women emerged in this period. The tourist season came to life in the summer of 1947, when the last prisoners of German origin were getting ready to leave. In Rimini, there is a sense that many of them later returned with their families as summer tourists during the German economic boom of the 1960s (see Agnoletti 1999).

Notes 1. Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (BARch M), Freiburg/Breisgau, ZA 7. 2. BARch M, ZA7-5, Bl 111 a, 60, 120–124.

From Allies to Enemies: Prisoners of the Third Reich in Italy | 73

Patrizia Dogliani is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Bologna (Italy). She has worked on the history of socialist internationals and continues to work on the history of youth, memories and represen­ tations of wars and the history of fascism. She has published around a hundred contributions and articles in journals and books, both in Italy and elsewhere. Her most recent monographs include L’Europa a scuola. Percorsi dell’istruzione tra Ottocento e Novecento (Carocci, 2002), Storia dei giovani (Mondadori, 2003), Il fascismo degli Italiani. Une storia sociale (UTET, 2008 and 2014); and among her editing: Italian Fascism. History, Memory and Representation (with R.J.B. Bosworth, MacMillan, 1999), L’Europa dei comuni (with O. Gaspari, Donzelli, 2003); Rimini Enklave, 1945–1947. Un sistema di campi alleati per prigionieri dell’esercito germanico (CLUEB, 2005), Giovani e generazioni nel mondo contemporaneo. La ricerca storica in Italia (CLUEB, 2009).

CHAPTER 5

The Other Point of View . . . The Lawyer

( Jean-Paul Pancracio

A key question arises from the various contributions in this first part. It is not new – indeed it is recurrent: the question of the effectiveness of the international law of armed conflict, also called the law of war. Further, it relates particularly to the standards for the protection of the individual in armed conflicts, whether civilian, combatant or prisoner. It is this last category that concerns us here. The difficulty of the normative force of this law is related to the nature of war, which is the use of armed force between states or between groups of private actors, controlled or not by states. It then becomes part of the reciprocal interaction that can arise when the principles of the law of war are disregarded. It is a challenge to discipline the actors in a war in such a way that each of them enforces individual and human dignity at the highest level. What appears as a challenge in total war, as in the two World Wars, applies no less in colonial wars. It is important to distinguish, as we have done above, between indi­ vidual and human dignity. This enables us to emphasize the idea that there are acts of war or acts associated with a war context, which, because of the barbarity to which they bear witness, are prejudicial beyond the immediate victims and harmful to all human dignity. Such acts entirely debase the perpetrators just as they demean humanity. In this context it is worth recalling that on 12 February 1999 the President of the United Nations Security Council declared himself ‘concerned about the increas­ ing divergence between the rules of international humanitarian law and their application’. Stakeholders have raised several factors of the relativization of the law of armed conflicts at the heart of the fighting. One of the most significant, highlighted by the contribution of Heather Jones (‘International Law and

The Other Point of View . . . The Lawyer | 75

Western Front Prisoners of War in the First World War’), is the cost of the protective provisions of international conventions in times of war, which by definition are times of shortage. During the two world wars of the twentieth century we saw that the labour of prisoners of war for the benefit of the detaining country’s econ­ omy was actually instituted as a system. And, as Jones emphasizes, this element is still a current problem: legal perfection has a price. The rules protecting prisoners, which are fairly detailed, are a set of constraints that are not without cost, and states may be tempted to break them, at least in part. Let me draw a parallel here with the current developments in inter­ national criminal law. Indeed, we are beginning to see that to bring international crimes – which are often mass crimes – before an inter­ national court, in accordance with the highest standards for the treatment of detainees, has a substantial price. But not all states are willing to share the costs. Preparation for the trial, bringing witnesses from countries where the atrocities were committed and providing their hotel accommo­ dation, etc. All this indeed represents significant progress in international law, but it must also be assumed financially. However, as Jones expresses well, we must put things in context. The hostilities of the First World War confronted the main belligerents with new experiences of the detention of very large numbers of prisoners for a long period. But these hostilities took place in the context of a law of war – as it was then called – that was essentially the ‘Law of The Hague’, an embryonic law in terms of protecting people and more especially pris­ oners. It is this experience that came to birth in 1929 through the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war. Through the contributions of Delphine Debons and Rüdiger Overmans, this first part of the book also shows an interesting and important marker for assessing the degree of the belligerents’ compliance with the law of war: the respect or lack of respect of provisions relating to religious free­ dom in the POW camps. The same applies to the prisoners’ nationality and ethnicity, in terms of discrimination or otherwise. In this area, for example, it was the refusal of the Third Reich during the Second World War to apply the first Geneva Convention of 1929 relat­ ing to prisoners of war to the Soviet prisoners. This resulted in differential treatment of Soviet prisoners of the Jewish faith. Overmans shows that almost all Soviet Jewish soldiers captured were murdered by the Nazis – while prisoners of war of the same faith who were not Soviet nationals survived, paradoxically escaping the Holocaust inside the camps. Patrizia Dogliani’s contribution addresses an unusual topic: the prison­ ers of the German army in the Italian enclave of Rimini at the end of the

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Second World War. As she says in the introduction to her contribution, these soldiers on Italian territory suffered a distinctly different fate com­ pared with others. In the space of twenty months they held the status of combatants of the Third Reich allied to Italy; they then became enemies as a result of the reconquest of the Italian territory by Allied troops, and ended up as prisoners of war. Further, the region of Emilia-Romagna, with Rimini and large hotels as the nerve centre, was the largest network of camps of German prisoners in the hands of the Allied forces. As shown in Dogliani’s contribution, it was legally the Allied deci­ sion, taken in the context of the Yalta agreements in 1945, not to apply the Geneva Convention of 1919 to German prisoners. Their status was therefore not that of prisoner of war, but an ad hoc status, designated as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs) for Americans and Surrendered Enemy Personnel (SEP) for the British. This gave the Allies the discretion to deter­ mine the rights and guarantees they would give to prisoners, according to their objectives and independently of the provisions of the 1929 convention. This refusal can be explained by the desire to avoid one of the obliga­ tions of this convention, which requires belligerents to allow and organ­ ize a prompt return of prisoners to their country at the end of hostilities. This return was only achieved in 1947 and 1948. Indeed, the Allies wished to take time to complete the process of denazification of minds in the camps; and it also allowed them, specifically, to put the prisoners to work on rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, especially road and rail. It was clear that at the end of the war Nazi Germany itself was devastated, effectively without an economy, and could not carry out war reparations. Germany was a prisoner of her former army, and had to be employed as manual labour to help pay for reparations. But in contrast, the length of this post-conflict detention could also operate in favour of some nonGerman prisoners whose country was now occupied by the Soviet army. In the context of a prompt return, their fate would most probably have been deportation to Siberia, if not execution pure and simple. It would be interesting to know how many actually chose exile at their release. It becomes clear that the treatment of prisoners of war as part of a major armed conflict is particularly complex, and sometimes the law that is designed to be protective may operate in the opposite direction. Of course, the relevant rules of ‘Geneva law’ must be applied to the full: but it is also important to preserve the spirit of the law beyond the letter, even when the former results in contradiction of the second, to ensure that human interest and the dignity of the prisoner prevail at all times. To be recognized as a prisoner of war, regardless of the nature of the conflict, lawyers and the International Committee of the Red Cross agree today that it is enough for the individual concerned to have played a defi­

The Other Point of View . . . The Lawyer | 77

nite part in hostilities. It is the broader view of the concept of prisoner of war that must prevail in order to avoid any improper legal disqualification on the part of one or more of the belligerents. In this respect, it is interesting to draw a parallel with an area that has received rather less attention from a legal point of view: the internment by belligerent states of what has been called an ‘enemy national’ or, in the United Kingdom, an ‘enemy alien’, in other words a person suffering the misfortune of living in a country that came into conflict with his own. The formal engagement in a period of war caused by a declaration of war undoubtedly had consequences for expatriates in enemy territory: they were facing personal confinement and the confiscation of their goods and property, a regime that very soon acquired the character of a princi­ ple. As evidence of this we have the words of the famous Spanish jurist Francesco de Vitoria (1480–1546); in De Indis (1532, III, 1–2) he states that in a case of war the enemies of the province or city who are present there are detained or expelled. The systematic practice of this type of internment appeared in Europe in the late eighteenth century, with the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. In modern times, when long-term residence abroad became more widespread, internment of enemy nationals took place in camps, most often in squalid living conditions. The United Kingdom first practised this type of internment in camps on a large scale during the Boer War in South Africa, in the early twentieth century (1899–1902). We also know the fate reserved by the United States for Japanese nationals – but also, absurdly, for American citizens of Japanese descent living in Hawaii as well as in the mainland states after the attack on Pearl Harbor by imperial aviation (7 December 1941). They were all placed in harsh detention conditions in establishments that were not far from being concentration camps – all for fear that there could be some among them who might have active sympathies for the enemy. Without multiplying examples, we can also mention that on the day of Italy’s declaration of war on France (10 June 1940), French police arrested all Italian citizens resident in Nice suspected of belonging to Mussolini’s fascist party. Let us end by recalling that international custom usefully complements conventional international law – in line with the treaties – to ensure its fullest possible effectiveness. Thus even those states that had not ratified the conventions relating to the law of armed conflict, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, would still be required to enforce them, by reason of the qualification of custom­ ary rules conferred on their provisions. Thus everything that relates to the respect of human dignity in armed conflict is open to being characterized as such.

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These fundamental rules of international law relating to the law of armed conflict are intended to compel states to exercise controlled use of armed force. Their sacrosanct nature and universality are further assured by a specific legal principle, the ‘Martens Clause’. This requires that, regardless of the degree of states’ adherence to the law of armed conflict, the belligerents remain ‘under the influence of the ius gentium principles as they result from the established usages, principles of humanity and demands of public conscience’.

Jean-Paul Pancracio is Professor of university law schools and teaches international public law at the Faculté de droit et des sciences sociales at Poitiers University.

Part II

Languages of Captivity: Bodies and Minds Behind the Barbed Wire

( Introduction Annette Becker

There seem to have been times when nothing happened. History was for other people. One could stay on the sidelines, let things flow past. But, today, something is happening to everyone. Everyone is in it. That is what our time is like, a rotten time, a fine time, whatever you like. . . . Because that’s the only thing that I find interesting: the way that History is echoed in humankind. But, to be precise, historians don’t find that interesting. Historians’ history is like a clothing store. Everything is defined, organized, labelled. . . . Humans complicate everything. As soon as the participant, the one who was there, gets involved, no one recognizes himself, it’s impossible to get away from it, it upsets the fine historic views with its own way of putting the details in place, and never in the right place. For him, it’s always something unimportant that matters most. Questions of food, fatigue duties, quartering and the feuillées [latrines]. Then we have to look at what happens to events inside the head of the man who was present. And not only in his head, but in his legs, his kidneys, his bowels, in the whole of his body which bleeds and sweats, which smells of wine, vinegar and worse than that. Historians’ history is odourless. Georges Hyvernaud, La peau et les os: les souffrances de la captivité.

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Georges Hyvernaud was a teacher who came back from a prisoner of war camp; he lived through the defeat of France in 1940 and then the various rigours of life as a prisoner, face to face with his captors and the inescap­ able promiscuity of life at close quarters – the intense and terrible lack of any private life. His book is a cry against the lack of understanding of his situation when he returned, a state of incomprehension that he turned into an intellectual preoccupation, which was also that of the historians of his time; in his view, historians were incapable of understanding the griefs of the world, which begin or end symbolically in the latrines: ‘historians’ history is odourless’. The four texts in this second part deliver their ‘odours’ to the world and to the prison camps, soldiers and civilians, giving a story within a story about prisoners faced with writing history, with times and spaces distorted, overturned, rediscovered. They make us understand, subtly, the extent to which prison camps are paradoxical places and times. During the Great War (see Iris Rachamimov, below), prisoners could avoid death or being wounding; but in the Second World War their status – violated by the Nazis – led to the death of more than a million Soviet military prison­ ers, while French Jews, for example, were to some extent protected by their status: they were spared deportation and the extermination camp . . . but, in some cases, their families were not. If an ‘ordinary’ war is indeed always a ‘deconstruction’ through the various separations that it creates, in the case of the prisoners there is the addition, depending on the circumstances, of guilt or anger borne of the sense of exclusion from the war. Their normal public individuality has been taken away – whether as civilians taken from their homes or as soldiers, whose increasingly ragged uniforms provided physical and sym­ bolic evidence of their different status. But however they show it – from vehement recrimination right through to painful apathy – they remain, stubbornly, fully members of their nation or their community. The world of the prison camps is linked to a rear zone, for which the English expres­ sion ‘home front’ is the best interpretation of the weight of attachment: their real life lies there. For civilian prisoners, the drama is redoubled. A chronology of imprisonment coexists within the war: exile, depriva­ tion of liberty, labour, hunger, boredom – all these are sufferings aggra­ vated by the duration of the internment and by measures of reprisal unleashed by captor states on their human pawns, extending in some cases to death. The perception of time is truly crucial, and this is explored in Fernand Braudel’s Les Annales – remarkably analysed in part two by Peter Schoettler – can reflect on the ‘long time’, immobile, now and to come. Physical and mental sufferings are increased and multiplied by the duration of time: material and emotional comfort lost in the war was at

Part II. Languages of Captivity | 81

least made up for by the sense of a continuity with the past. It was an uprooting, in time and space, to which the temporary nature could give meaning: there would be a future, elsewhere. But the prolongation of cap­ tivity – life within a tightly limited horizon – eats away at the most tena­ cious hopes: but do the prisoners want to create a new life for themselves? Real life is going on elsewhere – the life of the war, the occupation, the defence of their nation and their family. They are separated from it, and they wait: news, letters, the certainties of love. Writing, keeping a private diary, arranging the barracks to resemble a real house – that is how to remain fully alive and active on the emotional front line, to continue being part of the different circles of suffering: family, village, national and/or religious community – the indestructible ties. Torn between rejection of the camp, which is the rejection of their personal defeat and capture, and the desire to live as well as possible in the unfortunate circumstances in which they find themselves, prisoners often sink into what they call the ‘cabin fever’ of living behind the barbed wire. When successful escape is impossible, or ends in failure, everyone tries to escape mentally. Craftsmanship, intellectual life, drama and music – all of these are true forms of artistic expression. Being part of a group engaged in intellectual, manual, artistic or playful activity meant the creation of a form of social life inside the prison. Classes of all kinds, feast days, plays, growing flowers and vegetables, lectures, sporting and literary groups, libraries, games of charades, macramé, parlour games, symphony orches­ tras and more all sprang up. Professionals in clock repairing, hairdressing and photography, and typographers capable of producing newspapers, all offered their services. The prisoners’ art and craftsmanship were designed to improve the daily pattern of their material and psychological lives; to struggle against the monotony of imprisonment they read, wrote, worked in wood, metal, animal bones, tree bark; they prayed, waited, ate, culti­ vated little gardens, acted, studied, sometimes wrote or composed major works – as in the case of Braudel, Messiaen, Wittgenstein, Levinas and others. The situation of the composer Hans Gál – entirely meaningless in the Great Britain of 1939 – is set out so well here by Suzanne Snizek, an Austro-Jewish refugee, but an ‘Enemy Alien’ after the outbreak of the war against Nazi Germany; the Hungarian writer Aladár Kuncz suffered the same situation in France during the Great War. We could have spoken of Walter Benjamin or Max Ernst after the defeat of France in the Second World War, when the fact of being Jewish transformed civilian internees into subjects to be persecuted and very often deported. Like the other prisoners, the brilliant composer Hans Gál1 looked at photographs of his family, smoked, washed, hung out his washing, gazed out beyond the barbed wire, decorated his barrack room, waited. Poems or

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drawings tended to represent the theme of love left far behind, as well as children, home and family, and sometimes forms of political or religious resistance. Giving talks, making music, playing in a football match – all these were ways of feeling in touch with the ‘family home’. Tailored clothes were often made by the men in the camp – the needlework skills reserved for women on the domestic front are symptomatic of another symbolic reversal in the camp, the about-turn of war. Although many endured the camp as a deprivation of the sense of masculine existence, some forged a new demonstration of virility; Matthias Reiss has viewed with a subtle eye Rommel’s African troops playing at being ‘perfect’ Aryans (perfect Nazis?), with the bronzed bodies of trained sportsmen, in their prison camps in the United States. For them, the thought of a depressed defeat was far distant. In 1948 Jacques Perret returned to Friedrichsfelde prison camp near Berlin, where he had been held. He found nothing left: the camp had been burned and the ground was being used to grow cabbages. Somewhat disturbing that these barrack huts, which were, willy-nilly, a French establishment, a little township with its domesticity, its laws and its customs, an enclosure saturated with so many confined dreamings, ingenious do-ityourself efforts, marking time, smells, ritual gestures and all kind of everyday institutions that were more or less clandestine – that this urban settlement had ultimately perished entirely, without a trace remaining. Nothing. . . . Had no one dug up some sort of tangible evidence of our stay with his hoe? A lost cigarette lighter, a khaki button, or the wooden spoon that Poupin carved in the shadows of his bunk? Nothing, no doubt, not even enough to make a little museum display. (2011: 48–49)

The historian of today who pores over the culture of captivity – and its odours – would have surprised and fascinated both Hyvernaud and Perret.

Notes 1. During the conference, Suzanne Snizek played to a passionate audience an extract from his trio the ‘Huyton Suite’, which she later executed with two musicians from Mélo’dix, the orchestra of the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre.

Annette Becker is a Professor at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense and an honorary member of the Institut universitaire de France. After devoting her attention mainly to the First World War, she worked for some years on the links between the two world wars, in particular on the occupations and forms of imprisonment. Her book Les Cicatrices rouges,

Part II. Languages of Captivity | 83

1914–1918. France et Belgique occupées (Fayard, 2010) concentrates on occupa­ tions and tragedies (genocide of the Armenians) of the Great War. She is currently working on the ideas of Raphaël Lemkin, who introduced the concept of genocide, and of Jan Karski, Polish patriot and ill-fated inform­ ant of the extermination of the Jews, who became one of the ‘righteous among the nations’ (Messagers de la catastrophe, Fayard, to be published in 2017). After her Biographie de guerre d’Apollinaire (Tallandier, 2009), she published her work on artists, writers and intellectuals of the war (Voir la Grande Guerre, un autre récit, Armand Colin, 2014).

CHAPTER 6

Liminality and Transgression Breaching Social Boundaries in First World War Internment Camps

( Iris Rachamimov

In the summer of 1914 Paul Cohen-Portheim, a Jewish-German journalist, was working was working as the Paris correspondent for several German newspapers. According to his memoirs, the June weather was ‘very lovely’, and ‘Parisians spent their nights in open-air places such as Lunapark and Magic City’ (Cohen-Portheim 1932: 5). At the end of July, Cohen-Portheim decided to visit English friends in Surrey, for a rustic painting vacation. In September he hoped to visit a friend in Athens, provided he could find a way to travel cheaply. But the outbreak of the war changed his plans: instead of travelling across Europe in ‘cosmopolitan society’, CohenPortheim found himself forbidden to leave Britain because he was a citizen of an enemy country, and of military age (ibid.: 5–15). After nine months of increasingly restricted residence in Surrey and London, Cohen-Portheim was finally interned on 13 May 1915, following the decision of the British government that anyone belonging to an enemy nation on British soil must be held in one of the ‘civilian camps of prisoners of war’ (Cohen-Portheim 1932: 7–21). Here Cohen-Portheim joined ‘several hundred thousand civilians’ and eight million soldiers who became civilian and military Prisoners of War (POWs) during the Great War.1 In his memoir of captivity, published in 1932 under the evocative title of Time Stood Still, Cohen-Portheim described what he considered an essential aspect of his experience of captivity, the subjective perception of time: I think the fact that one knew no limit to the time one would have to spend there . . . [made] everything uncertain and precarious; it might be worth while to plant seeds for the following spring or it might be a waste of energy, one

Liminality and Transgression | 85

might reap benefits from one’s studies when release came, but that release might come too late or never. Any definite term of imprisonment would have been better than that uncertainty which made all plans and movements in any direction appear senseless. (1932: 98)

The feeling that in captivity one’s personal life was suspended, that any activity during these years might count – or not – in ‘real life’, is a recurrent theme in the writings of prisoners of war and civilian internees during the First World War. The interned Hungarian civilian Aladár Kuncz, a pris­ oner in the French camp on the island of Noirmoutier (Vendée), wrote that: ‘all my past seems to have crumbled away . . . , [I had] lost all sense of time’ (1937: 66, 208). A poem published in August 1917 in the British intern­ ment camp at Knockaloe, on the Isle of Man, lamented the thousand days already lost by those who had neither destiny nor future (‘Schicksalslose’).2 This sense of a frozen personal time was complemented and enhanced by being set apart from collective time – that is, outside ‘historic’ time. From the perspective of many prisoners the war seemed to have accelerated historical time, involving numerous social and political changes of which they were, at best, only partly aware. The camp (or any other internment facility used to house the prisoners) was, in many respects, a floating and self-contained spatio-­temporal entity not quite connected to any context capable of bestow­ ing meaning. Fifty years before Solzhenitsyn used the island metaphor in his Gulag Archipelago (1973) to describe the social remoteness of camps, the prisoners of the First World War had already expressed a similar idea. This sense of not really belonging to the world is magnificently illus­ trated in the novella Heimreise (Home Journey), written in 1917 by an Austro-Hungarian POW officer in the Russian camp of Rasdolnoe. The novella describes a voyage of repatriation from captivity back to the ‘real’ world.3 Having spent what the writer estimates would be ten secluded years in Russian captivity, a group of prisoners discover on their return, with great surprise, the profound changes that have occurred in the world during these years of forced absence. In Hong Kong they are astonished to observe that ‘English had been displaced by German as the world’s lingua franca, that “it was possible to hear all the various German dialects”, and that “even the local language was some kind of German hodgepodge.”’4 This joy at seeing the German imperial ambitions realized overseas is contrasted with the observation of what he sees as a disturbing devel­ opment at home: women have taken control of public spaces. On board a train leaving for Vienna from the Austro-Hungarian city of Triest(e), the narrator discovers that women have gained greatly in assurance and have even become more aggressive than before the war: several women in his compartment offer him their seat, he is asked bluntly and repeatedly

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whether he is married; a lady even offers him a cigarette, which he learns is very hard to acquire due to strict rationing. The story ends in a chal­ lenge to a duel between two women who are rivals for the favours of the narrator. For his own protection, the narrator has to be ushered into the safe haven of the ‘Gentlemen’s Compartment’.5 During the Great War, the fear of not fitting into what is assumed to be a bleak post-war world expressed in Heimreise was one of the most prevalent themes in camp journals. It was expressed in a plethora of sto­ ries, illustrations and poems, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic. One of the most commonly imagined scenes concentrates on the moment of returning home, when children fail to recognize their returning fathers and wives are horrified at the sight of their brute of a husband returning from captivity (see Figure 6.1 below).

Figure 6.1. ‘When We Get Home’. Source: The Ruhleben Camp Magazine, March 1916, p. 40. Courtesy of Historical and Special Collections, Harvard Law Library.

Liminality and Transgression | 87

The notion that, in certain respects, time spent inside camps did not pass in the same way as in the outside world has important implica­ tions for understanding camp life. This perception of time created the dismal feeling that in captivity everyday actions might have no long-term meaning; but simultaneously this feeling also engendered a sense of per­ sonal flexibility that occasionally legitimized a breaching of social norms, experimenting with new identities and transgressing gender and sexual boundaries. The implications of this liminal situation6 – or the state of being ‘betwixt and between’ (neither here not there), to borrow a phrase from the anthropologist Victor Turner – are examined in two significant features of camp life: theatrical productions and family life in the camps (see Rachamimov 2006; Rachamimov 2012). The chosen examples relate principally to German-speaking or English-speaking POW officers; they do not concern rank-and-file soldiers whose experiences in captivity during the First World War were very different (see Rachamimov 2002: 87–125, 2006: 367–73). Two privileges distinguished POW officers and civilian internees in all the belligerent states from the majority of private soldiers (and from prisoners in other wars): first, the norms of interna­ tional law exempted them from undertaking forced labour for the benefit of the detaining power; second, many – though by no means all – of them benefited from a regular source of money (officers received a salary from the detaining state and internees were permitted to use private funds). This combination of free time and available funds gave these officers and civilians better opportunities to develop imaginative ways to moderate the rigours of their captivity. It must be emphasized that liminality is not considered as the only factor involved in shaping these features of camp life. As will be discussed below, there were many other physical, material, cultural and emotional factors at play. However, it can be argued that the subjective sense of being displaced in time was widespread both in camp and non-camp environments during the First World War, and as such deserves closer scrutiny.

Camp Theatres Camp theatres were a manifestation of the most widespread phenomenon of soldiers’ amateur theatres in the Great War (Pörzgen 1933; Boxwell 2002: 1–20; Rachamimov 2006). As with theatre in the front lines, the trend to perform productions in military and civilian camps largely reflected a wish to overcome boredom while creating ‘safe spaces’ as an outlet for the distresses and upheavals of the war.7 This drive to provide an enter­ tainment and emotional relief could, as stated by David A. Boxwell in his

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discussion of the Western Front, create ‘a quasi-utopian space where the traumatic undercurrents . . . could receive at least partial salutary psychic and cultural propitiation’ (2002: 5). Thus, from a functional point of view, theatres supplied an important mechanism for articulating and confront­ ing anxiety and trauma (ibid.: 3–5).8 A detailed examination of the German-speaking theatres in Russia, called by the inmates ‘Plennytheatre’, an expression based on the Russian word for POW (Voennoplennyi) (Rachamimov 2006: 368–72), reveals that these Plennytheatre appeared in at least forty-six camps in the Great War and offered an astonishingly rich repertoire – the theatre in Achinsk camp in central Siberia, for example, staged no fewer than eighty-eight different productions before the Bolsheviks closed it in January 1920. These produc­ tions revealed the talents of Emmerich Laschitz, ‘the most active female impersonator in Siberia’, who played numerous leading women roles and triumphed in Oscar Wilde’s Salome, the ‘favourite fin-de-siècle phal­ lic woman’, according to Carl Schorske (1981: 224).9 The fact that Wilde’s controversial drama could be performed without question in a Siberian officer camp, while in England the public had to wait until 1931 to see its first official performance, illustrates the degree of artistic licence enjoyed by many of the theatres for officers (Showalter 1990: 150). Productions presenting masquerades and plays on mistaken identi­ ties were particularly appreciated in the Russian prisoner of war camps. Risqué belle-époque staples by Arthur Schnitzler and Ferenc Molnár were performed in numerous camps, along with more classical German plays by Gotthold Lessing and Friedrich Schiller, and an impressive selection of works by leading European playwrights, from August Strindberg to George Bernard Shaw.10 The prisoners overwhelmingly preferred contemporary operet­ tas of Johann Strauss the younger, Franz Lehar and Imre Kálmán. At Krasnoyarsk (Siberia), Strauss’s Die Fledermaus was performed thirty-eight times, each before a jam-packed (and paying) audience of four-hundred and fifty POW officers. Major Franz Rehor, producer of plays in German, reported that the results owed their success as much to the talents of the standard-bearer (‘Fähnrich’), Richard Steiner, a professional tenor in Vienna before the war, as they did to the aptitudes of Ensign Birner and Lieutenant Magda, who sang the female roles: ‘Through vocal inclination and exact training, Ensign Birner excelled remarkably in the performances of Die Fledermaus. It was his ability to sing in falsetto voice which enabled him to perform the part of Adele impeccably.’ (Rehor 1931: 204) For prisoners of war, the significance of these theatres went far beyond the immediate objective of entertainment. Amongst the multitude of sub­ jective meanings POW officers found in performing and viewing these

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performances, one function of the stage runs through their memoirs as a discernible and important thread: its power to combat physical and mental decay (often perceived as inextricably bound together). The raison d’être of the Plennytheatre therefore lay in its professed capacity to resist the leth­ argy of camp life, to offer short-term objectives and to dissolve the melan­ choly and moodiness which prisoners called camp despair ‘Lagerfimmel’ (Pörzgen 1933: 4). The Swiss physician A. L. Vischer, who interviewed hun­ dreds of POWs during the years of conflict, medicalized this distress as a ‘nervous disorder’, christening it ‘barbed-wire disease’ (Stacheldrahtkrankheit or psychose du fil de fer) (Vischer 1919: 24–5, 50–6). According to POW and memoir writer Alfred Steinpach, ‘against the threatening manifestation of mental derangement, there was only a single solution: distraction!’ (Pörzgen 1933: 5). On a most basic level, theatre was thus seen by prison­ ers as a source of distraction serving not only to divert them but also to encourage activity in their everyday lives and prevent insanity; in other words, to create the feeling of a short-term goal in a universe that generally appeared to them as empty and devoid of meaning. With a linked but distinct objective, the Plennytheatre also set out to create what could be defined as a sense of ‘bourgeois normality’. The entire organization of the theatre reflected this objective: a repertoire that could have come from any ‘respectable’ stage in Central Europe; estab­ lished box-office practices such as season tickets and a selection of seats at all prices; various kinds of fund-raising techniques, ranging from a lottery to the publication of lists of ‘benefactors’; finally, ingenious acces­ sories and gadgets to create highly elaborate decor. When circumstances allowed, theatres were built in a style that would be familiar to the audi­ ence in their own home territory. The Plennytheatre at Krasnoyarsk probably surpassed all the others: extending over four barrack plots, it included a buffet and a coffee shop, and one of the barracks had been ‘converted by a group of German and Austrian architects into an elegant restaurant with amenities, decorated in a modern style’ (Rehor 1931: 203; Pörzgen 1933: 66). These efforts to fashion a ‘bourgeois normality’ – through the recrea­ tion of former habits and lifestyles – also created a considerable space, both on and off the stage, for one of the most interesting sexual phenom­ ena of the Great War: the officer as prisoner of war en travesti, the crossdresser (Rachamimov 2006: 374–82).11 As was generally the case in the Plennytheater, the cross-dresser was perceived by the inmates as a link to pre-war normality. According to memoir writers, in the unisexual uni­ verse of the camp the ‘travesti’ represented for the prisoners the ‘disap­ pearing image of womanhood’. Another prisoner wrote that ‘the travesti was for the audience a hypnotist, who through his art had to succeed

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in bringing them under the spell of his performance in a way that they would forget having a man in front of them’ (Pörzgen 1933: 77).12 The goal of the Plennytheatre was not to create a burlesque of cross-dressing, in which the performers took off their wigs to reassure the audience about their masculinity; rather, the cross-dressers in the Russian camps were encouraged to adopt a female persona and to maintain it as much as pos­ sible – including offstage. In the camps they answered to their female name and ‘through mim­ icry they were able to wipe off all remains of manliness’ (Pörzgen 1933: 81). Emmerich Laschitz, the famous ‘travesti’ of Achinsk camp, described how ‘each female impersonator had a circle of fans and admirers, whose assignment was to wash and iron undergarments and articles of women’s clothing. All work was left to the chambermaid, even if this was a greybearded reserve officer’ (Pörzgen 1933: ibid.). Those POWs writing memoirs laboured at times to present the camp theatre unreservedly as a place of decency and culture. Even if they attempted to justify the gender transgression by presenting it as an artis­ tic cult of the prima donna, who kept homosexuality from the camp by preserving the desire for the opposite sex, they saw themselves forced to admit that something exceptional had happened in the world of the camps. Laschitz was very clear on this point: ‘I often experienced in private con­ tacts an exceptional gallantry that did not lack a whiff of abnormality’ (Pörzgen 1933: 81). Magnus Hirschfeld, at the time the the foremost activ­ ist of homosexual rights in Germany, stated clearly that ‘homosexuality and camp theatre were linked’ in that they enabled a sexual outlet for ‘people robbed of their freedom for many years’ (Gaspar and Hirschfeld 1982 [1929]: 383–86). Thus the camp theatres, which had been established in part as antidotes against the daily lack of purpose and to combat ‘abnor­ mality’, rightly enabled the introduction of what pre-war societies nor­ mally saw as non-normative behaviour. And although in the literature of captivity these liminal performances of sexualized roles were presented as temporary and confined to the camps, the considerable amount of space accorded to them in memoirs proves that in reality they occupied a central role.

Camp Domesticity A different cultural practice prevalent in First World War camps was the establishment of personalized spaces, to provide a sense of being at home so far away from home. ‘At home’ was one of the most powerful expres­ sions used by the men during the Great War. The words evoked a semantic

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field that was rich in meanings, metaphors and allusions. It became a pri­ vate world that helped the prisoners to keep their bearings in their ordeal, and to retain hope. The phrase ‘at home’ had numerous functions in prisoners’ speech and social practices. At a very basic level, ‘at home’ created a sense of the pass­ ing of time in the lives of prisoners in focusing on a point in the past, before captivity, and another point in the future, when internment, with a bit of luck, would come to an end. As the civilian internee Ludwig Fulda wrote from the Isle of Man on 8 July 1917, ‘The heart cannot be imprisoned: it seeks ever homeward’ (Kewley-Draskau 2009b: 90). In other words, ‘at home’ was a place in history where personal and collective times took on their full significance in contrast to the interminable present of captivity. ‘At home’ fulfilled a second important function: it designated a space that was ‘other’ than that of captivity. This space might be the house in which the prisoner had lived before the war, the region of his birth, the mother country, or any other place or structure that aroused a feeling of attach­ ment or belonging. However, the deliberate use of the expression ‘at home’ (and its numer­ ous derivatives) by POWs and interned civilians enabled them to frame their daily activities and gave them access to some of the emotional rewards generated by this expression. To achieve this they created camp versions of domesticity in which ‘home’ was enacted and performed in various ways. These projections expanded and at the same time fostered the problematization of definitions of ‘domestic life’ – and therefore the conventional acceptances of gender, age and kinship. It could be advanced that the prisoners did not see these captivity enactments of domesticity as genuine situations of ‘being at home’ or ‘families’, but the question arises nonetheless in the writings of certain inmates. The interned civilian J. Davidson Ketchum, who was held in Ruhleben camp near Berlin in the First World War, and who later became Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, rejected this opinion brusquely: The most apt description of the box group is to call it the Ruhleben family . . . its members slept in the same small space [i.e. the box], sat around the same table, shared the same food, and did much else together, and it is this common life rather than sexual or blood ties that makes it a family . . . Like the family again, these household groups aroused a deep sense of identification. ‘We’ and ‘us’ were used of them within a week of internment, long before barrack iden­ tification appeared, and they were still in use in 1918 letters . . . ‘Family’ might still seem a questionable term if the men had not constantly used it themselves. Ironically at first, they began to refer to their boxes and corners as ‘home’; from that to ‘family’ was a natural step, and in time the quotations marks were often dropped. (1965: 130)

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The hesitation of the prisoners over the justification of the quotation marks around the word ‘family’ reveals a conceptual destabilization. A ‘home’ and a ‘family’ certainly existed outside the camps as points of ref­ erence, but they also existed inside the camps and were perceived by the inmates to some extent as equivalents. Ketchum, who interviewed former inmates fifteen years after the war and subsequently corresponded with them, reports that the emotional ties created in the camps continued to exist for many of his correspondents (ibid.). Creating personalized domestic spaces in captivity was one of the first things POW officers and civilian internees did when given the oppor­ tunity. In the large barrack rooms, which had no pre-existing internal divisions, a sense of privacy was created by hanging curtains or blankets to divide the space into subsections. Decorations and various self-made artefacts were used to give each box an individual and decorated aspect. A German officer from Khabarovsk (Russian East Asia) wrote that: Our hall is quite colourful. Everywhere there are these small quarters which are made by hanging curtains for every 3–4 gentlemen: one can choose white for his wall, another flowers, the third light blue and together they create the most wonderful colour effects. (Rachamimov 2002: 101)

Quousque Tandem! (How Long!), the illustrated newspaper of Knockaloe camp, on the Isle of Man, carried in its November 1915 edition a short do-it-yourself section, explaining to prisoners how to use a few bits of timber to convert their mattress into a comfortable armchair.13 As with the theatres, the close intimacy that sometimes emerged in these ‘at home’ settings in the camps – similar to intense forms of male friendship or inter­ generational attentions – was normally interpreted by the prisoners as culturally acceptable. As Ketchum wrote, The absence of children, like that of women, led to the creation of substitutes, and endowed even ‘roughnecks’ of twenty with some of the appealing quali­ ties of childhood . . . many of the boys were adopted by the older men, who took them into their messes, taught them mathematics or golf, supplied them with luxuries, and generally looked after them. The relationship was usually above suspicion, being merely an outlet for tender emotions that internment had dammed up. (1965: 124)

In emphasizing the concept of intense platonic friendship between young men and their elders – and, in reference to Freud, to suggest that masculine fraternization did not denote sexual attraction – Ketchum held that sexual energies among the inmates at Ruhleben were converted into healthy creative activities (1965: 308). However, Cohen-Portheim offered

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an alternative perspective. He was not so sure that these camp families were paragons of bourgeois respectability: To my own knowledge there was nothing of what is called homosexuality, but what I learnt is that homosexuality is not what it is called . . . there is no hard and sharp division between what [the majority] admit to be sexual acts or sen­ sations, and a great many other things which they like to consider perfectly ‘harmless’ or maybe of a spiritual nature. (Cohen-Portheim 1932: 129)

In his view, the instinct to nurture – or what he called to ‘mother’ – was very widespread among these men and expressed itself in the various roles that they took pleasure in playing in the ‘homes’ in the camps. For Cohen-Portheim at least, years of internment led him to re-examine the nature of sexual frontiers: I found that a new adaptation was demanded from me, that it was quite impos­ sible to slip back to where I stood before my internment. Not only were all the outside circumstances changed, but I myself was no longer the same man. (1932: 132)

In another context he explained that ‘no male is purely male, and no female purely female; one is not purely positive or purely negative, one is not too active and the other not entirely passive’ (ibid.: 135). For CohenPortheim at least, the liminal world of the camps had engendered pro­ found and lasting changes in his awareness: ‘What had followed was not a return to the existence formerly familiar to me, or to anything like my pre-war life. . . . It was impossible for me to slip back from where I stood to where I had stood before my internment.’ (1932: 214) On his arrival in revolutionary Berlin at the end of November 1918, he was shocked by the street fights, the revolutionary sailors, the endless queues, and the ‘agita­ tors haranguing the crowds in the squares. It was my return from war to peace; it seemed more like a return from peace to war, but whatever the future might hold in store a chapter of my life had come to an end and time stood still no longer.’ (ibid.: 235) Incarceration over an extended period of time without any knowledge of their release date encouraged POWs and civilian internees in the First World War to develop practices that would provide them with a feeling of finality and emotional support, while still providing a robust support system and a sense of ‘normality.’ Nonetheless, these cultural practices exceeded, at times, recognized social limits, and the consequences of these breaches complicated the re-establishment of ‘order’ after the war.

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Notes Translated from the French by Helen McPhail. I would like to thank the Stanford Humanities Center for their generous financial and intellectual support. Financial support was provided also by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) for which I am extremely grateful. 1. The number of prisoners of war during the First World War is estimated to be between 6.9 and 8.7 million; for the number of civilian prisoners see Matthew Stibbe, below. Much work remains to be done on the internment of civilians during the Great War. See Niall Ferguson (1999: 369–70); Rachamimov (2002: 34–43); Stibbe (2008a: 4–5, 2008b: 49–50 ); Jones (2011: 19–27). 2. ‘Der Aufbruch’ in Lager Echo no. 7, 18 August 1917, p. 2. 3. Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg-in-Bresgau (BARch F), Msg. 200/399, Beinvogel, ‘Heimreise’, S’Vogerl (3), S’vogerl 1917, Rasdolnoe, pp. 40–45. 4. BARch F, pp. 41–42. 5. BARch F, pp. 43–45. 6. On liminality, see Arnold van Gennep (1960: 15–25); see also Victor Turner (1969, chapter III). For a discussion of the liminal state and captivity, see Alon Rachamimov (2006: 365). 7. See (Pörzgen 1933: 61) and (Boxwell 2002: 5). The expression ‘safe spaces’ comes from Charles Upchurch (2000: 128). 8. Boxwell’s analysis follows the four-stage model of Victor Turner concerning the resolu­ tion of social crises: being forced to view the crisis in the cold light of day; recognition of the crisis; resolution of the crisis; conclusion (Turner 1982: 20–59); see also Paul Lerner and Mark S. Micale (2001: 1–27). 9. On Salome, see Elaine Showalter (1990: 149–68). 10. For the complete list of plays produced by troupes of prisoners of war, see Pörzgen (1933: 156–221); see also Franz Rehor (1931: 206–9). 11. For a theoretical discussion on theatrical cross-dressing see Davis (1975: 129–31); see also Lenard Berlanstein’s commentaries on the Davis analysis (1996: 340, 350); Butler (1999: 176); Garber (1992); Senelick (2000). 12. The German expression is ‘Das schwindende Bild der Frau’. See also Steinpach (1924: 7–8). 13. Manx National Heritage, Douglas and Knockaloe Camps Library, Isle of Man, ref. B115/3f, ‘How to Construct an Armchair’ in Quousque Tandem!, November 1915.

Iris Rachamimov teaches modern history of Central and Eastern Europe at Tel-Aviv University and is the chief editor of Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly. She received her Ph.D. in 2000 from Columbia University in New York, where she studied under the guidance of István Deák. Her book POWs and the Great War: Captivity on the Eastern Front (2002) was awarded the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History for a first major work. Her article “The Disruptive Comforts of Drag” was published in the April 2006 issue of The American Historical Review. During the year 2008–2009 she was a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center and wrote the chapter on military captivity in the recent edition of The Cambridge History of War (2012). She was a senior fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford during the academic year 2015–2016.

CHAPTER 7

Half-naked Nazis

Masculinity and Gender in German POW Camps in the United States during the Second World War

( Matthias Reiss

In May 1943, the remaining German and Italian troops in North Africa surrendered to the Allies in Tunisia.1 Some 135,000 German prisoners of war (POWs) were subsequently shipped to the United States and interned there for up to three years. As the first large wave of POWs to arrive on American soil, these prisoners had a huge influence on how the German enemy was perceived in the United States. American soldiers as well as civilians on the home front were eager to get a look at the enemy and were usually impressed by what they saw. Contemporary reports again and again stressed the prisoners’ fitness, youthfulness and veteran status and described them as ‘fine specimens of physical manhood’ (Coker 1994: 24), ‘tall, blond, husky, very physically fit, and well disciplined’ (Cowley 2002: 107), ‘fine physical specimens with particularly well developed chests and arms’ (Connelly 1943) or in other such terms.2

Masculinity Emphasized by the German Prisoners Recent scholarship on prisoners of war in the First World War has por­ trayed ‘capture by the enemy as a metaphoric castration’ (Rachamimov 2006: 364) and the camps as ‘emasculated all-male societies’ (Pöppinghege 2006: 165) (see also Stibbe 2008: 99–101 and Kewley-Draskau 2009a: 187– 204).3 For the German soldiers who surrendered in Africa in 1943, however, internment in the United States was not an emasculating experience. If anything, captivity provided them with a heightened sense of their mas­ culinity and a firm conviction that they were elite warriors. When the

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German prisoners arrived in the United States in 1943, they were, by their own admission, a beaten lot. Most of them had passed through a variety of POW enclosures in North Africa where living conditions were basic, to say the least, and then crossed the Atlantic on overcrowded freight ships (Bykofsky and Larson 1957: 181). When the prisoners finally arrived in the United States, they were, as one of them put it, ‘emaciated, starved and helpless’.4 Nevertheless, contemporary observers usually regarded them as elite and hyper-masculine soldiers. This essay argues that the Germans were able to create and sustain this image by maintaining strict military discipline in captivity, by frequently expressing heterosexual desires, and by creating the illusion of a female presence in the camps. Being a prisoner of war could indeed be an emasculating experience. In times of war, the front-line soldier is the epitome of masculinity, and the presence of armed guards and barbed wire as well as the letters ‘P/W’ stencilled on their clothes constantly reminded the Germans that they no longer belonged to this group. Their captors usually addressed them as ‘prisoners’ instead of ‘soldiers’ and quickly banned collective displays of military professionalism or high morale, such as singing while marching in formation.5 In a similar fashion, the War Department also tried to ban the prisoners from showing off their masculine bodies. In the words of a contemporary journalist, the Germans were ‘mostly magnificent physical specimens who gloried in exhibiting their rippling muscles down to the waist’.6 Wherever there was a POW camp, Americans encountered ‘half naked Nazis . . . usually clad only in a pair of denim shorts’ (Connelly 1943). Rumours about the ‘brawny suntanned Germans’ walking around ‘without their shirts’ also reached American troops abroad and began to affect their morale, and the War Department was eventually forced to address the topic in one of its Orientation Fact Sheets for GIs.7 The work the prisoners had to do for their captors also challenged their masculine image. Most of the jobs performed by German POWs were usually reserved for those at the bottom of the racialized-gendered social hierarchy in the United States (Reiss 2002: 232–45; Heisler 2007: 239–71). Historian Stephen E. Ambrose recalled that he first encountered German soldiers as a little boy in Wisconsin in June 1944: ‘They were members of the Afrika Corps and they were frightening to an eight-year-old – big, strong, blond, hardworking, well disciplined. Next to them the GI guard, even with his tommy-gun slung over his shoulder, looked puny’ (1997: 361–362). However, Ambrose later watched the Germans working along­ side his mother ‘at the local pea cannery, sorting debris out of the shelled peas, and that helped take the Superman image away’ (ibid.). American journalists sometimes tried to provide the wider public with a similar experience. In June 1944, for example, the Washington Daily News

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published an article about the German POWs at Camp Croft, South Carolina. The article stressed that the ‘mostly strapping youngsters . . . many of them veterans of Rommel’s Afrika-Korps’ had to do ‘women’s work’ in the camp laundry. Others had to work ‘alongside several Jewish women tailors’ (Heinzen 1944: 20). The author of the article clearly hoped that such stories would help to destroy the masculine image of the German prisoners. Yet such hopes were in vain. Again and again, Americans showed their admiration for the German prisoners from Africa. One German who arrived in October 1943 remembered that the treatment they received was ‘most respectful, almost subservient’. The American guards were relatively new and it ‘almost seemed as if they were proud of being custodians of such redoubtable soldiers as Rommel’s; . . . they looked with child-like interest at the insignia of higher-ranking officers and the Iron Crosses and other medals dangling from chest pockets and, especially, at a few Knight’s Crosses hanging from necks. In strange and converging ways, such attitudes pleased both sides’.8 POW camps are, of course, military installations, but the degree of drill maintained by the prisoners from Africa struck many contemporary observers as exceptional. ‘Damn! They were a well-disciplined bunch of guys’ a former American guard summarized his impressions, ‘physically healthy, well-trained, and excellent soldiers. They still maintained the dig­ nity and discipline that they had learned in the German Army, and I – we all – respected them’ (Krammer 1991: 149–50). By April 1944, the exasperated American General in charge of the POW programme asked the Director of the Morale Service Division for advice ‘as to how we can prevent our mili­ tary personnel in close contact with prisoners of war from being overcome with admiration for their charges’.9 German soldiers who were captured later in the war were often irritated by the behaviour of the prisoners from Africa. However, even some of them were impressed and described the POWs from Africa as ‘real men and soldiers, or how you would imagine the elite’.10 The respect the prisoners’ military record and bearing commanded was important because manliness is constructed and measured in relation to other men. It is also constructed through interaction with the female other. The German POWs were banned from fraternizing with women, but this did little to dampen their obsession with the opposite sex.

German Prisoners and their Relationships with Women In the camps in Africa, poor food rations and living conditions had largely prevented the prisoners from fantasizing about women. In the United States, however, the prisoners received the same generous food rations

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as the allegedly oversexed American GIs and started to behave in a simi­ lar way. A significant number of former prisoners claimed to have suf­ fered sexual deprivation in captivity. Veterans stressed that their desire for heterosexual intercourse was natural and only second to their desire for food, and how to deal with the former was openly discussed in the camp societies. Disciplining the body was one possible way of action. After all, self-con­ trol was a marker of manliness, but success was far from assured. One German found ‘that the natural longing for kisses and tenderness, for women and sex, could best be overcome by exhausting physical exercise and, as some fellow prisoners suggested, cold showers’. Even then, however, there was ‘much boasting and slippery talk about the fairer sex’ among the prisoners.11 An article in a camp newspaper from Texas warned the POWs that they were exhausting themselves by fantasizing about women. The author of the article argued that the POWs should conserve their energy for the fast-approaching task of reconstructing Germany. ‘[W]‌e must guide our fantasy to higher regions of interest, by willpower, away from prim­ itive sexuality’, he urged, and suggested that the best way to achieve this was through ‘all kinds of physical and mental occupation’.12 He was not the only one to suggest that men should be able to master and rise above their carnal desires. Large murals often decorated the mess halls and rec­ reation rooms in the camps, and ‘mountain lakes and the Bavarian Alps competed with women as the favorite subject. One wall boasted a group of naked women opposite the admonition, “Ein guter Soldat muss verzichten Koennen” – a good soldier must learn to do without’ (Byrd 1977: 28). However, learning how to ‘do without’ did not mean that the prisoners would or could ignore the topic altogether. Talking about heterosexual sex and expressing desire for female company was part of the ritual behaviour through which they constantly reconstituted their identity as masculine soldiers. As a result, pictures of women were omnipresent in the camps. Most of them came from American newspapers and magazines, which the POWs were allowed to buy as part of the re-education programme initiated by the U.S. Army. To the irritation of some observers, the prison­ ers did not only plaster the walls of their barracks with pin-up girls, but occasionally also the ceilings.13 As Life magazine put it, ‘In true Germanic fashion, they are not satisfied with one or two pin-ups but must have a profusion of Hedy Lamarrs and Ann Sheridans.’14 However, a United Press story a few weeks later proclaimed rather proudly that the prisoners had ‘Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth in star positions among the pin-up girl pictures on their walls’.15 In times of war, women come to represent the nation. The women portrayed in the mess hall murals represented the German Heimat (homeland) as much as the also depicted Bavarian Alps.

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United Press apparently chose to interpret the German prisoners’ obses­ sion with pin-up girls as an affirmation of the American way of life. The U.S. Army was indeed eager to promote a positive image of the United States in order to facilitate the POWs’ re-education. Hollywood movies were shown in the camps to impress the prisoners with the high standard of living in America and to convince them of the superiority of the American way of life. The POWs appreciated the distraction and the chance to see female actors on screen. ‘Film tonight: Too Many Girls. Sounds like a nice one’, one of them noted in his diary in early 1945 (Marsh 2005: 47). A German officer in Colorado reported in his diary how uplifted he felt after watching the Esther Williams film Bathing Beauty: ‘It was a very good color film . . . these beautiful women, in swimming costume and yet one has one of them across the great water at home, only too far away’.16 Not all women were far away. The newspaper of Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, boasted that the camp had ‘good looking, young girls and older ladies, too, according to need and taste’ who were ‘a nice feast for the eyes’.17 The paper was, of course, referring to the female impersonators of the thea­ tre group. Every major POW camp in the United States had at least one troupe that staged regular and often quite elaborate performances behind barbed wire (Böhme 1968: 172–212; Jung 1972: 96–97). The prisoners who played the female roles were the undisputed stars of these groups. After a rehearsal at Camp Hood, Texas, the members of the theatre group were in such high spirits that they spontaneously decided to escort the female impersonators back to their barracks. The latter were still in costume and the camp’s band accompanied the procession while playing marching music. The surprised and alarmed Americans responded by firing warn­ ing shots into the camp, arresting the German camp leader and confiscat­ ing all musical instruments (Schlauch 2004: 37). The prisoners at Camp Fort Custer, Michigan, picked a less provocative way to honour those who played female roles and simply published a group photo of them in the camp newspaper.18 When camp newspapers reviewed a play, the female impersonators always received a special mention. They also figure promi­ nently in the diaries, memoirs and recollections of former prisoners of war. The fact that some prisoners dressed up as women is, of course, hardly surprising. What is striking, though, is the prisoners’ insistence that the illusion created by these actors was perfect. Contemporary photographs from camp performances hardly support this claim. To give it more cred­ ibility, many Germans insisted that the Americans were also fooled by the female impersonators and that they ‘wanted to get on stage and fall upon our women. They did not believe that they were men!’19 American participation was important as it reassured the Germans that their enthu­ siasm for the female impersonators was not just the result of their long and

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enforced separation from the other sex but of meticulous preparation and extraordinary acting skills (see Böhme 1968: 174; Geiger 1996: 107; Fiedler 2003: 190–91; Waters 2004: 30–31). American camp commanders usually supported the theatre groups and helped them to get access to civilian clothes. After all, American soldiers also frequently put on shows that fea­ tured cross-dressing routines. The War Department supported such activi­ ties and the American press defended them as ‘wholesome, patriotic, and masculine’ (Bérubé 1990: 77). When the German prisoners performed on stage, American officers and soldiers often sat in the first row and thereby gave their approval to these activities. In contrast, camp festivals were usually an all-German affair. The POW theatre celebrated traditional gender roles and featured both ‘ladies of a youthful age . . . with rosy cheeks and fragrant dresses with longing expressions on their faces, and solemn matrons in grey costumes with put-up hair’.20 At the camp festivals, however, women featured mainly as objects of heterosexual fantasies. The 1943 ‘Oktoberfest’ at Camp Alva, Oklahoma, offers an interesting insight into the centrality of the illusion of a female presence on these occasions. Alva was a special camp for alleged hard-core Nazis, who formed a veterans’ organization after the war. The latter also published a regular newsletter, which in 1992 featured a long description of the camp’s ‘Oktoberfest’. One of the attractions was a coffee room, which the prisoners nicknamed ‘the brothel’. In this room ‘several ladies of the harem romped (from the enlisted-men’s camp, as young as possible), who brought quite a number of visitors into gay-trouble [Schwulitäten], but good old H. had his eyes everywhere and ensured order and decency’ (Scheel 1992: 45). In a circus tent, a German officer performed as the Arabic dancer ‘Anitra’:  . . . enchantingly dressed in a transparent veil, with snakelike moves and on top of it, shaven almost everywhere. . . . There was complete silence in the audi­ ence during the dance in the face of so much beauty – many of the spectators had their eyes nearly popping out of their heads from staring so much and after the dance the tent was shaken by a storm of applause. (ibid.: 87–49)

A lieutenant dressed in a miniskirt appeared as number girl ‘Lissy’ (Scheel 1992: 65). During the performances, ‘Lissy’ tried to sell nibbles in the audi­ ence but quickly reappeared ‘completely distraught behind the stage and refused firmly to continue mincing between the men. She (he) claimed to have bruises everywhere, the guys had mainly targeted her (his!) bottom’. It was decided that Lissy should not go back into the audience: ‘How would this end?!? Unimaginable – !!’ (ibid.: 71). Such incidents were, of course, not necessarily an expression of homo­ sexual or same-sex desire. The festivals were episodes of controlled licen­

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tiousness during which the POWs collectively reaffirmed their identity as soldierly men. They complemented the other rituals described earlier, which served the same function: the maintenance of military discipline and drill as well as the worshipping of the German Heimat as represented through the women in the murals and on stage. Together these rituals prevented captivity in the United States from becoming an emasculating experience. They affirmed and strengthened traditional gender roles and the heterosexual norm. In contrast to World War One camps, the female impersonators did not continue their roles offstage. The homosexual taboo remained in force and German POWs who violated it could be reported to the Americans. The War Department regarded them as ‘sexual psycho­ paths’ and removed them from the camps. The continuing performance of a soldierly masculinity therefore cre­ ated a common ground with the Americans that went beyond the shared appreciation of pin-up girls or female impersonators. The pictures of the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps from the camps celebrated the POWs’ youth­ fulness and health, and many American camp commanders took visible pride in their military bearing and discipline.21 In return, the prisoners used the respectful and excellent treatment they received from their cap­ tors to exonerate themselves from any share in the Nazis’ guilt (Weis 2008: 80–90, 179). This helped to create the possibility of building a new West German army only a few years after the Second World War. The post-war image of the Wehrmacht as a ‘worthy enemy’ originated in the depiction of the North African campaign as a clean and chivalrous ‘war without hate’.22 The portrayal of the German POWs from this theatre of war as young, healthy and masculine further reinforced the idea of a shared mili­ tary culture and emphasized common ground over ideological differences.

Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. This essay is based on ‘The Importance of Being Men: The Afrika-Korps in American Captivity,’ Journal of Social History (Fall 2012): 1–25. 2. For more quotations see Matthias Reiss (2005: 486–87). 3. Kurt W. Böhme already proposed the concept of the ‘society of men’ (Männergesellschaft) in his book Geist und Kultur der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen im Westen (1968: 6). 4. K.H., ‘Story of a German PoW in Amerika and His Funny Job!’ (Unpublished manu­ script, Bad Sooden-Allendorf, 1979, p. 4). Copy from the author. Despite its title, the text is written in German. 5. The POWs keenly noted the few occasions when their captors called them ‘sol­ diers’. K.W. interview by Matthias Reiss, 6 July 1996. See also Fritz Arnold (1998: 98). Regarding the ban on singing in formation see: Memo for General Bryan. From Lt. Col.

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Edwards, Assistant Director, POW Division, 30 March 1944. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (NARA), Record Group (RG) 389/[Entry] 459A/[Box] 1612/[folder] ‘255 (Cp. Concordia) Gen’. 6. ‘Nazis Have a Chance at Democracy’, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 July 1943, 12–13. 7. War Department, ‘What’s the Score on Our Prisoner of War Camps?’ Army Talk: Orientation Fact Sheet 42, Washington, DC, Oct. 21, 1944, 1. NARA, RG389/459A/1631/ ‘Conference Manual – WD Publication’. 8. G.G.H., ‘Under the Crooked Cross, Book Four: The Barbed Wire’ (Unpublished manu­ script, 1989, p. 24). 9. Letter from Major General Gullion, Provost Marshal General, to Major General Osborn, Director Morale Service Division, 4 April 1944. NARA, RG389/459/1637/‘383.6 General’. 10. Heinz R., ‘Thirty Years of Memory’ (Unpublished manuscript, Oberaudorf, no date, AL3, 6). 11. G.H.H., ‘Under the Crooked Cross’, p. 25. 12. Dr Lehmann, ‘Sexualnot in Gefangenschaft? Sexual Distress in Captivity?’ Translated by W. Nürnberg, Der Lagerspiegel (Camp Bowie, TX), 1 Nov. 1945, 6–8. The paper was bi-lingual and the English text is quoted here. 13. H.F., ‘Wir wundern uns’, Der Stacheldraht (Camp Fort Custer, MI), 31 March 1945, 6. The article explicitly mentions that the custom of decorating their personal living space with pictures of women had gone on for quite some time. 14. A U.S. Army Chaplain, ‘PWs: Nazis in U.S. Prison Camps are Arrogant and Study but far from being Supermen’, Life 16, 2 (1944): 47. 15. United Press, ‘Nazis Like Our Pin-Up Gals, Prison Camp C.O. Reveals’, Washington Daily News, 7 April 1944, 32. See also image in Cowley (2002: 64) and John Fahey (1993: 373). 16. Diary of K.H.H., 27.4.1943–3.3.1946, p. 387. 17. a.t.c, ‘Der Onkel aus Amerika’, Die Brücke (Camp Breckinridge, KY), 16 Feb. 1946, 11. 18. Die Brücke (Camp Fort Custer, MI), 17 Nov. 1945, 16. 19. H.W. interview by Matthias Reiss, 1 April 1997. 20. Helmut A., ‘In Gefangenschaft’ (Unpublished manuscript, 1947, p. 18). 21. Letter of H.K. to the author, 14 Oct. 1996, 6–7. W.G. interview by Matthias Reiss, 10 Aug. 1995. See also Robert Schulz (1996: 129). 22. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s papers were published under the telling title War without Hate only five years after the war. See also Carell (1958: 417); Benz (2005); Major (2008: 520–535); and Sadkovich (1991: 286).

Matthias Reiss is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Exeter. He has published widely on German prisoners of war in the United States during the Second World War, including a monograph on the POWs’ relationship with African Americans: Die Swarzen waren unsere Freunde: Deutsche Kreigsgefanene in der amerikanischen Gesellschaft, 1942–1946 (Schöning, 2002). His most recent book is entitled Blind Workers against Charity: The National League of the Blind of Great Britain and Ireland, 1892–1970 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). He has also edited The Street as Stage: Protest Marches and Public Rallies since the Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 2007) and co-edited Unemployment and Protest: New Perspective on Two Centuries of Contention (Oxford University Press, 2011).

CHAPTER 8

Fernand Braudel as Prisoner in Germany Confronting the Long Term and the Present Time

( Peter Schöttler

It seems to be accepted that a serious history book can only be written at the historian’s desk. In the eyes of the public, the historian is recog­ nized as a desk-bound character, even an ‘archive-obsessive’, certainly far from a man of action, still less an adventurer. As a result, any book that has not been created in these conditions constitutes a real exception. In general such exceptions consist of non-scientific texts, such as memoirs, diaries, essays, etc. What should we make, therefore, of a work written in captivity but sufficiently learned to be accepted as a doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne? And yet, on further consideration, there are books of serious merit that were written in very unusual circumstances: in prison, in a camp, or clan­ destinely. Apart from the example of Fernand Braudel, to be looked at here, two great history books come to mind: Henri Pirenne’s Histoire de l’Europe (1936) was written in 1917–1918 under supervised residence in a Creutzburg inn on the Werra in Thuringia, and Charles Higounet’s thesis, Les Allemands en Europe centrale et orientale au Moyen Age (1989) was writ­ ten between 1940 and 1943 in Oflag VIII G at Lamsdorf in Upper Silesia (Poland, Nysda). Other clandestine authors include Louis Halphen and Jules Isaac and (looking beyond historiography) works by Sartre, Levinas or Ricoeur, written in prison camps in Germany. In short, the experience of captivity as well as of battle has marked many scholars and thinkers, particularly when it has lasted over several years. Between June 1940 and May 1945 this kind of experience resulted in one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century historiography, Fernand Braudel’s La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II (1966 [1949]).

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A Historian in an Oflag: Fernand Braudel – A Prisoner of War in Germany Thirty years later, Braudel himself recalled this genesis in an article requested by the Journal of Modern History in 1972: But what really kept me company during those long years – that which distracted me in the true etymological meaning of the word – was the Mediterranean. It was in captivity that I wrote that enormous work, sending school copy book after school copy book to Lucien Febvre. Only my memory permitted this tour de force. Had it not been for my imprisonment, I would surely have written quite a different book. (1972: 453)

The historian evidently did not allow himself to be discouraged by his captivity – on the contrary he sought to make use of this ‘free’ time: the thesis that he had long been preparing emerged in steady page-after-page writing. Back in Paris once more, he was able to transform these notebooks into a single unique manuscript ready to be printed, and defended at the Sorbonne. At this point, I would like to quote a few lines from Braudel’s auto­ biography, which enlarges on the background to this significant admis­ sion from the author: that in his office in Paris he would have written ‘a completely different book’. He went on to say that ‘in fact I did not truly realize this until I met a young Italian philosopher in Florence a year or two ago. “You wrote a book in prison?” he said. “That explains why I have always had the impression that it was a book of contemplation.”’ Braudel accepted this: Yes, I contemplated the Mediterranean, tête-à-tête, for years on end, far though it was from me in space and time. And my vision of history took on its defini­ tive form without my being entirely aware of it, partly as a direct intellectual response to a spectacle – the Mediterranean – which no traditional historical account seemed to me capable of encompassing, and partly as a direct existen­ tial response to the tragic times I was passing through. (1972: 454)

Circumstances thus enabled Braudel, to some extent, to relativize the political and military events of which, like his companions in misfortune, he was only vaguely informed – notably through the secret radio sets in the camp – but which no one could escape: All those occurrences [évènements] which poured in upon us from the radio and the newspapers of our enemies, or even the news from London which our clan­ destine receivers gave us – I had to outdistance, reject, deny them. Down with the occurrences, especially vexing ones! I had to believe that history, destiny, was written at a much more profound level. . . . Far removed from our persons

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and our daily misery, history was being made, shifting slowly, as slowly as the ancient life of the Mediterranean, whose perdurability and majestic immobility had so often moved me. (ibid.)

Although Braudel wanted to explain through his autobiographical account how he had managed to write his book and how he had ended up with his critique of the history of political events, this confession was interpreted by many readers as proof that he himself had become a victim of his ‘captivity’, in other words that he was merely ‘rationalizing’ his situ­ ation as a prisoner: as if the ‘in-depth’ story of his book and his concept of the ‘long timescale’ could find an ‘existential’ explanation, while the explicit intellectual justification formulated in the book was of secondary importance or perhaps served only as a form of excuse.1 What then was the meaning of this statement in 1972? Such doubts have been expressed regu­ larly: the Braudelian narrative was merely a legend, a fiction, fabricated by the person most closely concerned, in order to provide a mythic origin for his thesis and his work. In fact, how could one man alone have successfully concluded such a work of research and writing in such conditions? Alongside and beyond these doubts over the veracity of the narrative, there still exists another interpretation, which can be resumed as follows: because this book was written in a camp, it reflects precisely the specific perspective of the camp, in particular the pessimism, passivity and leth­ argy of captivity. The implication here is that the concepts of ‘the long term’ and ‘unchanging history’ could only be a sort of ‘positive rationalization’ of the ‘prisoner syndrome’ rather than enabling a realistic vision of the great political scene of the sixteenth century. In short, the perspective of the book was biased from the outset and its claim to objectivity and scien­ tific accuracy somewhat doubtful. This of course is not the place to debate the conditions of the possibil­ ity of historic objectivity or discuss the implicit epistemology of Fernand Braudel, even its hyperrealistic – thus to some extent ‘pessimistic’ – con­ cept of the world. In return, the general question of the specificity and genesis of Méditerranée can be seen as particularly interesting. Lieutenant Fernand Braudel, of the 156th infantry regiment, was taken prisoner with his troops on 29 June 1940, a week after the armistice became operative.2 It happened in the Vosges, in the middle of the battle area.3 Although the Germans had promised an honourable retreat, Braudel and his men were despatched to Germany, with Braudel himself being sent to one of the many Offizierslager (Oflags). His first camp was at Neuf-Brisach in Alsace, followed by Oflag XII B in the town citadel in Mainz in the Rhineland. Braudel, now aged thirty-eight, was to spend nearly two years in Mainz. Then, accused of ‘Gaullism’, he was transferred to Oflag X C

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in the suburbs of Lübeck (Schleswig-Holstein), near the Baltic (P. Braudel 2002: 17).4 This was a special camp, a Sonderlager, for recalcitrant or dan­ gerous officers and also for some eminent prisoners, such as the sons of both Stalin and Léon Blum. Until 1944, in fact, this particular camp also held hundreds of officers of British, Polish, Belgian and other nationalities, with special barracks for Jewish officers, separated from the others but protected by the same military status. These included the historian Henri Brunschwig (1904–1989), a former pupil of Georges Lefebvre and Marc Bloch in Strasbourg, who liked to stress that he had only survived ‘thanks’ to Pétain and the Wehrmacht, which had ‘saved’ him from the Holocaust.5 It was in this unusual camp that Braudel – who formed a friendship there with Brunschwig and later evoked their ‘slow walks along the sandy path which surrounded our camp’ (Braudel 2001 : 340) – lived and worked for nearly three years, from June 1942 until the arrival of the British on 2 May 1945. In all, five long years of captivity: what to do during all this time? Given that under the Geneva Convention officers were excluded from work and that French prisoners, out of respect for the Vichy government, were treated more or less properly – even though for a long time the Scapini Mission ignored the Lübeck Sonderlager – each man tried to find an occu­ pation for himself. For academic staff or students in civilian life, it was the opportunity to give lessons or pursue their own studies. Consequently, most of the camps set up ‘university centres’ in which teacher-prisoners gave lectures and directed practical work (see Durand 1994: 185 et seq.; Hannemann 2006: 95–120). In Mainz, for example, it was possible to work for a degree, and there were even postgraduates who hoped to be ready to present themselves for competitive examination on their return to France.6 But as this wait for liberation dragged on, the Lageruniversitäten organ­ ized themselves more or less officially and permanently. Often they had their own rooms and libraries. In one letter, for example, Braudel speaks of a stock of several thousand volumes.7 In the camp at Mainz, Braudel was the ‘rector’ of the university, the equivalent of the vice chancellor in a British university. He therefore had the right, in German eyes – always very respectful of university conven­ tions – to the title of ‘Magnifizenz’8 and to enjoy small privileges, such as being able to borrow books and magazines from the large city library. At the time Mainz had no university as it has today, but one of the best municipal libraries in Germany (Ottermann and Fliedner 2005). This led to a constant exchange of books between the citadel and the city library, which explains the impressive number of German references in the notes to Méditerranée .9 In the midst of the war Braudel was thus able to con­

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sult the complete collection of the best German journals, such as the Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte10 or the geographical review Petermanns Mitteilungen. In a letter to Febvre, Braudel stressed in telegraphese: ‘German works are my providence’.11 Another particularity of this captivity was that the French officers, again according to the Geneva Convention, continued to draw their pay. They needed it for their food and other purchases, but could also buy books. Braudel regularly bought the works of German historians,12 and was able to pay for books bought and sent, at his request, such as a Littré dictionary, the collected Encyclopédie Française, and the complete collec­ tion of the Annales, etc.13 In other words, through the intermediary of the International Committee of the Red Cross Captain Braudel was able to have a certain amount of professional material sent to him that was needed to complete a serious work of research.14 Conversely, he could use the same route to send the completed chapters of Méditerranée to Paris (along with other texts that he had written in the school exercise books sold in the camp).15 Clearly, therefore, given the material conditions of detention it was entirely possible to write a book in an Oflag. As proof, we have also the autobiography of the philosopher Georges Gusdorf with his evocation of camp life (2002: 210). On the other hand, it is more difficult to describe this life in concrete terms and to understand its intellectual consequences for a historian such as Braudel. In his case, certain sources exist that pro­ vide evidence of his labour, including three forms of original material: Méditerranée itself and fragments of manuscript; the wartime correspond­ ence; and the various articles and lecture notes that Braudel wrote in captivity. Braudel drafted and rewrote his manuscript of Méditerranée on his return to France, using the school exercise books that he had filled at Mainz and Lübeck. Afterwards, he destroyed almost all the manuscripts, as was his custom (P. Braudel 2002: 21) – although a fragment of the origi­ nal, which he had presented as a gift to Lucien Febvre, has survived. It shows how Braudel had cut the manuscript pages of the notebooks, then glued them and combined them with text that was subsequently reworked or written later and typed out. As a result, we can read Méditerranée as a sort of palimpsest, a book made up of a multitude of different layers. That a portion of the manuscript pages genuinely dates from his period of captivity is proved by the stamps that they bear, ‘Geprüft Oflag XII B’ (Rhineland) or ‘Geprüft Oflag X C’ (Schleswig-Holstein). This manuscript, which the present author was able to handle in 1990, is now in the posses­ sion of Lucien Febvre’s heirs.

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Braudel’s own correspondence provides a further important source, whether with his wife who was then living with their children in Algeria or with Lucien Febvre and his family. In all, some 120 of letters or post­ cards from the German Oflags have been preserved. Indeed they have already been transcribed and annotated but, until the present day, it has been impossible to publish them because of the refusal by of Febvre’s heirs to grant permission (Daix 1995: 15; P. Braudel 2002: 14), for motives that can only be guessed at. On reading the correspondence, it is easy to perceive that it was seriously displeasing to Lucien Febvre’s son – even beyond his general aversion towards Marc Bloch as well as towards Fernand Braudel – since several letters from Febvre to Braudel begin with the opening ‘My son . . .’ (‘Fils . . .’), which could very well be difficult for the biological son to accept.16 Similarly, several times in his letters Braudel mentions his ‘little brother’ and asks warmly for news of the Febvre children.17 We are deal­ ing here, therefore, with a sort of retrospective family drama, simultane­ ously sad and ridiculous . . . Intellectually, this embargo on the correspondence between Braudel and Febvre has had two notable consequences: first, the daily life of Braudel as a prisoner and all his work on Méditerranée and his other projects remain more or less unknown;18 then, Braudel’s attitude – and Febvre’s – towards the war and Pétain’s government remains largely ignored, so that all sorts of rumours have been able to circulate like a ‘poisoned mark’ (Pierre Vidal-Naquet) about their supposed opportunist ‘accommodation’ with the Vichy regime.19 One historian has even written that ‘the hypothesis of Lucien Febvre as an out-and-out Pétainist remains the only acceptable one’ (Guerreau 1981: 48). Yet this correspondence shows without a single ambiguity – and even though it had to pass the censor and was therefore written in ‘slave language’ – that the two correspondents had nothing but scorn for Pétain’s government. And we also find various phrases in the correspondence that reveal how much Febvre admired Marc Bloch for his engagement in the resistance, and supported him as much as he could.20 In a letter to Braudel he replies, for example, to the question of knowing how the latter was in the following phrase: ‘Haven’t seen my co-director who was expected here. He is behaving very very well, you know, very bravely and actively. I repeat, very’.21 Naturally, Braudel understood immediately.22 A final and equally essential source is available to us; this consists of Braudel’s other texts written in the Oflag. They include various articles and accounts written for the Annales, some of which were published even during the war (Braudel 1943 3–20; 1944a 96–100; 1944b: 71–77; 1944c 26–37), and also lessons and lectures that Braudel had been able to give at Mainz and Lübeck. Towards the end of his time in Lübeck, he had begun to edit

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and rewrite notes taken by members of his audience for a possible book. The book was to be entitled L’Histoire, mesure du monde (History, measure­ ment of the world) (1997: 11–83).23 True, this project did not come to fruition and the manuscript in ques­ tion was not published until 1997: but at least this fragment has survived. Indeed we can read today, alongside the Méditerranée and even in par­ allel with it, this historical account – the ‘historique’ (in Johann Gustav Droysen’s usage), the minimal theory of the writing of history (in Michel de Certeau’s meaning), which was occupying Braudel’s mind at the very time that he was writing Méditerranée. Before turning to this, we can return once more to the correspond­ ence of Braudel as prisoner, since this is where we can follow the birth of Méditerranée from day to day and see the development of his thinking: – 1 May 1941: ‘I am sending you . . . the first 500 pages of my book in manu­ script form. The remainder will follow’. – Three months later, 3 August 1941: ‘Am going to send you second pack­ age with books, plus clear handwritten copy beginning my book with heavy modifications’. – 24 August 1941: ‘Remainder of book written, must be copied and sent’. – 26 October 1941: ‘Will send you tomorrow . . . books, papers and 9 note­ books, second part of my book: 1550 to 1600 the big problems. Simple framework. 3rd part already written: events and men from 1550 to 1700. All this at cost great efforts’. – 5 November 1941: ‘Still deep in German geographical literature, the way to redo first part of my book moreover must recopy 3rd part’. – 5 February 1942: ‘Will send you today or tomorrow parcel of books and 9 final notebooks of my thesis’.

All this, of course, concerns only the first draft. In 1942, at Lübeck, Braudel embarked on a complete revision of the manuscript, and, in 1944, even a third revision. On 27 December 1942, for example, he wrote to Lucien Febvre: Again have recently returned to my papers and have written a new defini­ tive edition of my book. Restored order, clarified here and there, developed elsewhere. Progress without doubt. Like going up stairs – an endless staircase.

And so on, from year to year. On 6 March 1944 he declared once again: ‘Most of my time . . . devoted once more to Méditerranée, have restarted the labour of writing . . .’ And on 20 April 1944: ‘Sat down again before my Méditerranée. You know my tripartite plan: fixed history (the geographical setting), deep history, general movements, events history . . . What do you think of that?’

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From the Long Time in Captivity to the Long Duration of History Captivity – as this chronicle shows us – not only imposes regular activity on the prisoner, to help him avoid falling into depression, but also pro­ vides him with the opportunity to pursue his great intellectual project with extreme concentration, the writing of Braudel and his thesis, which he had begun to prepare in the summer of 1939 after rereading his refer­ ence cards and his material (P. Braudel 1992: 237–44). He thus had the essentials of his plan and the majority of his sources in his head and could settle down to work, even in the very unpromising conditions of an Oflag. But perhaps, in return, these conditions equally forced him to do a lot of soul-searching – an undertaking which, in other circumstances, he would not have embarked on or which would have led him in other directions. Whatever the case, the traces of such examination can be read in both his Méditerranée – in its first edition of 1949 – and the lectures, which the writer was able to conduct between 1941 and 1943. Even if it is impossible to analyse this body of work in detail here,24 two themes at least appear to stand out. First, Braudel’s lectures show very clearly what ideas about history he was following while he was writing his Méditerranée, since they date from precisely the same period. Secondly, Braudel was expressing himself here for the first time – and in a particularly difficult historical situation – on the relationship between past and present, between long term and historical events, between history in depth and history in the course of being made – something which is remarkable in itself. The arguments that he advanced were otherwise very close to those that Febvre was developing in the same period in his lectures at the École Normale, ‘Vivre l’histoire’ (1941) (Febvre 1953: 8–33), and in cer­ tain passages of Marc Bloch’s Apologie pour l’histoire (The Historians’ Craft) (1997: 124 [1953: 138]). Without knowing it, Braudel appears even closer to Bloch than to Febvre in underlining the scientific nature of history, at least in tendency, even if he cited as an epigraph the programmatic book by the positivist sociologist Louis Bourdeau (1824–1900) – ‘history is and can only be a science’ (1997: 34)25 and evoked in a highly optimistic style the ‘laws of history’ that must be discovered.26 In the first chapters he emphasized equally the explanatory nature of this science in rela­ tion to its descriptive aspect and the simple gathering of ‘facts’, which still dominated the traditional concept, taught notably by Langlois and Seignobos (Langlois 1898).27 Finally, Braudel goes so far as to stress the analogy between the natural sciences and writing (somewhat like Marc Bloch in the Apologie) thus:

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This world of men on which history operates must be studied (all other matters being equal) like physical reality. We must observe, deduce, link our results by temporary hypotheses, attempt trials, carry out experiments, seek laws. And we must, we historians, be like physicists and take a scientific attitude; to observe without passion, to conclude without previous preferences, to make an abstrac­ tion of our feelings, our calculations, our moral and social positions. The histo­ rian must not judge, but must explain and understand. (Braudel 1997: 35)

From this emerges a lively critique of ‘the history of events’ (Braudel is already using this wording) (ibid.: 17) and of political history, simple biog­ raphy and ‘anecdotic history’ (petite histoire). In their place, Braudel pleads for what he calls ‘long-term history’, broader and deeper. In this context, a citation from the medievalist Edmond Faral, Director of the Collège de France, served as introductory remarks for him (and he was moreover to refer to it in the preface to the first edition of Méditerranée: ‘It is the fear of great history which has killed Great History’ (Braudel 1997: 13). What he was aiming at – evidently – was a history of entire societies, a history of spaces and structures and above all a history in depth setting it apart from traditional history and geography – while still pleading for an alliance between history and social sciences. This manuscript of 1941–1944 already thus prefigures the Braudel of the 1950s and 1960s. But, in relation to Méditerranée, we must mark another very striking and original aspect: the way in which Braudel evokes the ‘present time’, for which he has often been reproached for his lack of sufficient interest in ‘actuality’. In effect, from the first sentence of L’Histoire, mesure du monde, he established precisely this link in asserting: ‘My ambition is to explain the present time to you’ (ibid.: 16). And he immediately specifies: ‘Beyond the circumstances through which we are living, beyond the disturbances that they create’. In fact, he wants ‘to explain, to some extent, these very circumstances and these very disturbances’. In other words, the present comes first, naturally, but we cannot explain it except by taking a step back, in creating a space, to explain it on the basis of, and with the aid of, the science of history. In a critical style, but also unemotionally, he uses Saint Augustine’s formula several times –‘id est quod est’; ‘it is what it is’ or, rather, ‘things are as they are’ (ibid.: 14, 18).28 This next allows him to criticize ‘events’ or ‘short-term’ history and to warn against the mania of historians to explain everything by ‘fate’.29 But as soon as one is ready to leave the history of great men (as seen essentially through the press, news­ reels, or through individuals), as soon as one is turning towards the his­ tory of collectivities, to ‘social history’, the difficulty begins to fade away and above all is transformed. Thus, for example, it is only through the deep history of Germany than one will understand its leaders – think of Bismarck or Hitler (ibid.: 28). And to achieve even better comprehension,

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Braudel gives a particularly striking example: the history of the Oflag in which he himself and his listeners are caught. The history of the prisoners’ camp is a bundle of individual histories of little interest, the histories of each one of us, little trickles of water, sequences of actions and of thought, difficult to reconstitute, even if you keep a daily diary. It is also the history of “public” incidents: an escape, a quarrel, a bit of gossip. Here too it will be very difficult to create the exact light, so many witnesses, so many versions, isn’t that right? Imagine the difficulties in specifying the exact day, the time, the place, the exact responsibilities. On the other hand, nothing is easier than to reconstitute our collective history, the conditions of our mate­ rial life, the successive periods of our collective moral life . . . With a dozen testimonies, a visit to the sites, two or three good sets of correspondence, good statistics, the reconstruction could be perfect. Beyond the immediate event, beyond the individual, the history of groups offers solid ground. It is on this aspect that our effort should be focussed. And the rest of the story will be illuminated by this, in the narrative of its events, just as in its customary bio­ graphical details. (ibid.: 29) 30

In short, in these lessons held in captivity a whole project was already prefigured that would only be realized much later, at least in part, and that continues to challenge us today in the form of historiographic pro­ gramming: how historians think of the relationship between the history of structures and the history of the present time, between social history and the history of individuals (‘agents’), between ‘long-term history’ going back very, very far in time – in this sense that which today we call ‘Big History’, the history of the entire planet since its cosmic origins – and our minuscule present, so muddled, so full of events and so difficult to understand.

Notes 1. On the reception and critical assessment of Braudel’s book, see Jacques Revel (1999) and John A. Marino (2002). 2. For the details that followed, see the witness account by Paule Braudel (2002: 13–25); see also Pierre Daix (1995: 153 et seq.). On French prisoners of war in Germany, see the bibliography at the end of this work. 3. Thus Braudel was less fortunate than Marc Bloch, who, after his evacuation to England, found himself behind the lines and could therefore step into civilian clothing. See Carole Fink (1989: 227 et seq.). 4. On this camp, of which no buildings survive, see Jean-Marie d’Hoop (1960: 15–29) and Yves Durand (1994: 229). 5. Interview with Henri Brunschwig, November 24, 1987.

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6. Letter from Braudel to Lucien Febvre dated June 26, 1941. I am grateful to Paule Braudel for having generously given me access to this invaluable ‘war correspond­ ence’ between her husband and Lucien Febvre for which an ‘unkind fate’ (as Braudel would have said) prevented the publication. See below in the text, as well as note 21. From this point I will cite this correspondence indicating simply the date of the letters that Paule Braudel has already meticulously transcribed and annotated. 7. See Durand (1994: 187). From Lübeck Braudel wrote to Febvre: ‘our camp library has just been enriched by 3–4,000 volumes’ (August 18, 1943). 8. Statement from Paule Braudel; Daix (1995: 167). 9. This massive presence of German scientific literature – and even of the German daily newspapers – deserves detailed study. 10. Founded in 1903, it was the model that the Annales by Bloch and Febvre wanted ‘to exceed’. See Schöttler (2014a: 127–141). 11. Letter from Braudel to Febvre, February 5, 1942. 12. Occasionally he even sent some books from his side to Febvre (letter from Braudel to Febvre, August 3, 1941). 13. Letter from Braudel to Febvre, August 3, 1941. 14. On the censoring of books sent to prisoners, see L. Hannemann (2006: 108). In fact one small form of resistance consisted in overloading the postal services of the Oflags in order to avoid close inspection of letters and parcels. 15. In fact, as I was able to find out only recently, Braudel applied in November 1942 to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht to have an ‘academic manuscript’ on the history of the Mediterranean sent to ‘Mr. Lucien Febvre, rue du Val de Grace, Paris’ via the German embassy in Paris – and the OKW agreed. (Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin, R 67007). 16. Letters from Febvre to Braudel, July 5, 1941 and August 15, 1941. 17. See his letter of December 27, 1943. 18. Apart from the articles by Paule Braudel, see Guiliana Gemelli (1995); Daix (1995); Erato Paris (1999). 19. See Philippe Burrin (1995: 322 et seq.). On this polemic see Daix (1995: 187 et seq.); Schöttler (2004: 243–61). 20. We must remember that Bloch often stayed with Febvre when he visited Paris during the Occupation. 21. Letter from Febvre to Braudel, August 1944. Febvre’s emphasis. 22. Today, we know that by this date Marc Bloch was already dead, murdered by the Gestapo on June 16, 1944. See Schöttler (2014b: 8–16). 23. The title chosen by Braudel could be a critic’s allusion in reverse, based on a title by Bernard Faÿ (L’Homme, mesure de l’histoire, 1939), which Braudel had undoubtedly read either before the war or in captivity. 24. See my afterword to the German edition of ‘L’Histoire mesure du monde’ (2013: 187–211). 25. Contrary to what Jacques Rancière (1994) wrote in a fascinating little book, but in oppo­ sition to the practice of most historians, this little-known author of a forerunner work (L’Histoire et les historiens. Essai critique sur l’histoire considérée comme science positive, 1888) was read and appreciated by the great reformers of history: Henri Berr, Paul Lacombe, Bloch, Febvre and then Braudel. 26. On Bloch’s scientific optimism, I would refer to my introduction to the proceedings of the conference, ‘Marc Bloch et les crises du savoir’, Max-Planck-Institute for the

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History of Science, 2011. We should recall that Febvre had long shared this somewhat ‘scientistic’ concept of history: see his inaugural lecture at Strasbourg in 1919, ‘L’histoire dans le monde en ruines’, in Revue de synthèse historique (1920: 1–15), as well as the arti­ cle ‘History’ co-written with Henri Berr for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1932: 357–368). 27. In one of these letters, Braudel urgently asks Febvre to write something against the ‘Langlois-Seignobos catechism’ (August 4, 1943). 28. See Saint Augustine, Soliloques, II in Braudel (1997: 5, 8). 29. On this point we once more come close to Marc Bloch’s Apologie pour l’histoire when he reflects on causality and contingency to conclude that ‘what is most profound in history may also be the most certain’ (1997: 104 [1953: 103]). 30. After his return from captivity, Braudel participated actively in the project of the ‘Revue d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale’, founded by Lucien Febvre, and launched a collective enquiry on captivity; see Braudel (1957: 3–5).

Peter Schöttler is Professor of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin and a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. A former Director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, he has published widely on French and German history and historiography. Most recently he edited Fernand Braudel’s Geschichte als Schlüssel zur Welt. Vorlesungen in deutscher Kriegsgefangenshaft 1941 (Klett-Cotta, 2013) and ‘Epistemology and History. From Bachelard and Canguilhem to Today’s History of Science’ (Max Planck Institut, 2012) (with Henning Schmidgen and Jean-François Braunstein). He has also edited ‘Marc Bloch et les crises du savoir’ (Max Planck Institut, 2011) (with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger); Siegfried Kracauer, penseur de l’histoire (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2006) (with Philippe Despoix); Marc Bloch – Historiker und Widerstandskämpfer (Campus, 1999); and Geschichtsschreibung als Legitimationswissenschaft 1918–1945 (Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997).

CHAPTER 9

‘The Trio is Growing like a Piece of Asparagus’

Hans Gál and the Trio of the Huyton Suite

( Suzanne Snizek

On 19 May 1940 a convoy of German and Austrian civilian prisoners from Edinburgh was unloaded in Huyton Camp, a British internment camp for civilians, opened in haste near Liverpool, Merseyside. Among the thousand-odd people, there was the Austrian composer Hans Gál (1890– 1987). Until 1933, Gál’s career had been a series of successes. He had won the State Prize for Composition from the city of Vienna in 1926 and his works had been conducted by the greatest orchestral leaders of the day, including Fritz Busch, George Szell and Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1929 he was appointed Director of the Conservatoire of Music in Mainz. With the composers Alban Berg and Ernst Toch, Gál directed the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, an association that ran an annual festival of new German and Austrian music. This comfortable life was disrupted when the Nazis rose to power. Gál was Jewish: his music was banned from publication and performance and he was dismissed from the conservatoire. As the political situation declined rapidly, Gál and his family left Mainz to live in the Black Forest, where they felt they would be safer. In the following year Gál attempted to bring about an official change in his dismissal from the conservatoire. He continued to compose, despite the pressure, writing his Nachtmusik (op. 44), a piece of great range for soprano, male voice choir, flute, cello and piano. Gál returned to Vienna with his family, but the German annexation of Austria in 1938 forced him to flee once more. With the ultimate inten­ tion of emigrating to the United States, he reached Great Britain where, at last, the eminent musicologist Donald Tovey helped him to find a modest position in the Reid Library at the University of Edinburgh.

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It was a new life for Gál: he created a madrigal choir and an ‘orchestra of refugees’ in the city, with whom he began to perform in local concerts. Continuing to compose, in 1939 he wrote his Concertino for violin and orchestra. The influence of Gál’s new way of life is clear in the final move­ ment of the work, entitled ‘Rigaudon’, which was inspired by the manu­ script of a British melody seen on a visit to the British Museum.

Figure 9.1. Hans Gál and the formation of the Edinburgh Madrigal Society, March 1940. Source: Private collection of Fox-Gàl’s family.

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Figure 9.2. Hans Gál and his daughter Eva in front of their flat in Edinburgh Source: Private collection of Fox-Gàl’s family.

The family settled in Edinburgh in November 1939 and Gál’s music began to be heard on the radio and was performed in concerts broadcast live in Britain. His Pickwickian Overture, for example, was performed in May 1940 by the BBC Scottish Orchestra, directed by Guy Warrack, and

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relayed by the radio station. The Gál family gave up their visa for the United States and decided to settle permanently in the United Kingdom. A life full of hope was beginning to emerge for the family when, in May 1940, Gál was suddenly interned as being ‘an enemy alien’. The psychologi­ cal impact of this sudden internment devastated him: for the third time, his life and music were taken hostage by political forces over which, to his great frustration, he had no control. His daughter Eva recalls that this internment was ‘without any doubt the worst period’ of her father’s life, even worse than what he had endured in Germany and Austria:1  . . . we were held as prisoners, with everything that this implies of harshness and lack of concern. Everything was punishment: the beds, the food, the hourlong walking round and round the courtyard, always keeping close to the walls, the impossibility of even telling our family where we were. Why are we being punished? What crime have we committed? And who is punishing us? Are they our friends, these same British people who had welcomed us so kindly, who recognized our suffering, who offered hospitality to our children, who made us feel we were in a new country? 2

Great Britain had not been invaded since 1066 and had not felt the threat of invasion since the days of Napoleon (Moss 2003: 188). As a result, war on British soil appeared virtually unthinkable – but by mid May 1940 the war in France was lost and the fear of a German invasion was omni­present. This intensified sense of vulnerability was at the basis of the policy of mass internment of ‘enemy aliens’, which began in May 1940. Gál dis­ trusted the manoeuvring behind the internments: In a certain part of the press, there is a long and deliberate campaign against the refugees. Are there not other interests and other aims behind this meas­ ure – installed without apparent preparation and, in the proper meaning of the words, from one day to the next – ordering the arrest of all these ‘enemy nationals’ in the protected zone, on Easter Monday? We have enemies in this country, that is beyond doubt. These enemies were the most loyal friends of Hitler before the outbreak of war. Are there secret forces of this scale at work now, are we, we the apparent Fifth Column, ultimately the victims of the true Fifth Column? What will happen if such forces become involved in the work­ ings of the State and of war? 3

Indeed, for historians, including David Cesarani and Tony Kushner, these internments fit in with the long story of British xenophobia. In The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry, Kushner summarized this trend in a chapter en­titled ‘British Anti-Semitism, 1918–1945’: More than a temporary British aberration in a normally liberal nation, intern­ ment marks the apogee of an anti-foreigner feeling which had developed after

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1918 and contained a powerful element of anti-Semitism. Those who had called out loud for the internment in 1940 – the popular press of the right and the security forces – had also declared their opposition to Jewish refugees in the 1930s. For them, the fact that the refugees were Jewish rendered them doubly suspect – it was not possible to have confidence in the Jews. (Kushner 1990: 199)

This internment is regularly described as a ‘panic measure’, justified by the extraordinary circumstances in which the policy was established.4 The possibility of a German invasion made the panic naturally comprehensi­ ble; however, courts had already been established to deal with these justi­ fied security fears. On 2 September 1940, all residents who were ‘enemy aliens’ and who featured on a MI55 list of individuals suspected of Nazi sympathies were immediately interned or deported (around 500 individu­ als in all).6 Local courts were set up to evaluate the security risk posed by all other residents who were natives of an enemy country aged over 16 years. The number of court cases reached 73,000. Around 569 individuals were judged to be ‘high risk’ (Category A). Those of lower risk were classified in Category B. The great majority of cases, around 66,000 in all – includ­ ing Hans Gál – were classified as ‘category C’ (no risk) (Stent 1980: 63). Of these, 55,000 were refugees fleeing from the Nazis, and 90 per cent of these refugees were Jewish. These evaluations and classifications by the courts were carried out in the spring of 1940, a time of dramatically increased anxiety and changing political climate. The results of the evaluations were ignored for these reasons, and mass internment began in May 1940. In August of that year, 25,000 individuals, mostly German and Austrian refugees, were interned.

Living Conditions in the Internment Camps Gál was initially interned in Huyton Camp, near Liverpool. At first the living conditions were particularly harsh: overcrowded, no hot water for showers and no electricity, non-existent furniture, straw palliasses on the floor for the prisoners to sleep on. The food was equally challenging; one internee, Fritz Ball (1893–1976), wrote indirectly about the rations in his personal diary: I have difficulty in following these gentlemen from Vienna when they talk, because of their dialect. But their conversation was very interesting. They talked about the Vienna opera house, where the orchestral leader worked . . . [and] the Viennese Konzertleben – musical life in the city. The Berlin banker knew many people whom I also knew and he also took an interest in art and

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literature, and so we were able to forget, in the first few days, that we were get­ ting up from the table as hungry as when we sat down!7

Another internee also described the conditions of internment at Huyton to a representative from a Quaker humanitarian organization: We were supposed to find straw for our palliasses, but as there was not enough, many of us had to sleep on the dirty floor. The impression that I received of Huyton on my arrival depressed me. The internees whom we met were not like human beings. They were unshaven, they were dirty, their clothing neglected and mucky. They were pale and thin, with an air of despair.8

Medical care in the camp was inadequate. According to Gál’s diary, an artist called Arthur Paunzen died of bronchial pneumonia, which could have been prevented. In fact Paunzen could not have been treated suitably in the camp, but a transfer to an external hospital was considered ‘impos­ sible’: the rules only permitted medical transfers for surgical operations judged ‘necessary’.9 Before their internment in the camp at Huyton, most of those detained had already suffered under Nazi persecution. It was reported that there were around 150 concentration camp survivors in the Central Camp at Douglas on the Isle of Man (the camp where the trio in the Huyton Suite would be played for the first time).10 Among them was the cellist Fritz Ball (see above), who was to play with Gál in many concerts; serious frostbite on his right hand had forced him to re-learn how to play the cello after his liberation from Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Gerald Friedman, an internee in Huyton Camp, gave a chilling descrip­ tion of the general feeling of frustration and even despair that hung over the detainees in the camp: ‘Friday 5 July 1940. Two people have hanged themselves, one on Wednesday and the other today. Latrines very bad.’11 Three days later he wrote, ‘A boy who was supposed to be sent overseas poisoned himself today but he is not dead. On Sunday, one person cut his throat. No one pays any attention to this. Even the papers don’t expect to mention it’.12 Such were the circumstances surrounding the birth of the Huyton Suite.

The Huyton Suite Gál’s diary for 4 June 1940 describes how he began to compose the Huyton Suite: It was strange how it happened . . . I sat down and began to write a reasonably acceptable piece of music. A flute and two violins, those were the only two

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instruments available which were worth the trouble of being taken seriously. Creating a trio with them alone – what a problem! The idea really gripped me as soon as it came to me. First came a modest piece in march style. I intended to see if I could still write music. But it developed deliciously and today I have finished it. The stirring fanfare forms a pretty coda. A little movement is ready! I think that it will become a sort of suite, three movements or more. The outline of a second movement has appeared; I fear that it may become much more com­ plicated technically, and I must take care because of my performers.13

Next, Gál took his work out of doors to ‘hear’ it better, and remarked that ‘the concertina player opposite is playing very energetically today and never stops’. He went on: I have found a little bit of shadow in the green area of one part of the camp, where I am left more or less in peace; the nearest card players, sitting on the grass, leave a space of about two metres in diameter around me. For us, this is so much space it almost amounts to privacy.14

At the beginning of June, the composition had seized his full attention. Gál wrote, The trio is growing like a piece of asparagus. I have nothing else in my head. I don’t see anything, don’t hear anything, don’t do anything else. My friends laugh at the idea that I don’t allow myself to be distracted or be interrupted even briefly by the noisy conversations in the room, by visitors or by arguments.15

Gál described the work as ‘made of air, light and sunbeams’.16 Finding and retaining musicians, however, was proving difficult. Two of the people whom he had in mind were deported to Canada. Gál then asked an ama­ teur, Hans Fronzig, to play his piece. Gál found that Fronzig gave good ‘sonority’ to his flute, ‘but he has a poor sense of rhythm and reads music with difficulty. I am curious to see how he will get on with this but, what­ ever happens, he is setting himself to it with great enthusiasm.’17 Fronzig did not, however, manage to overcome the deficiencies in his technique. Gál showed his unease after the first rehearsal, which he considered ‘anything but satisfactory, because poor Fronzig produced considerably more drops of sweat than accurate notes, and lost the thread more easily than he found it again’.18 Fronzig decided to give up his place to Walter Bergmann.19 Bergmann (1902–1988) was a German musician, well trained, with many talents. Like Ball, he had studied law and music and the two men later recounted their difficulties in collaborating with other musicians (Martin 2003: 43). Ball wrote that ‘certain of the young artists in the camp cannot accept the fact that the famous composer performed three consecu­ tive evenings with me. Young as they are, they only want to see me as a

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lawyer and do their best to send me back to that’.20 Nonetheless, this did not stop Bergmann from becoming a very active musician in the camp in the spring of 1940 – a concert programme even shows him as the percus­ sionist in the camp chamber orchestra.21 Bergmann and the second violin, Hermann Baron – who, it should be noted in passing, was considered by Gál as a ‘serious psychopath’ – soon quarrelled over musical matters, and another flautist had to be recruited.22 By happy chance, a new and talented flautist was very soon to be heard in the camp, practising his instrument. Intrigued by the great quality of his playing, Gál ‘ran up the stairs four at a time to see what rare bird had suddenly come in to land’.23 Born in the little town of Ostendorf, Nicolo Draber (1911–1987) seemed destined for a life in music.24 His father, Wilhelm, was a famous musi­ cologist and also played the flute; his sister, Rahel, was a gifted harpist. Draber fled from Germany in 1933 and worked as a professional flautist in the Soviet Union from 1933 to 1937; in Kharkov he married a German woman who had gained Soviet citizenship. Their son was born in the spring of 1936. In 1937 the Soviet secret police decreed that all foreigners must be deported – Draber was forced to return to Germany, while his wife and son, both of them Soviet citizens, had to remain in the Soviet Union. Draber was Jewish and could not remain in Germany: in 1939 he emigrated to the United Kingdom. His wife and son were not permitted to leave the Soviet Union until April 1940. Meanwhile, Draber was interned in Great Britain shortly after this date, and his wife and son remained in Berlin to face an uncertain fate.25 Draber arrived in the Central Camp shortly before 18 July 1940 and although Gál was normally a reserved individual, he praised Draber, calling him ‘our excellent flautist’.26 He mentioned that Draber was refus­ ing to rehearse in the daytime – he was employed in the camp offices.27 Later, Draber volunteered to join the Pioneer Corps of the British army and worked as a translator for the British information and security ser­ vice. These activities indicate that he may also have worked as a translator during his internment. The Huyton Suite was published in 1948 and is still available com­ mercially. Like a large proportion of Gál’s music, the suite, despite its considerable musical qualities, is not well known among contemporary musicians.28 Strongly polyphonic and posing similar technical challenges to each of the three performers, the work must unfold without the slightest insecurity of rhythm. Gál was aware of the challenges posed by his piece, and after several less than confident rehearsals he felt that ‘We are not in the Wigmore Hall; if that happens again, we start again, that’s all’.29

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The suite consists of four movements. The first, ‘alla marcia’ presents a melody that Gál described as ‘an unpretentious march’. This movement captures one of the daily rituals of the camp: At half-past six a trumpet sounds Reveillé. The poor beggar gasps it out like a pig, he has to do it three times over to produce the final phrase. But at the second try, in the next row, he manages it. It’s an attractive phrase, full of char­ acter. Perhaps I shall manage to use it?

In fact, Gál repeated this melodic fragment in the last movement.30 Gál takes a ‘military’ musical fragment and transforms it into something sweet and pastoral. The flute does not have a very strong character, despite the range of emotions and the dynamics that can be expressed with this instrument. For the flautist, the trumpet passages can seem somewhat strange: the performer can imitate a trumpet or simply accept the contrast, but, in each case, the musical effect appears ‘demilitarized’. There is an interesting link between this effect and Gál’s situation, a civilian adapting himself to a ‘militarized’ life. The second movement is fugal and animated; its texture and the demands in terms of syncopation pose challenges for the three performers. The third movement is designated by the expression ‘Canzonetta’, in the manner of a little song. The principal theme is folk­ loric and succinct but deeply moving in the form of theme and varia­ tions. Characterized by repetition, this form establishes itself firmly in the listener’s memory. The final movement, the ‘Fanfaronetta’, has a playful air of a perpetuum mobile, at the heart of which the Reveillé (the ‘trumpet air’) reappears. This movement also contains an amusing musical representation of one of the British camp captains, as Gál explains: The Reveillé appears once again in the finale, tying up the threads nicely. I was forced to laugh when I realized that at the end, even our stout captain with his whisky-drinker’s face, had crept in without my realizing it. The man had a favourite sport: he would sound his whistle and all the soldiers within hearing range had to run to him, lining up in front of the building in question, and two men would rush inside, brandishing their rifles, to arrest the sup­ posed rebels. At least we must suppose that this was the aim of the exercise. Sometimes he repeated it for hours, in the dust and heat, sometimes even at night, to ensure that his men remained well drilled. I strongly suspect him of having introduced itself into composition of part of the final movement, but that will do no harm.31

The premiere was held at the end of July and was well received, despite a surprising interruption:

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We had started a bit late, and just as we reached the middle of the finale, at the place which I attributed (although I had not mentioned this to anyone), to the captain with the whisky-drinker’s face, the whistle sounded out, calling us to attention. We could easily have played the last moments that remained, there was no danger from that point of view, but the auditorium none the less began to stir, and when one conscientious occupant of the house began to bang the bell fiercely in the staircase – as was his duty – that was naturally the end. We dispersed in a strange blend of amusement, irritation and enthusiasm.32

After the concert Gál pondered the relationship between the collective experience of the internees and his trio: An experience like this performance is a recompense for all sorts of tests. I cannot remember another of my pieces for chamber orchestra having had such a direct impact and such an immediate effect as happened with my Huyton Suite. But all right, nowhere else could one find an auditorium for which a piece was so much “made to measure” and dedicated, as this one was, to my friends and brothers in misfortune. They see themselves in the mirror of this music, which reflects the feelings and life of each one of us at this moment . . .33

The liberation of the artists, as a category, did not come until October 1940, with the publication of the last of the governmental White Papers to facili­ tate exchange policies.34 Nonetheless, this measure did not concern Gál in the end, as he had benefited from an early liberation for medical reasons: he suffered from severe eczema. He thus composed during his intern­ ment his second and final piece, a revue entitled What a Life!, entirely from a camp hospital bed. Historical irony – Gál’s liberation papers, received on the eve of the final performance of this revue, forced Gál to request permission to remain in the camp. The commandant received the request to remain an extra day as being ‘very sporting’; the request was accepted, and Gál was finally liberated on 27 September 1940.

Notes 1. Personal communication from Eva Fox-Gál in a round table discussion at the confer­ ence on ‘The Impact of Nazism on the Development of Twentieth Century Music’ at London University in April 2008. 2. Gál’s private diary, 14 May 1940. It is published under the title Musik hinter Stacheldraht: Tagebuchblätter aus dem Sommer 1940 Mit Beiträgen von Eva Fox-Gál und Richard Dove (2003). 3. Gál’s private diary, 13 May 1940. 4. On the justification for this measure, see Connery Chappell (1984); see also Ronald Stent (1980). 5. Governmental agency responsible for dealing with internal security, designed to pro­ tect the United Kingdom from any attack on national soil.

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6. Among them were some suspect cases: two Jewish refugees, Alec Natan and Eugen Spier, who had been living in England for eighteen years. Before the war, Spier had worked with advocates of ‘anti-appeasement’ such as Winston Churchill and Sir Robert Vansittart in a group known as ‘Focus for the Defence of Freedom and Peace’, see Stent (1980: 30–32). 7. All the extracts from Ball’s memoirs have been generously supplied by Sandra Ball. The translations used here include verbal and syntactical adjustments. These unpub­ lished memoirs, entitled ‘Dreimal interniert 1933–1948 in Deutschland und England’, were given to Miss Ball in 2009 together with the cello used by Ball in the Central Camp in the town of Douglas, on the Isle of Man, where Gál was also transferred, on 14 June 1940. After his internment, Fritz Ball and his family emigrated to the United States. I would particularly like to thank Miss Ball for her help and for giving me permission to quote these extracts from the memoirs. 8. Observation from ‘Dr M.T.’ as reported by William Ravenscroft Hughes, GEC report, 7 September 1940, Friends House Library unpublished archives, London, box 25. 9. Gál’s diary, 26 July 1940. 10. Hansard report, House of Lords debate, 6 August 1940, vol. 117, col. 123 (available from http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1940/aug/06/internment-of-aliens, consulted 17 July 2009). 11. Gerald M. Friedman, ‘”You Bloody Alien!”’ Part One: A Diary of a German Jewish Survivor in British Custody in World War II’, entry in personal diary for 5 July 1940. From an unpublished manuscript in Sue Friedman’s family collection (available from http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/14402-gerald-friedman/, consulted on 2 August 2010). 12. Gerald M. Friedman, ‘You Bloody Alien!’. Depression and suicide were serious prob­ lems in all the internment camps, including those for women, such as Port Erin on the Isle of Man, where the first female suicide in 1941 was a German woman aged fortyeight. See Chappell (1984: 86). 13. Gál’s private diary, 4 June 1940. 14. Gál’s private diary, 4 June 1940. 15. Gál’s private diary, 7 June 1940. 16. Gál’s private diary, 12 June 1940. 17. Gál’s private diary, 3 July 1940. 18. Gál’s private diary, 11 July 1940. 19. Gál’s private diary, 18 July 1940. 20. Ball’s memoirs. 21. Taken from a concert programme for the chamber orchestra of the Central Camp dated, initially, for 11 November 1940 and subsequently for 8 December 1940. Personal collec­ tion of the Reizenstein family. 22. Gál’s private diary, 15 July 1940. 23. Gál’s private diary, 18 July 1940. 24. Unless otherwise indicated, biographical information on Draber is taken from the anonymous biographical résumé of his life found in his family papers (unpublished, four pages). I thank Christopher and Thomas Draber warmly for having given me access to this. Gál’s remark is taken from his diary, 18 July 1940. 25. Later, the Gestapo forced Draber’s wife to divorce him, threatening to send her with her son to a concentration camp if she did not cooperate. Draber received the request for divorce in a letter transmitted through the Red Cross in 1942. 26. Gál’s private diary, 26 July 1940. 27. Gál’s private diary, 26 July 1940.

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28. For a more detailed discussion on this topic, see the author’s musicological doctoral thesis, ‘German and Austrian Emigré Musical Culture in the British Internment Camps of World War II: Composer Hans Gál, Huyton Suite and the camp review What a Life!’ (2011). 29. Gál’s private diary, 28 July 1940. 30. The replacement of the trumpet by the flute has a particularly moving effect on the listener. 31. Gál’s private diary, 13 June 1940. 32. Gál’s private diary, 1 August 1940. 33. Gál’s private diary, 1 August 1940. 34. The first was published in July 1940, the second in August 1940, and the third in October 1940 (Stent 1980: 211).

Suzanne Snizek received a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Universit of British Columbia, Vancouver. Dr Snizek currently teaches flute, cham­ ber music and various courses in twentieth-century musicology, includ­ ing Issues in Suppressed Music, at the University of Victoria (British Columbia). As a professional flutist Snizek often performs works written by Jewish composers that were suppressed under the Third Reich. Snizek will be completing a CD project featuring music by Suppressed composers (including Gál, van Gilse, Smit, Eben, Blacher and Weinberg) in Fall 2016.

CHAPTER 10

The Other Point of View . . . The Ethnologist

The Internment of Spanish Republicans in French Camps: The Ethnologist Caught in the Net of Memory

( Véronique Moulinié

The history of captivity in wartime: it was an irresistible invitation to con­ tribute as an ethnologist to a colloquium, to be followed by a collective publication. It offered a welcome opportunity to suggest a somewhat off­ beat perspective: to approach the topic from the angle of the memory of imprisonment. With this aim, I have drawn on my own research into the internment of Spanish republicans on French soil, following the exodus from Spain in the winter and spring of 1939. The intention is to trace the history, results and reception of this research, a form of story within a story that is in no way self-serving as scholarly autobiography but speaks directly to the core of the discipline. Every ethnologist must question the relations and complications that develop between the observer-self and the terrain. In effect, whether or not it is welcome, the enquirer’s pres­ ence and questioning in itself acts upon the terrain and modifies it. This is particularly true when the searchlight is directed towards matters of memory.

Genesis of a Research Project In 1999, the municipality of Argelès-sur-Mer decided to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Retirada – one of the biggest single his­ torical influxes of refugees into France. In 1939, this seaside resort in the Pyrénées-Orientales contained one of the largest internment camps in

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France. A monument was set up at the edge of the beach in homage to the internees as part of the very successful commemoration; an asso­ ciation was formed at the same time, ‘Sons and Daughters of Spanish Republicans and Children of the Exodus’, which, as the name indicates, brings together not those who undertook the exodus but their descendants. Every February since 2001 it has organized a commemorative weekend, the Caminos, Camins, Chemins de la Retirada; the climax is a march along mountain paths supposedly used by the refugees in 1939, with monoliths at the entrances to the different mountain passes. In 2005, the local author­ ities of Elne (Eastern Pyrenees), several kilometres from Argelès, bought an old ruined building – the remains of the maternity clinic for women interned in various camps, including those of Argelès, Rivesaltes and Saint-Cyprien (Martinez Cobo 2005: 237–40). That same year, the regional council for the Eastern Pyrenees acquired block F of the Rivesaltes camp in order to erect a memorial there. In turn, with this intense memorial activity, the regional council of Languedoc-Roussillon decided to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the Retirada in a festive spirit. This added a scientific dimension to the commemorative activities, and as the proposal included full freedom of choice of subject I agreed readily to the suggested ethnological research. A few years earlier, I had read the short biography written by Jean Dubuffet of Miguel Hernandez, a Spanish republican who, Dubuffet noted, had completed around a hundred ‘realist and clumsy’ – in other words, artistically worthless – drawings during his period of intern­ ment (Dubuffet 1967: 192). Hernandez seems not to have been an isolated case: in recent decades, historians who have studied internment on French soil in the period of the Second World War have all noted intense artistic and intellectual activity in the camps for Spanish Republicans; some have gone as far as to describe them as ‘jailhouse universities’ (universités des sables – literally ‘universities of the sands’).1 But what was achieved there, and in what circumstances? It seemed reasonable to believe that these two questions deserved more thorough probing than the picture sketched thus far by the historians.

Art behind Barbed Wire The first task was to track down some of the creations. The resulting inventory covered some fifty collections, most of them private,2 compris­ ing around a hundred objects;3 this made it possible to take stock of what seemed to have been no less than a process of cultural ferment within the camps. Internees had painted, sculpted, written poems, created models, edited journals4 and published reviews (Villegas 2008); they also gave con­

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certs, presented plays – classics as well as newly written plays – and more. Apparently no art, muse or discipline had been neglected. Nevertheless, one question immediately came to mind: how was all of this possible? The living conditions, behind barbed wire, were basic at best. The internees sometimes lacked the essentials to meet elementary needs, let alone more sophisticated requirements. Did artistic creation thrive only on finding ordinary materials and putting them to unex­ pected uses? Indeed, certain artists used what they could find in the camp: animal bones, pieces of wood, empty cans, soap, wrapping paper and so on. Others had entirely classic materials at their disposal. One internee, for example, drew on the pages of a ‘sketchbook’ from the librairie Campistro in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales); another sketched out the pattern of daily life in the camp at Bram (Aude) in a notebook from a village shop. They were enabled to do this by aid associations, such as the Quakers: not satisfied with bringing food, medicine and clothing into the camps, they also delivered books,5 notebooks, pencils, paint, canvas and paper. Local people were sometimes generous – for example, the orchestra in Quarter D, barrack 64 of the camp at Bram had no fewer than nineteen instruments, which were kept in a large box lent by the parish priest. There was nothing clandestine about such intellectual and artistic activity: it took place openly, encouraged and supervised by the camp authorities and by local political and cultural institutions. There are countless examples of this. During the first weeks of exile in Argelès, a group of a dozen painters, journalists, teachers and others created the cultural review Barraca (‘Barracks’).6 It was such a success that a notable local resident called Peix, owner of the chateau of Valmy, moved them to another property he owned, the mas de l’Abat, which then took on the role of a combined art gallery and publishing house: its regular exhibi­ tions of painting and sculpture attracted an enthusiastic public;7 a second review then emerged from the first, with the title Desde el Rosellón (‘From Roussillon’).8 In Septfonds (Tarn-et-Garonne) two artists, Joseph Ponti and Salvador Soria, worked at the mayor’s request on a series of paint­ ings to embellish the city hall, where they were also housed; meanwhile, two of their companions in misfortune, Joseph Marti and Bonaventura Trepa, painted a vast Way of the Cross in the village church. In Agde (Hérault), the ceremonial room of the town hall became a huge worksite for the painter Cadena, the sculptor Tarrac and the wrought-iron crafts­ man Clavell. In Perpignan, interned artists such as Antoni Clavé, Carles Fontseré, Ferran Callicó, Pere Creixams and Josep Puig-Pujades exhib­ ited their work at the Vivant Gallery and the Arago hall. The musicians received similar treatment. The orchestra in Barcarès camp (Eastern Pyrenees) was invited to give a concert each Sunday on the terrace of the

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Lido Hotel – the instrumentalists here were unusual internees, regularly and legally coming out from behind the barbed wire and broadly active in local life. Without the same privileges, other creative camp inmates also enjoyed certain successes, as plays and concerts included such internees alongside important local residents, as shown clearly in some surviving photographs. The exhibitions of paintings, sculptures, models, etc., organ­ ized in the ‘Culture Barracks’ and ‘Exhibition Palace’ were designed less for the internees than for the local population, whose curiosity emerged as the result of enthusiastic articles in the regional press. The hope was that people would come, admire the displayed work and possibly purchase some of it. For the internee artists, therefore, the numerous presentations provided an opportunity to show their skills in a realm that could poten­ tially offer outside employment and thus a way to leave the camp, as well as the opportunity to earn small amounts of money or engage in barter. Some efforts were made to endow these artists with a national or even international cachet; in view of the quality of the work being done in the camp at Gurs (Atlantic Pyrenees), General Ménard decided to take the art­ ists’ exhibition to several other cities – first to Bayonne (Atlantic Pyrenees), then Bordeaux (Gironde) and finally Paris (Laharie 1993: 91). In the Eastern Pyrenees region, a project on a very different scale was envisioned: to present a selection of work produced in the camp at Argelès (Eastern Pyrenees), in Paris, then London and New York. We read that the ‘interna­ tional dimension should help supply a basis for requests to leave the camp, but also to collect some funds to procure material for the interned artists’ (Forcada and Tuban 2007: 49). A further hypothesis suggests itself here as well: that the exhibitions could possibly enable some of the artists to emigrate to England or the United States. The declaration of war, however, dealt a fatal blow to the enterprise.

Held Tight in the Grip of Memory A book by the present author entitled La Retirada. Mots et images d’un exode (‘La Retirada: Words and Images of an Exodus’), published in 2009, con­ tains, among other things, an analysis of the conditions of the creativ­ ity described above and of life behind the barbed wire. It also illustrates a broad range of works: small bone or wood objects (inkwells, aircraft, jewellery boxes, chess sets), clay statues, paintings, sculptures, illustrated letters, poems, theatre sets, a comic strip, etc. Ahead of publication, there was some authorial unease over potential attitudes to the work’s recep­ tion among descendants of the Spanish republicans – in particular among those who had opened their family archives to the essential research,

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agreed to the reproduction of their possessions in the book and who had a sense that it would contribute to lifting a veil from their parents’ sad epic. The process of retrieval involved in presenting personal research can undoubtedly be hazardous – ethnological discourse does not always match the expectations among those interviewed, especially where memory is concerned. Such fears were partially well founded; reception of the book was, at least, mixed. The book was presented at the regional council’s commemoration and brought contrasting reactions. There were congratulations at having seen the project through and thereby informing a wider public of what had largely been known only in commemorative circles; but there was also a discussion, at times bitter, of the conclusions drawn, with some people stating more or less flatly that the reality had been toned down. An individual participant at the gathering could both greet the book’s publication warmly and offer harsh criticism of basic aspects of its analysis: something that, in this particular case, appeared to reflect the memory of the Retirada as shaped for the past fifteen years by the second and third generations. The memories of fathers and of their children and grandchildren cannot be superimposed on each other (Moulinié 2011a: 358–69, 2011b: 255–76). Of course they draw on the same elements, but they cannot all be located in the same way or granted the same importance. Here, everything is a question of weight; those who experienced the Spanish Civil War bore a memory tied to combat – a memory of armed confrontations on Spanish soil and then, sometimes, on French soil. Their hero, their emblem, was the soldier, in this case a mature man, bearing arms. The exodus and then the camp were not passed over in silence; but they were in a sense diluted in this memory of armed violence. And for this generation, the internees remained, even behind barbed wire, and in a profound sense, combatants with fists raised; always ready to take up the fight. Succeeding generations have not forgotten the combat, but the exodus from the camps has occupied the foreground. They insist on the pathos of this crowd on the roads: civilians – men, women and children, the old and the young, the wounded and the able-bodied, carrying with them what remained of personal belongings. They were a defeated mass of people, crushed by the circumstances that had brought them to a terrible life behind barbed wire. There has been no reticence among the descend­ ants about the details of that life: the initial destitution leading the intern­ ees to dig holes in the sand for protection against the cold at night; the seawater serving for both drinking and washing, which was so damag­ ing as that people had no choice but soil themselves, and accept it fatal; the wounded left without care, with infected, suppurating wounds; then the very relative improvement that followed: the unheated barracks with

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straw mats, shared with bugs, fleas and rats; the queues for water; the less than basic latrines where the internees relieved themselves in front of their comrades; the transport of toilet cans – the highly disagreeable contents of which never failed to splash the unfortunate bearers. In this way the internees became impoverished, bent under the weight of events, and were reduced to living a miserable and precarious existence with the least amount of human dignity. In the light of this wretched picture, the welcome extended, in part, to the book is understandable: on the one hand it shone a light on the internment, the heart of their memory; on the other it suggested a reshaping of the image that they persistently stressed. The unfortunate internees, reduced to defecating in the open air and having to fight against vermin, were, nonetheless, artists and intellectuals; human beings capable of producing beauty. They are to be admired all the more for it. Another point of divergence between the first and following genera­ tions concerns political affiliation (Moulinié and Sagnes 2014: 61–82). Far from being homogenous, the ‘republican camp’ was riddled with silent forms of opposition that sometimes exploded into armed conflict. This tension still persisted once the Pyrenees had been crossed, as DreyfusArmand recalls (1999: 238). The descendants are strongly aware of the sharp political confrontations between their elders, which have left traces in their memory. They nevertheless now do their best to act as if these confrontations had never occurred. In essence they have agreed to con­ firm that ‘whether communists, anarchists, socialists, they are all Spanish republicans who fled Franco’s regime. End of discussion.’ Their repub­ lic was a peaceful state, working unceasingly to instruct the masses who were previously illiterate but avid for knowledge. What could be more effective in effacing yesterday’s antagonisms than to turn this shared taste for culture and art into the ferment of a common identity, that of a republi­ can Spain, without further precise specification? And did not a somewhat rapid and evasive reading of the book seem to confirm precisely that pro­ cess? Were not all the internees – all political tendencies taken together – so beguiled by culture that, even behind the barbed wire, on the edge of the abyss, they never gave up renewing it amongst them?9 Without having sought such a result in any way, certain aspects of my ethnological research appear to bolster or legitimize the memory of the internees as constructed by descendants of the internees. Closer exami­ nation, however, shows that other aspects of my research oppose that memory totally. The key matrix for memorializing the internment of Spanish republicans is very probably the memory of the death camps. I cannot offer a detailed analysis here of why this is so; instead, we can simply point to some facts that seem particularly illuminating in this

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respect. First, there is the name of the association in Argelès, established in 1999 and now bearing the torch of memory for the second generation: Fils et filles de républicains espagnols et enfants de l’exode (Sons and Daughters of Spanish Republicans and Children of the Exodus). The choice of title is, it would seem, not tied solely to having an acronym rich in meaning (FFREEE), but contains a clear allusion to another organiza­ tion, ‘Sons and Daughters of Deported French Jews’, created twenty years earlier. This hypothesis is confirmed by a debate that currently sets some historians in opposition to the descendants of the Spanish internees. It is rooted in a semantic question that can be summarized as follows: what terminology should be used to refer to the internment? The official term, or at least the first to have been used, is ‘concentration camp’.10 In the wake of the Second World War this term of course acquired a very specific con­ notation (Wieviorka 1997: 4–12), becoming more or less synonymous with the death camps that incarnated all the horror of an organization with no other goal than the elimination of the largest possible number of people. Seeking to avoid confusion, historians have emphasized the distinction between ‘Nazi death camps’ and ‘concentration camps’, pointing out, for example, that deaths in the latter category were not caused by a specific defined project aimed at ‘managing internees’, but were the result of living conditions and other factors. Some of them tried using synonyms, for example ‘internment camps’, yet their descendants very quickly quali­ fied such nuancing as ‘revisionist’ or ‘negationist’, insisting that the only valid term was ‘concentration camp’. They based their argument on a very short speech by Prime Minister Albert Sarraut, printed in La Dépêche on 2 February 1939. ‘This will not involve interning the prisoners. . . . The Argelès camp will not be a penitentiary but a concen­t ration camp.’ (Rafaneau-Boj 1993: 117) But the present recourse to this term, defended tooth and nail, reflects a manner of thinking about the camps and life behind the barbed wire: as a totally closed location, a place from which no one apart from the guards and camp administration could leave or enter, and where artistic creation was clandestine and survived haphaz­ ardly. In addition, interned artists did not hesitate to ‘bear witness’ to the horror they were enduring. What my researches revealed would therefore cut across that image: as indicated above, the existence of culture in the camps was not clandestine – the situation was indeed entirely to the con­ trary. Furthermore, while some interned artists certainly did not hesitate to ‘bear witness’ by their sometimes very crude paintings of the hellish living conditions that they were enduring, others opted for lighter motifs such as chess games and concerts, or landscapes and portraits. But what was even harder for the internees’ descendants to accept was the book’s description of the camps – not as places closed in on themselves but as

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maintaining a close relationship and constant dialogue with the outside environment. Without a doubt, those who left did so with the agreement of the authorities; the lack of liberty was genuine. But it remains the case that the camp was solidly moored in an outside environment; artistic pro­ duction was one of these ties. In the final analysis, publication of the book drew out the contradiction inherent in the memory carried forward by the internees’ children and grandchildren. That memory focuses on the internment of the refugees of 1939, locating the ‘concentration camps’ in the main line of the death camps, while at the same time, and for some years, it has steadily cele­ brated the artistic creation that unfolded behind the French barbed wire11 – even though that creative activity implies a distinction between the two forms of camp. Nevertheless, the contradiction has its own logic. There is virtually no trace left of the camps of the Spanish republicans (a few ruined barracks remain of the Rivesaltes camp). The barbed wire has long since been removed, the shacks destroyed, the sites converted to other uses (a forest in Gurs, a building plot in Agde, tourism for the beaches of Argelès, Saint-Cyprien and Barcarès). But such material remains are not needed to preserve the memory; it is embodied in paintings, draw­ ings and sculptures. In order to discuss these creations I have remained within the semantic field of art, thereby maintaining the vocabulary used in 1939 – yet this is manifestly no longer topical. For the descendants of the republicans, the creations are not so much art as evidence – witness statements, in the full sense of the term, of the time of incarceration. In their eyes, that is where the work’s value lies.

Notes 1. See Laharie 1993, 2005, 2007; Dreyfus-Armand and Temime 1995; Dreyfus-Armand 1999; Gilzmer 2000; Peschanski 2002; Bennassar 2006. Already more than three decades ago, three journalists, René Grando, Jacques Quéralt and Xavier Febrès, published Vous avez la mémoire courte . . . 1939, 500 000 républicains venus du Sud, indésirables en Roussillon (1981) of which they devoted several pages to artistic activity 2. There is no research centre in France devoted to the exodus and internment of Spanish republicans in particular. Relevant objects and images have been kept in various places (the archives of municipalities and departments, the Holocaust memorial in Paris, association-linked museums, etc.). In any case, they are basically the property of their creators’ descendants, often their children. 3. These are mainly paintings, drawing pads, sculptures, small objects (ink wells, a table lamp, models) and photo albums. 4. See Jean-Claude Villegas (1989). This is the first work devoted to what has since been termed la presse des sables (‘the jail-house press’) – that is, the handwritten newspapers published in the southern French camps.

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5. Francisco Pons estimates that the Argelès camp library, for which he was responsible, contained no fewer than 3,000 books. See Pons (1993: 201). 6. It had forty-five pages and fifteen copies were issued; (Villegas 2008: 47–91). 7. The Livre d’or gallery is at present the property of one of its creators’ sons. 8. Five numbers were issued, each with twenty pages; (Villegas 2008: 93–172). 9. To clarify: at no point in my book do I claim that all the internees painted, drew, played music or wrote poems. Rather, I confirm that artistic activity was one of the pillars of camp life. 10. Bennassar (2006: 368) has noted that concentration camp is the ‘official expression’, something that is confirmed by Peschanski (2002: 42), who adds that the term will be quickly be replaced by internment camp. 11. See Forcada and Tuban 2007; Bartoli 2009; ‘Els diaris de Josep Franch-Clapers’ 2009; Forcada 2011.

Véronique Moulinié is an ethnologist and Director of Research at the CNRS (Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie contemporaine, équipe LAHIC, Laboratoire d’anthropologie et d’histoire de l’institution de la cul­ ture). She is currently working on the memory of internment on French soil between 1939 and 1945. In 2009, she published La Retirada. Mots et images d’un exode (GARAE/Hésiode), a reflection on artistic output in the camps for Spanish Republicans, with a rich iconography, as well as a series of articles on the memory of this situation as constructed by the second generation – the children of the camp internees, who were born in France.

Part III

Relations Between Captivity and Society: From Capture to Liberation

( Introduction Beyond the Wire: Interactions between Prison Camps and their Surrounding Communities Felicia Yap

Prisoners of war (POWs) and internment camps have traditionally been perceived as confined communities that were carefully sequestered from the outer world by their holding authorities during periods of conflict. As academic research on these camps has tended to focus on experiences behind the barbed wire, comparatively little attention has been paid to developments across or beyond the wire. In more recent years, however, scholars have nevertheless begun to examine the range of intriguing (and often surreptitious) connections that existed between these prisoners and the outer world. Indeed, a growing number of studies suggest that both the prisoners and their surrounding communities were often keenly affected and even transformed by these wartime interactions. It should be emphasized, firstly, that interactions between these prisoners and their surrounding communities were usually prohibited or strongly discouraged by local authorities. These restrictions often stemmed from security concerns, as these prisoners were combatants or citizens of enemy states. Indeed, there was often a fear on the part of holding authorities that these prisoners could exert undesirable or cor­ rosive influences on local populations and accordingly disrupt the suc­ cessful prosecution of war. It was even held that these captives could

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potentially trigger political agitation or foment social disorder. During the Second World War, the Japanese in occupied British Asia remained keenly alarmed by the possibility of subversion (or even outright revolt) on the part of their captured Allied prisoners. After Allied forces staged a suc­ cessful raid on Japanese vessels in Singapore harbour in September 1943, the Japanese quickly descended on the European civilians held captive at the Changi internment camp, who they believed had secretly transmitted crucial information to the commandos. While none of the prisoners were in fact involved in this matter, the Japanese nevertheless questioned and tortured several internees in the aftermath of the incident, and a number of them subsequently died under interrogation.1 Indeed, it was often a challenge for local authorities to regulate wartime interactions between these prisoners and their surrounding communities. As belligerent powers began to confront severe labour shortages, captured enemy combatants were increasingly deployed to meet this crucial need. Thus, as POWs were widely used on labour projects (such as work in fac­ tories, farms, mines and docks or along railroads), this often brought them into contact with local communities. These interactions were usually brief or fleeting, as most POWs on labour duties were often closely guarded by their captors and compelled to return to their holding camps in the evenings or after the projects were completed. However, as some POWs were billeted on individual farms or housed in local villages and hostels (as in Britain and France during the Second World War), these arrange­ ments often permitted closer forms of interaction between the prisoners and members of local communities. Local reactions to the prisoners varied widely. Some prisoners received aid and other forms of succour from sympathetic members of local com­ munities, such as gifts of food, medicines, cigarettes and daily necessities. In a limited number of instances, sexual encounters were known to have taken place between POWs and local women. Not all POWs and internees were incarcerated on enemy homelands; in some instances, prisoners were also held captive in territories occupied by their holding powers. During the Pacific War, for instance, thousands of Allied POWs and internees were held captive in Japanese-occupied Asian territories such as Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore. As conditions began to deteriorate in these occupied areas and the faults of the new regime became increasingly evident, some Asian individuals began assisting the prisoners out of a desire to resist the Japanese or to strike a blow against the conquerors.2 However, the physical presence of these prisoners also provoked a meas­ ure of animosity among certain sections of the local populations. Some resented the comparatively better treatment that the prisoners were said to be getting, while others were influenced by prevailing wartime milieus

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that demonized the enemy. Many simply found it difficult to draw a line between courtesy and fraternization. The reactions of local authorities to these interactions between pris­ oners and local populations also varied tremendously. As Bob Moore suggests in his chapter, the British did their best to limit fraternization between local populations and Italian and German POWs who were bil­ leted in villages and farms in Britain during the Second World War. Fabien Théofilakis observes that the French also sought to restrict interactions between their citizens and German POWs during the same period, while George Kreis notes that Polish internees in Switzerland were prohibited by local authorities from visiting private homes and social venues. Perhaps the most extreme actions were taken by the Japanese in occupied Asia, who meted out severe punishments (including torture and death) to vari­ ous Asian individuals who provided assistance to Allied POWs or civilian internees during the Pacific War.3 In essence, the physical boundaries that existed between POWs or internees and their surrounding communities were often permeable in reality, and were usually breached by both sides. The presence of POWs and civilians on home soil (or in occupied territories) often became a politi­ cally charged issue for holding authorities. While the latter often sought to limit interactions between prisoners and the local populations, it was often a challenge for them to enforce these restrictions in reality. The reac­ tions of local communities towards the prisoners in their midst (as well as the political, social and cultural impact of interactions between the two sides) remain a comparatively under-researched dimension of captivity. The chapters in this section accordingly offer invaluable new perspectives to our understanding of these wartime connections and relationships. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests these prisoners often constituted a visible (and contentious) presence on the home front and in occupied territories during periods of conflict.

Felicia Yap is an Associate of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics. She is also affiliated to the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her research centres on the Japanese occupation of South East and East Asia during the Second World War.

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Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. For further details of this Japanese clampdown in occupied Singapore, see Sleeman and Silkin (1951). 2. In occupied Singapore, for instance, Elizabeth Choy and her husband ran a canteen at the Miyako Hospital and smuggled food, money, medicines and radio components into the Changi internment camp through an ambulance that shuttled between the hospital and the camp. She was subsequently detained and tortured by the Kempeitai (the Japanese military police). See Elizabeth Choy interview, National Archives of Singapore, 597. 3. See Hans Schweizer-Iten, ‘Experiences of a Delegate (Unrecognized) of the International Committee of the Red Cross During the Occupation of the Japanese of Singapore and Malaya, 1941–1945’, Imperial War Museum, 90/2/1, p. 6; C. E. Courtenay, ‘The Internment of Civilians in Singapore by the Nipponese Authorities – February 1942 to August 1945’, British Association of Malaysia Historical Collection, Cambridge University Library, BAMXII/11, p. 6.

CHAPTER 11

Perceptions of Axis Captives in the British Isles, 1939–1948

( Bob Moore

The many hundreds of thousands of Axis prisoners of war brought to the United Kingdom between 1939 and 1947 do not feature extensively in the social histories of Britain of that period.1 That is not to say they have been rendered completely invisible. Details of their incarceration can be found in a number of sources that outline the international and domestic political contexts in which their arrival and deployment took place (Wolff 1974; Sullivan 1979; Moore 1996; Moore and Fedorowich 2003). They were a very visible presence on the home front in the latter years of the war and the immediate post-war period – as police and government reports indicate – but their impact on the memory of the Second World War has increased over time with their appearance in reminiscences and memoirs, both oral and written. Public perceptions of the Italian and German prisoners of war brought to the British Isles during and after the Second World War can be gleaned from a number of sources, in spite of the initially limited press cover­ age of their arrival and work in the United Kingdom. During the conflict, the Ministry of Information was proactive in collecting assessments of public opinion on all aspects of the war, both international and domestic. In addition, the police monitored the relations between the public and the prisoners, while the Mass Observation project questioned its correspond­ ents and diarists about their encounters with, and opinions of, foreign nationals during the war.2 In addition to these contemporary records, we also have the BBC’s People’s War oral history archive (www.bbc.co.uk/ history/ww2peopleswar/) that provides more recent reflections about the presence of the Italians, and later the Germans, on British soil. Perhaps not surprisingly, the public reactions to the prisoners varied considerably

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according to circumstances and over time, and while there is no single set of sentiments that can be attributed to the population as a whole, a clear general picture can nevertheless be discerned from both the contemporary and more recent sources.

Italian Prisoners Arrive on British Soil British difficulties with holding the increasingly large numbers of Italians captured in North Africa after December 1940 necessitated their removal to other parts of the Empire. It was at this point that the need to export a security risk away from the African theatre of war was juxtaposed with the growing labour shortage in the United Kingdom and the first plans were made to import suitably screened Italian POWs. The willingness to bring Italians into the country at the same time that Germans were still being shipped out speaks volumes about the very different British official perceptions of the men serving the two Axis powers. Italians of the ‘peas­ ant type’ who were ‘good mechanics’ or workmen could be substituted for the increasing numbers of Britons being drafted into the armed forces or war industries.3 The first 5,000 men of a planned 25,000 arrived in July 1941 and were initially placed in purpose-built camps. They were mainly under thirty years of age and were described as ‘excellent’ and ‘containing some very good material’ (Moore and Fedorowich 2003: 33). Within weeks, the secu­ rity services had agreed to relaxations in the terms of their use and it was not long before they were being organized as labour battalions and housed in hostels. By the end of the year, there were already plans to billet them on individual farms in small numbers. This rapid progression away from outright captivity to more nominal restrictions was determined partly by the quest for labour efficiency, but also by the behaviour of the early arriv­ als that largely corresponded to their stereotypes as docile and willing to work. The speed of their arrival was largely determined by the availability of accommodation – a problem that eased as a more liberal regime was implemented – and by the end of 1941, there were already 9,015 Italians in employment. They were to be augmented by a further 28,000 in early 1942 and another 50,000 later in the year (ibid.: 36–37). There seemed to be no limit to the demand for their services in a hard-pressed British war economy – especially when labour was so scarce – and by the summer of 1944 they numbered in excess of 150,000 (Moore 2005: 31). By bringing the Italians to the United Kingdom in 1941, the government knew that it was treading a tightrope. While the Italians were serving a very useful purpose, this could not be continued at the expense of national

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security or in the face of public opposition when fascist Italy was still very much involved in fighting the British in North Africa. However, the initial signs were positive and the Ministry of Agriculture reported to the Home Defence (Security) Executive in April 1942 that: Comments on the prisoners’ work are favourable. It is thought that the farm­ ers will continue to ask for prisoner-of-war labour, though that by no means all . . . are thought likely to want the prisoners to live in. Most places have taken kindly to the prisoners, though . . . people are inclined to ask why they should be better housed than soldiers in the neighbourhood.4

A more general survey at the end of 1942 concluded that ‘people do not dislike the Italians as much as the Germans, or in the same way; con­ tempt and pity for them are expressed, the latter mostly by “middle aged women”’.5 These same sentiments were also reflected in comments from diarists of the Mass Observation project. It was widely thought that the Italians had been cowardly in coming into the war late, and they were also castigated for their attacks on the British imperial territories in Africa. However, encounters with the individual POWs in the United Kingdom during and after 1941 produced the impressions that they were uncom­ mitted to fascism and had been ‘led astray’ by Mussolini. As one contem­ porary Mass Observation diarist recorded, The Italian is, to me, a more acceptable member of the European family than many who think themselves their superiors. They are the victims of a swash­ buckling regime that has vainly tried to make a blood and iron breed of them.6

1943 – The Turning Point In spite of the ‘shackling crisis’ between Germany and Britain that began in October 1942, the increasing numbers of Italians failed to excite any comment in the Home Intelligence Reports before the summer of 1943, by which time their numbers had grown to around 76,800 (Moore and Fedorowich 2003: 228). In the report of 8 July, they justified a separate entry for the first time, and one that very clearly summed up the conflicts in public expressions – and in the minds of the civil servants sifting the information: Opinions differ as to whether (i) they work well on the land, or are lazy (ii) they are orderly or well disposed or noisy and troublesome (iii) they are adequately or inadequately supervised, and (iv) people like them to be employed on the farms or are vindictive towards them. In Huntingdonshire, where women were prosecuted for writing letters to Italian prisoners, there is some demand for a clear statement of what our atti­

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tude should be towards them. Many think “we are altogether too generous in our treatment”, and others “find it difficult to draw a line between common courtesy and out-and-out friendliness”.7

Reports later in the month reflected some unease about the degree of liberty given to the Italians, their shorter working hours and the prior­ ity given to them in the allocation of motorized transport.8 These were complaints that were to continue as the war progressed. On their primary purpose as a source of labour, there were also conflicting signals: Approval of their good behaviour, and praise for their work is reported from three regions but there is said to be “an increasing volume” of adverse com­ ments from the rural districts of the North Midlands Region. Though farmers there are “reasonably satisfied” many of the prisoners are said to be thoroughly lazy and to stop work at the slightest excuse.9

The closest contact came with farmers and their families, where the vast majority of Italian POWs were employed. Here they also encountered members of the Women’s Land Army, and in spite of rules on non-frater­ nization, there were inevitable contacts – with some women being more receptive than others. Certainly, the Italians were seen as exotic and differ­ ent from the men and youths they would normally encounter. One former land girl recalled, Italian prisoners of war came to help on the farm and they used to follow me about trying to help in their typical and happy manner and a plea was often made that I should have a “Blond Bambino”, but I escaped their loving embraces unscathed!! This was unlike some of the village girls and many Italians stayed after the war and married locally.10

Others were less forgiving of their encounters with the Italians. One woman was particularly forthright in her views: They didn’t like working. There were no gentlemen amongst the Italians. You had to watch them like hawks.  . . . they weren’t any respecters of women. They caused a lot of trouble. One attacked my friend, and he was from a camp. And he got a little bit fruity with her, and she wasn’t having that, so she stuck a fork in his foot . . . 11

Inevitably, this proximity to women and the increasing levels of free­ dom afforded to the Italians created some resentments; among sections of the local population who saw the Italians as competition for work, and also from those whose fathers or sons had been in Italian captivity and were aware of the conditions being endured by their loved ones. There were also campaigns in the press, most notably in the Daily Express, claim­ ing that there were widespread complaints from employers.12 However,

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by far the greatest danger came from encounters with British servicemen. More than fifty years after the event, this was still clear in the testimonies of those who witnessed it: The one unsavoury aspect with the Italians walking about was that if any group of our own soldiers were in the vicinity we sometimes witnessed aggres­ sion and abuse from our own men; possibly they had been involved in fighting in Italy and saw some of their own comrades wounded or even killed, which provoked them into this aggressive behaviour on seeing the Italians walking freely around the town. But thankfully these little episodes were few and far between.13

This mixed reception did not change markedly after the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943 but families of British POWs were often resentful that many of their menfolk had merely been transferred into German hands. This was made worse by the fact that the Italians continued to get pref­ erential treatment over the domestic labour force, for example in being provided with transport getting to and from work. However, it was frat­ ernization that caused the most severe problems, as a War Office circular from November 1944 indicated: This [fraternization] is strongly resented by the public although it is admitted there is often encouragement by irresponsible girls. Co-operators have been seen walking arm in arm with females and this practice must cease. They will not be permitted to make (or attempt to make) unwelcome approaches to women and will refrain from forcing their attentions on anyone.14

Although there was a greater general acceptance of the Italians’ presence after September 1943, there continued to be protests and even disorder in ‘sensitive areas’ during 1944 and 1945 as the fierce fighting in Northern Italy continued (Jackson 2010: 119–133). One report summed up a wide­ spread view: People recall the cruelties inflicted by the Italians on our men in Africa, and on British prisoners-of-war. It is generally suggested that the best thing to do with them is to ship them back to Italy to fight for their own country.15

The relatively benign image of the Italians as farm labourers was also gradually replaced by a more critical attitude. This may have been because the Italians were no longer the only possible source of labour for farm­ ers, as increasing numbers of disciplined German prisoners were arriving after the success of the Allied landings in Normandy. In November 1944, there were several reports – all of which reflected the same sentiments. The Italians were castigated for their laziness, arrogant behaviour and association with young women and girls. It is felt that more control should be exercised, that they should be indoors

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much earlier at night, and should be sent back to their own country as soon as possible.16

In spite of these difficulties, the Italians were retained well beyond the end of the war in Europe and it was not until July 1946 that they had all been repatriated, save for 1,391 retained on labour contracts and a small number of escapees. Others later returned to continue emotional or employment relationships established during their captivity, which established the basis for further peacetime Italian migration to Britain in the post-war era (Moore and Fedorowich 2003: 217). The sojourn of the Italians in the United Kingdom would ultimately overlap with that of the Germans, as from the beginning of 1944, govern­ ment plans were drawn up to use the latter as labour on British soil as well. Unlike the Italians, who had been screened before arrival, the first cohorts of Germans were undifferentiated and therefore had to be carefully han­ dled. A guard at one of the reception centres, Kempton Park Racecourse near London, recalled his experiences. The German POWs would come in by train by the hundreds, escorted by Military Police. Once inside the stands, the POWs were guarded by Pioneer Corps with Bren guns: We were kept awake by V1 bangs and Germans singing “we are marching against England”. I remember how the POWs in the daylight would watch the flying bombs go by. If they landed in a field there would be no noise; if it should hit a house they would cheer – one or two fingers used to tighten on triggers at that moment I think.17

These Germans would soon follow their Italian former allies into employ­ ment in agriculture, albeit in a restricted and carefully guarded fashion. One land girl reflected on their initial deployment: When working in the fields harvesting vegetables, the German POW’s were made to start at one end of the field, while the regular workers at the other, they were never allowed to meet in the middle, there was always a 10 foot strip of “no man’s land” which the foreman normally done [sic] himself.18

It was inevitable that the damage done to Britain through Luftwaffe bombing and the stories of atrocities filtering through from continental Europe would have an effect on the public reaction to the Germans now in their midst. Many civilians were in no mood to forgive and forget and public sympathy was limited – even among children who had been taught that ‘the only good German was a dead German’ (Sullivan 1979: 16).19 Prisoners were therefore employed outside camps during the working day but remained confined in the evenings and weekends. As the numbers of Germans on United Kingdom soil increased, their presence began to register in the Ministry of Information reports as a

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cause of comment. In August 1944, five regions recorded protests that the prisoners were treated too leniently and there was concern expressed that they were given comfortable transport and, more tellingly, were being given better medical care than British wounded.20 This latter com­ plaint escalated when it was thought that local people were being denied access to hospitals to make way for German wounded being brought to Britain for treatment.21 The authorities also feared that the introduction of Germans as a labour force in specific regions, while potentially welcomed by farmers who thought them better workers, would lead to violence and public disorder among local populations – something reinforced by the behaviour of Germans in both Scotland and Devon, who were reported as habitually continuing to use the Hitler salute.22 General public opinion about the Germans was very different to that of the Italians – in some part because the latter’s arrival in the second half of 1944 coincided with the first widespread reporting of Nazi war crimes in the British press. These included atrocities against villages in France and Hungary, but also the advent of the V1 and V2 flying bombs.23 In many cases, they were also contrasted unfavourably with erstwhile Axis allies, with their ‘temperament and behaviour’ seen as ‘miles apart’ from that of their Italian neighbours.24 Other views were more charitable: [I]t was just unbelievable. The German people that I knew, the German prison­ ers of war, were just ordinary people . . . like your dad, like anybody else that just walked the streets.25 I couldn’t understand why they were being treated so badly as we had accepted them into our Church and we knew they were family men just like our own families.26

The End of the War and the Immediate Post-war Period The end of the war brought changes to the lives of the German prisoners in the United Kingdom, and those who had been given low-risk classifica­ tions were now largely unguarded – much as their Italian counterparts had been previously. The terms of the Geneva Convention had effectively ceased to apply, as the German state had collapsed, but there was no ques­ tion of there being a peace treaty, either with Germany or with Italy, and therefore no prospect of the prisoners being returned home in the immedi­ ate future. For the British authorities, the labour shortages at home would remain for as long as the war against Japan had to be prosecuted and there was also the question of British military commitments in Germany, and in the Empire.

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This gradual integration and acceptance was in part aided by a govern­ ment ‘hearts and minds’ policy of denazification and exposure to British cultural values (see Henry Faulk 1970, 1977). In the first instances this was structured, with ministers and priests being given permission to enter camps and for churches, chapels and meeting houses then becoming per­ mitted places of fraternization (Taylor 1997: 8–11). German members of the Evangelical Churches could be invited to Church of England services, while Catholics could likewise attend services of their own denomination and by 1946 they would often go unescorted and unguarded (Sullivan 1979: 175). However, it seems that even this national policy could be ham­ strung by local objections. Thus the parish council in Quorn, Leicestershire, refused permission for the prisoners to attend church in spite of the fact that the local commander, the vicar and the bishop were all in favour (ibid.: 176). Some individuals, and especially women, were prepared to acknowl­ edge the plight of the German prisoners and in some cases even to try to provide (illegal) material comforts. Many of the first activists who lob­ bied for improvements came from the Quaker community, whose beliefs and ethos was geared towards providing succour to those imprisoned – whatever their status. Slowly, there were also private initiatives designed to help the prisoners still in the United Kingdom. There was a Prisonerof-War Assistance Society founded by Mrs Violet Foss and her daughter Mary (Jackson 2010: 136). A number of churchmen lent their names to the Society, but its activities were circumscribed by rules that prohibited direct communication between civilians and prisoners. It appears that a number of vicars and priests may have been used as (illegal) intermediar­ ies so that rosaries and books could find their way into camps and the fate of families in Germany could be traced (ibid.: 137–42). However, the farright credentials of its leadership meant that the organization remained under the close scrutiny of the security services. More generally, as had been the case with the Italians, British public animosity towards the Germans began to abate slowly after the war’s end, and increasing proximity led to some greater sympathy for their plight and a degree of mutual respect. One woman recalled that the arriving Germans were ‘more reserved than the Italians [and] more like us . . .’27 Another young man in Perth, who had a knowledge of German, described his encounters with the prisoners after the war was over: They could now get out of their camps, not just for working but also for some leisure. Thus some German POWs who were stationed near Perth began being allowed out in the evenings provided they were accompanied. Somehow – I do not now recall the circumstances – I, and one or two others, began to associate with some of them, going for walks round the town.28

Perceptions of Axis Captives in the British Isles, 1939–1948 | 149

Prisoners’ segregation from most contact with the general population con­ tinued and people who chose to ignore these strictures still ran risks of discovery and legal sanction. Nonetheless, there were examples of prison­ ers being lent or given civilian clothing so that they could move around more easily and attend functions forbidden to them, like concerts and sporting contests (Sullivan 1979: 339–40). By the summer of 1946, there was a groundswell of support for the prisoners in certain sections of the press, objections to their being used as ‘slave labour’ and a view that they should at least be given some indication of when they were to be released (ibid.: 183). In spite of this, their retention was still dictated by the country’s need for labour, and any programmes to re-educate and win over hearts and minds remained essentially subordinate. As late as 29 November 1946, a War Office spokesman was insisting that the strict non-fraternization policy would be maintained, but within three weeks there was a rapid reversal and on 12 December the rules were changed. From then on, prisoners could walk within five miles of their camps, visit private houses, accept small gifts and stay out until 10 p.m. These were substantial concessions, but the bans on visiting pubs, restaurants and places of public entertainment remained (Sullivan 1979: 184–85). In spite of this, there was still strong pressure to keep as many prisoners as pos­ sible in the country, not least because they represented around 25 per cent of the agricultural labour force and their supposed civilian replacements from the DP (displaced persons) camps in Europe were not likely to arrive immediately. It has been argued that this rapid volte-face brought official policy more in line with public opinion. While there was still opposition to any con­ cessions to the Germans, it is probably true to say that the majority of people in post-war austerity Britain were prepared to be more generous. Permission to allow German prisoners to attend Christmas dinners in pri­ vate houses in 1946 led to a flood of offers to the camps scattered across the country. This change in policy is perhaps epitomized by the story of Walderslade near Chatham, where the local population had protested against the building of a camp near their village during the war and had then (unsuccessfully) tried to have the names of girls caught fraternizing with the prisoners published in the press. In December 1946 they sent more than 200 invitations for prisoners to visit their homes (Sullivan 1979: 187; Taylor 1997: 33–50). Whether the hearts and minds policy had positive effects in every case is open to some question. It is undoubtedly the case that friendships made during captivity endured in the post-war period, with contacts and rela­ tionships being maintained (see, for example, Taylor 2003 and Clay 2010). Like their Italian counterparts, a small number of Germans chose to stay

150 | Bob Moore

once their repatriation was due or subsequently returned to the United Kingdom. However, many of the prisoners were too heavily imbued with Nazi ideology to be ‘de-programmed’ and others who had spent years confined in the Canadian prairies were similarly unresponsive – at least in part because their evacuation from North America did not presage their return to Germany – as they thought – but a further period of enforced labour in Britain. They were also the very prisoners who had been cap­ tured earlier in the war and were thus unaware of (or unwilling to believe) the utter destruction of their homeland. Thus there were examples of defiance when they were brought to the United Kingdom. A contingent marched into Carburton Camp giving the Nazi salute and an extrem­ ist minority at Langdon Hills Camp managed to raise a swastika flag on Hitler’s birthday in April 1946 (Sullivan 1979: 171–72).29 Their resent­ ment was palpable. Denazification could only go so far and its results were unquantifiable. One telling newspaper article from the Bournemouth Evening Echo half a century after the event speaks volumes: Mrs Irene Graham of Thorpe Avenue, Boscombe, delighted the audience with her reminiscences of the German prisoner-of-war who was sent each week to do her garden. He was repatriated at the end of 1945, she recalled. ‘He’d always seemed a nice friendly chap, but when the crocuses came up in the middle of our lawn in February 1946, they spelt out, “Heil Hitler”.’30

In conclusion, it seems that the British government managed its use of prisoners without compromising security or seriously alienating the general public – either during or after the war. Closer encounters with both Italian and then German prisoners tended to soften British civilian perceptions of their current and erstwhile enemies and this led to continu­ ing state restrictions being widely seen as oppressive in the years after the conflict. Nonetheless, such generalizations are difficult to sustain and individual responses were often governed by wartime experiences. Thus families of the fallen, or of prisoners in Axis hands, or those who had suf­ fered material damage as a result of bombing were likely to be less forgiv­ ing than famers who benefited from the prisoners as a source of labour and had greater day-to-day contact with them. From the available sources, it also seems that the Axis prisoners in Britain have become a much more prominent, and a more benign, element in the collective memory of the Second World War after seventy years than they were at the time of the conflict.

Perceptions of Axis Captives in the British Isles, 1939–1948 | 151

Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. See, for example, Juliet Gardiner (2004, 2007); Raynes Minns (1980); Angus Calder (1969) Norman Longmate (1973); and Nicholas Kynaston (2007). 2. For details of Mass Observation, see Dorothy Sheridan (1995). 3. National Archives, Kew, London (TNA) PREM3/363/1 Sir Desmond Morton to Churchill, 24 February 1941. CAB123/136 ‘Use of Italian Prisoners for Agricultural Purposes’, Note by Secretary of the War Cabinet, 14 June 1939–29 May 1941. 4. TNA CAB114/25 HD(S)E itemized minute 103, 9 April 1942 and digest of letters and reports from hostels, Johns to Wells, 9 April 1942. 5. TNA INF1/292 Home Intelligence Weekly Report (HWIR), No. 114, 10 December 1942, p. 6. 6. Mass Observation Archive (University of Sussex) DR3164. 7. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 144, 8 July 1943, p. 9. 8. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 146, 22 July 1943, p. 19. 9. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 150, 19 August 1943, p. 16. 10. BBC People’s War A5929257, 27 September 2005. 11. BBC People’s War A4466423, 15 July 2005. 12. The Times, 5 January 1942, Daily Express, 9 and 10 January 1942. 13. BBC People’s War A1966476, 4 November 2003. 14. TNA WO32/10737 War Office to Regional Command HQs and London District, 2 November 1944. 15. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 207, 21 September 1944, p. 5. 16. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 214, 9 November 1944, p. 5. 17. BBC People’s War A2722141, 8 June 2004. 18. BBC People’s War A1905473, 21 October 2003. 19. BBC People’s War A4151927 Roland Miles, 4 June 2005. 20. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 202, 17 August 1944, p. 22. 21. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 218, 7 December 1944, p. 4. 22. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No. 214, 9 November 1944, p. 6. 23. TNA INF1/292 HWIR, No.199, 27 July 1944, p. 2. 24. BBC People’s War A5929257, 27 September 2005. 25. BBC People’s War A4466423, 15 July 2005. 26. BBC People’s War A3817109, 22 March 2005. 27. BBC People’s War A7342418, 27 November 2005. 28. BBC People’s War A2864919, 25 July 2004. 29. Sullivan shows that there were differences between those held in the United States and Canada, but their levels of fanaticism were much the same. 30. BBC People’s War A2120121, 9 December 2003.

Bob Moore is Professor of Twentieth-Century European History at Sheffield University. He has held visiting fellowships at King’s College, London, Sciences Po, Paris, the Université libre in Brussels and the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in the United States. His publications on the history of Western Europe in

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the middle of the twentieth century include Victims and Survivors: the Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, 1940–1945 (Hodder Education, 1997), and Survivors: Jewish Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi Occupied Western Europe (Oxford University Press, 2010). He has directed or co-directed a large number of works, including The British Empire and its Italian Prisoners of War (with Kent Fedorowich, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace (with Barbara Hately-Broad, Berg Publishers, 2005), Refugees from Nazi Germany and the Liberal European States (with Frank Caestecker, Berghahn, 2010) and Survivors: Jewish Self Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied Western Europe (Oxford University Press, 2010).

CHAPTER 12

‘Voluntary’ Captivity

Russian Prisoners of War in Switzerland, 1942–1945

( Georg Kreis

Between 1942 and 1945 a distinctive group of some ten thousand men spent varying periods in ‘voluntary captivity’ in Switzerland.1 The criteria for attributing to this group were to be of Russian nationality and captured in Germany, and to have voluntarily fled from Germany to Switzerland. The third criterion is often less clear as a result of confused circumstances and variation in the details: the group consisted partly of former soldiers of the Red Army, who had escaped military imprisonment or were under­ taking forced labour and had gained a transfer to Switzerland under the heading of civilian detention. At the end of 1944 around nine hundred defectors of various kinds were in Switzerland; towards the end of the war, on the other hand, the number of prisoners who had used this way of escaping from forced labour had risen to nearly ten thousand, of whom 3,500 were women.2 In terms of synchronicity, this ‘voluntary captivity’ consisted of three stages: arrest, captivity and liberation. In the case of these Russian pris­ oners, we are concentrating mainly on the central phase, captivity in the full meaning of the word, although the other two stages also pose crucial questions that will be considered briefly.

From the ‘Arrest’ of Russian Prisoners in Switzerland . . . In the first phase, the arrest, the question was to know whether the defec­ tor detainees should be accepted in the country, or expelled. In the case of Switzerland, arrest meant internment and, in most cases, very close supervision of the internees by the receiving country. In conformity with

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the Hague Agreements of 1907 (art. 11) Switzerland was obliged to intern citizens of foreign armed forces to whom they accorded protection in its territory. According to article 13, however, this obligation did not apply to the category of fleeing prisoners of war. The accepting country could, if it chose, allow the fugitives to go on their way, or, as with any other foreigner, allocate them to a place of residence and specific activity if they were to remain on Swiss soil. This obligation did not however extend to those who had already been taken prisoner by one of the nations at war and who had later removed themselves from this captivity by escaping.3 Similarly, there was no obliga­ tion of welcome for another, intermediary, category, those who had evaded the call-up – in other words, defaulters; the status of simple conscript in a contingent was not enough for them to fall into this category. Listed offi­ cially as civilians, they were not eligible to benefit from such an obligation. The consequence was numerous expulsions, justified or otherwise (Leisinger 2006: 28 et seq.). The lack of precise available figures relates of course to the somewhat limited sources – but also to the lack of interest in research into these defectors. Although considerable attention has been paid to research into Polish and French internees (particular the Spahis),4 as well as Anglo-American internees (mostly members of the RAF (Royal Air Force))5 and, in parallel and increasingly, Jewish defectors,6 the Russian defectors functioned as a foil and occupied a curiously ambivalent place; at the time they were seen as a potential threat, but they do not appear at all in collective memory, even retrospectively. This lack of concern explains the absence of significant protests against returning them to the frontier, even though it earned the expellees their share of insults – and in some cases even represented a death sentence. In the case of Soviet prisoners their country of origin, the USSR, acted as their protective power to only a limited extent since, unlike the Anglo-American powers, it did not intervene on behalf of its citizens who were temporarily out of action. According to the official doctrine, combatants of the Red Army were faced with only two possible outcomes: to fight or to die. In either case, there could not be any Soviet prisoners of war.7 The situation was aggravated in the case of Switzerland, since the two states had officially broken off all diplomatic relations since 1918. Overall, military internees of all kinds – as opposed to isolated civilian refugees – were seen as a group of individuals who posed no particular problem; for the most part they formed a structured population with a strong internal organization, on which it was simple to impose regulations and which would probably leave Switzerland at the end of the war.8 The ‘Russians’ – as they were generally and somewhat simplistically known – who arrived on Swiss soil from 1942 were not, properly speaking,

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prisoners of war, since Switzerland was not at war with Russia. They were however considered as ‘enemies in our hands’9 as citizens of an enemy for­ eign power. Switzerland, a capitalist and bourgeois country if ever there was one, had seen itself in a secular political conflict with the USSR ever since the damaging experience of the general strike of 1918.

. . . to their Liberation The liberation of Swiss internees was an integral part of the process in normalization of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and the USSR. Its development was not without setbacks.10 At the time, Switzerland was in the inferior position of suppliant, while the Soviet Union, the domi­ nant power, was in the position of dictating its conditions. On the Swiss side, the military high command saw the prolonged stay of the Russians on Swiss territory as a danger to the nation and constantly demanded their prompt return to their country of origin.11 In the 1980s, the feeling flourished briefly that Switzerland, in its wish to act ahead of Soviet expec­ tations, could have given up the Russian internees in 1945 – including those who did not wish to go – thus exposing them to great danger; either execution or incarceration in the particularly harsh camps of the Gulag.12 According to the most recent studies, it would seem that this was not the case even though, on the Swiss side, these individuals whose very prompt departure was desirable came under strong pressure. Meanwhile, those concerned were required to attest clearly, in writing, that they expressly wished to leave the country of their own free will.13 In this way 233 Azerbaijanis were able to emigrate to Turkey, while 400 men of mostly Baltic origin emigrated to Argentina. In at least two cases Switzerland exchanged two men of Russian origin for Swiss citizens, despite the fact that in their case the prisoners were undoubtedly being handed over to a tragic fate (Stadelmann and Krause 1999: 116). Around a hundred prisoners at most remained in Switzerland (Furrer and Kaiser 1994: 325). According to the specialized literature, in November 1946 there were still ‘Caucasians’ in Switzerland,14 but all trace of them finally vanishes in May 1947 (Stadelmann and Krause 1999: 117).

Detainees Held in Swiss Territory It is the two phases mentioned above that initially aroused historians’ interest – in particular repatriation and its international political implica­ tions – rather than questions relating to captivity in its true sense. Among

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them, the living conditions in the camps, which came to receive attention only slowly, can be distinguished from the relationship sustained with the receiving country and its population, to be examined below. Despite the efforts to discover the identity of individuals placed in this very particular context, the internees represent no more than a very sketchy subject for study, even for researchers.15 In the absence of direct evidence, it is the descriptions by supervisory staff that make it possible to establish a picture of these internees as actors, at least in part.16 Two out of the hundred existing camps, Andelfingen (Zurich) and Le Chaluet (Bern), holding about 150 internees between them,17 offer illuminating glimpses. On the Swiss side, sources mention more particularly the questions relat­ ing to the circumstances, but with virtually no information on relations between the prisoners, or their psycho-affective life.18 Military refugees were generally interned in camps and subject to group labour. Polish soldiers, however, could also be sent to agricultural households on individual placements. Despite warning from the Swiss central authorities themselves, twenty-five Russians in the Canton of Aargau who had escaped German captivity were not interned but allo­ cated to different farms to compensate to some extent for the shortage of agricultural labour. It was even argued that the Russians could be better workers than the Poles; ideology was no longer taken into consideration in any way. If we start from the principle that internment involved a severe dete­ rioration in living conditions, we must distinguish between two typical cases. Although some camps confirm this assumption, others disprove it, to the extent that a surprising freedom of movement was normal. The case of Andelfingen, the best known, is only partially representative of this – only, in fact, in relation to the surprisingly wide choice of leisure activities offered to the internees. The Andelfingen camp, we now con­ sider was open and remained without guards. It was nonetheless sub­ ject to strict observation of a daily routine: military reveille at 5.30 a.m., lights out at 10.00 p.m. Alcohol was forbidden, and cigarettes were sub­ ject to authorization. Boundary limits were also clearly defined. Visits had to be declared and authorization sought; contact with women was entirely forbidden, even outside the camp. These prescriptions entailed sanctions, established in cases of transgression of the rules. Apart from the usual arrangements, this regulation provided for the reduction or suppression of pocket money (apparently internees received an allow­ ance), denial of leave, and arrest and extradition to the country of origin or back to where the detainee had come from (only on arrest by higher authorities). Individual grievances were heard, but collective complaints were expressly forbidden.

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Basic or fundamental aspects of daily life such as food, clothing and accommodation do not seem to have been the subject of protests.19 It was however possible to improve the internees’ meagre daily provisions through supplementary gifts. In their case, and contrary to that of the soldiers interned in Finland, the Soviet Union consented to allow them to receive supplements. On condition that the USSR did not enter into diplomatic relations with Switzerland, they could establish contact with interned Russians through the channels of the British delegation and a Swiss non-governmental organization, the Oeuvre Suisse d’Entraide Ouvrière, in order to give them an allowance (twenty Swiss francs per month), tobacco, clothing, books and writing paper, sometimes even watches (Gehrig-Straube 1997: 311 et seq.). The internees generally accepted the principle of work, which, in con­ formity with the Swiss programme of self-determination, consisted largely of maintenance work (clearing wooded areas to gain arable land for cereal crops).20 Even camp directors praised their enthusiasm for work and their cleanliness (Kägi-Fuchsmann 1968: 183). For the host nation, the standard for judging the amount of work that could reasonably be demanded of them was measured against the living conditions of the local population, and of the soldiers in particular. The most widely accepted attitude was that in no case could foreigners be seen to be living more comfortably than Swiss citizens. In the case of the internees, their point of comparison was established by the conditions of their captivity in Germany, in particular at times of crisis. They did not complain about the work or the wages. On the other hand, they wanted more free time and reacted more sharply to the strict­ ness of constraints on how they spent their free time – if they were per­ ceived as unjustified – than to the vicissitudes of the work itself. During their free time, the internees could enjoy sport (mainly football), listen to the radio (even Radio Moscow), use the library, with two hundred books available,21 and go to the village cafés in the evenings. From time to time there would be a film showing, or an outing to a museum or a zoo in the nearest city – in this case Zurich. Visits to town were, however, always undertaken in small groups and under heavy guard. In principle it was even possible to take language courses, provided they could find someone capable of providing instruction. Contact with the outside world was thus not cut off – apparently even telephone calls were authorized; it was only letters that were subject to the censor. Similarly, the food was not, in gen­ eral, a cause of conflict: there was only one incident in which the interned Russians threw spinach out of the window – in their view it was food for pigs. They felt offended, as soldiers, by having it served up by the Swiss for their own meals (Kägi-Fuchsmann 1968: 181).

158 | Georg Kreis

In these conditions, camp life operated pretty well. Its substantial oper­ ation rested largely on the fact that the internees accepted living condi­ tions in the host country without much opposition. General acceptance of the rule, like the interest in courses in German, diminished somewhat towards the end of the war as they looked forward to being able to return home. The internees increasingly led their lives as if they belonged to a victorious power, as they thought of their return home and were preoc­ cupied with organizing it. Relations between the camp guards and the detainees were, however, not always without friction, as shown by various incidents. Such upsets occurred mainly when internees had the impression that some degree of respect towards them was lacking on essential points, leading to a sense that they were being treated unfairly. Primary conflicts of this kind of reaction then led to secondary disputes; action was generally designed as a symbolic power struggle to determine which of the two sides was in a position to dictate its conditions to the other. To the guards it was obvious that ‘a State, which insists on order and discipline, can in no case tolerate [disobedience on the part of the Russian internees]’.22 Restrictions were only perceived as unfair when they were not similarly applied to other groups of internees – for example, if the Serbs, who were held in the same camp, obtained permission to see a film. Early in 1943 the internees wished to commemorate Lenin’s birthday on 21 January. As the date fell on a Thursday, they were ready to make up the lost hours of work on the Sunday. Their request was turned down on the pretext that in Switzerland only national holidays were recognized and not celebra­ tions relating to individuals. Shortly after, the same situation occurred again: the internees wanted to celebrate the feast day of the Red Army on 23 February 1943 by having a full day off work, inviting the entire popula­ tion of the village and communal authorities to share it with them. They were granted only half a day. In response, strengthened by the good news from Stalingrad, the internees reacted by boycotting a cultural evening that was offered in exchange for the feast day that had not been accorded for Lenin. The camp management felt that it could not tolerate such an attitude and administered penalties: a two-week ban on leave, deprivation of mail for one week, confiscation of the radio set and suspension of the distribution of cigarettes. The internees could always take pride when they gained an indirect success: they were granted the right to celebrate May Day, but not in a public area. This concession could also be explained by the fact that ‘Labour Day’ was also celebrated in Switzerland. Complaints formulated by the internees in an enquiry – which was ultimately set up at the request of the superior authorities – put forward, on one hand, the fact that the

‘Voluntary’ Captivity: Russian Prisoners of War in Switzerland, 1942–1945 | 159

attempts of the camp management to maintain discipline – no talking in the canteen, no using the toilets after 10.00 p.m. – appeared pointless; and, on the other hand, the fact that the potential for passive resistance among the internees was limited. They then complained at being woken in the morning by the whistle: they demanded nothing less than the removal of the camp director. It was, above all, the left-wing press that relayed the grievances about living conditions in the camps.23 The rare sources available on relations with the local population seem to show that in individual encounters the internees were seen above all as individual men rather than the representatives of a political power. Anyone who saw the Russians that he encountered as zealots began to approach them with a predetermined opinion that was increasingly positive. This attitude was intensified as the end of the war approached and respect was growing at the war effort and exploits achieved by the USSR.24 The socialist Regina Kägi-Fuchsmann, who had already expressed her strong support for the Russian internees, reacted virulently to this, posing the very critical observation that it would henceforward be nec­ essary to deal with the engagement between ‘Russian fanatics’ and ‘timorous bourgeois’ (Gehrig-Straube 1997: 248–51). From the spring of 1944 onwards some industrialists were attracted by the image of the reemerging Russian market and mobilized themselves. They were led by the Chairman of Brown-Boveri25 in a fundraising effort for the benefit of the Russian internees (Gehrig-Straube 1997: 255).

Facing the Risk of Political Contamination The authorities wanted to keep internees away from the local popu­ lation as much as possible. This applied not only to the Russians, seen as potentially particularly dangerous, but also the Polish, even though the latter were accepted with fewer precautions. Without prior author­ ization they were not allowed to go into private houses or to frequent inns, bars, cinemas or theatres, or take part in sporting events. There was friction, but the intention was to maintain control by insisting on this prior permission. Local residents, however, had a positive image of the internees; residents and foreigners often managed to collaborate and support each other against the authorities, who were anxious at any cost to prevent any potential romantic attraction between the internees and local women. It was moreover forbidden to authorize such links, with their risk of establishing ‘relations with conjugal aims’.26 The authorities based their approach on the principle that the internees in Andelfingen were sustained by local people in their attitude of resistance because of

160 | Georg Kreis

political sympathies. Interventions in parliament showed that these sup­ positions were not entirely unfounded (Leisinger 2006: 41). In the federal administration, the suspicion was also sustained that what mattered in local people’s occasional collaborations with internees was to take issue with the authorities; they did not necessarily have the interests of intern­ ees at heart. The authorities put an end to these activities by moving a large proportion of the detainees to Raron in Valais, a mountain canton, Catholic and conservative. As the decree sets out explicitly, it lay ‘in an isolated region . . . , because thus, the internees will be kept away from the few Swiss who may be well disposed towards them’.27 The recruitment of teachers also reflected this fear of political agitation: it was supposed that anyone who spoke Russian was susceptible to Russian sympathies. The Federal councillor Giuseppe Motta had already expressed the fear in the 1930s that a Soviet presence at Geneva would turn into a ‘base for subversive propaganda’ in Switzerland (Dreyer 1989: 132 et seq.). The fear of contamination by the Bolshevik infection affected relationships with other groups of defectors. Contrary to the widely held stereotype of Russia as existing in a state of permanent violent drunkenness, the internees were seen by the locals as well behaved and agreeable. However hostile the behaviour of the Swiss authorities the same treatment can be seen in the containment of Polish internees, for example, or with the Russian internees of the First World War. In the latter case, the year 1917 marked a very clear turning point towards an attitude of rejection.28

Notes 1. On the general context, see Georg Kreis (2011). 2. The essential archival collections are in the Flüchtlingsakten 1930–1950, thema­ tische Übersicht zu Beständen im Schweizerischen Bundesarchiv (BAR), Bern, in the Collection ‘Inventare’, vol. 1, Bern 1999. Also in E 2200, 157–02, Schweizerische Vertretung, Moskau: Zentrale Ablage, 1946–1957; 1970/256, 4.B., Russische Internierte in der Schweiz, 1947–1954, vol. 11; and E27, Landesverteidigung 1848–1950, O6.H4.g.1.c.7, 14467 and 14515–14527. 3. On ‘Escaped prisoners of war’, see Jörg Stadelmann (1998: 125 et seq.). 4. Reference to cavalry units in the French Army of Africa: Stadelmann and Krause (1999). 5. Interest in these internees developed only in 1998, in line with the more general polem­ ics on the attitude of Switzerland during the Second World War. 6. See Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz (2001), a report devoted more par­ ticularly to the Jewish defectors but which has a general frame of reference on certain points.

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7. Order no. 270 of 16 August 1941, see Leisinger (2006: 10 et seq.). Because of this principle, the USSR made no move to help Soviet soldiers held prisoner in Finland. 8. On the occasion of accepting Franco-Polish internees, on 20 July 1940 the authorities cre­ ated the Eidgenössisches Kriegskommissariat für Internierung und Hospitalisierung (or EJPD) (Confederal Commission for Internment and Hospitalization). 9. The title comes from Robert C. Doyle, The Enemy in Our Hands: America’s Treatment of Enemy Prisoners of War from the Revolution to the War on Terror (2010). 10. The re-establishment of diplomatic relations on 18 March 1946 is a theme widely and frequently dealt with in the literature. See, for example, Edgar Bonjour (1970: 373–425); Hans Beat Kunz (1981); Dietrich Dreyer (1989); or Christine Gehrig-Straube (1997). 11. See Bonjour (1970: 68). On the repatriation of the Russians see also Stadelmann and Krause (1999: 109 et seq.). 12. 320 of the 380 ‘Caucasians’ and Balts, who could expect nothing good from their return to their own country, remained in Switzerland. ‘Caucasian’ should be understood to include people whose origins lay in the Crimea, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. In Switzerland there were 340 Cossacks from Vlasov who had fought the Soviet Union on the side of the Germans (Leisinger 2006: 79, 82). This group was in fact designated as ‘unworthy of the demand for asylum’ because they had contravened the ‘rules of the customs of war’ (BAR E 27, 14513 and 14518). The subject of the interned Russians, in particular that of their awkward repatriation, re-emerged briefly in the autumn of 1982, perhaps because of the Russian soldiers who had been captured in Afghanistan at that time and who had been brought to Switzerland between May and August of the same year. See Tonja Furrer and Nina Kaiser (1994: 309–344); ‘Mémoire de séminaire’ by Baptiste Planche dir. G. Kreis, 2003, and, occasionally formulated in a brutal style, ‘Les Russes comme monnaie d’échange’, a single page contribution by Jürg Schoch in the Tages-Anzeiger of 30 May 2007. 13. See Leisinger (2006: 86 et seq.), which illustrates the case of Maria Klimova. 14. BAR, E 2200, Moskau 1970/256, vol. 11. 15. See Maria Pfister-Ammende, ‘Psychologische Erfahrungen mit sowjet-russischen Flüchtlingen in der Schweiz’ (1949). It has not been possible to consult this work. 16. The evidence of Daniel Markielov (spokesman for the detainees) that he gave back in Cairo in 1945 is considered ‘authentic’. Leisinger places Markielov’s report convinc­ ingly among the biased reports because of Markielov’s wish to respond to the expecta­ tions of the authorities in his own country (Leisinger 2006: 74 et seq.). 17. There were also individual placements in farming households. 18. Without going into detail, we can indicate that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had theoretically been charged with supervising the conditions of detention, but it was not recognized by the Soviet Union. 19. An invoice could potentially be addressed to the country of origin for the cost of provi­ sions once the captivity had ended. 20. In other camps, there were complaints that the internees would be subject to the pres­ sure of ringleaders and that in cases of conflict they were quick to treat the Swiss as ‘capitalists’ and ‘fascists’. 21. Dreyer (1989: 192) remarks that expression of the wish for a somewhat more uplift­ ing leisure activity would have fundamentally challenged the general prejudice in Switzerland that the communist soldier-peasants were uncultivated. 22. Note by Jetzler on 7 October 1943, cited in Gehrig-Straube (1997: 244). 23. For example the Berner Tagwacht of 7 January 1944, ‘Das is ein Skandal’.

162 | Georg Kreis

24. On the subject of Russia’s war exploits seen as a both extraordinary and mysterious performance, see Gehrig-Straube (1997: 265 et seq.). 25. Today’s ABB, world leader in energy and automatization technologies. 26. BAR: E27, 14467, order by Organger, 1 November 1941. Subsequently the exchange of trade goods was banned, then civilian clothing, which was no longer made available because of the risks of escape. The internees could no longer have scooters, for the same reasons. 27. Memorandum of 20 August 1943, cited in Gehrig-Straube (1997: 243). 28. From the same ‘school’ as Leisinger, Thomas Bürgisser (2010: 77). Between 1915 and1920, there were, overall, nearly 3,000 Russian soldiers who were still on Swiss soil. In a report drawn up in October 1919 by the Federal Court, they were classified, according to a recent re-evaluation, as being among the ‘most dangerous foreigners’.

Georg Kreis was Professor of History at the University of Basel (1985–2009) and Director of the Institut d’études interdisciplinaires de l’intégration européenne (1993–2011). He was a member of the independent commission (1996–2001) charged with studying the attitude of Switzerland during the Second World War. His 1972 thesis focused on the Swiss press censorship during the Second World War. It was followed by a project on the clandestine cooperation between the French and Swiss military forces (‘Auf den spuren von “La Charité”. Die schweizerische Armeeführung im Spannungsfeld des deutsch-französichen Gegensatzes’, 1976). His habili­ tation thesis directed by Jean-Baptiste Duroselle looked at foreign policy in the Third Republic before 1914; this was reworked and published as Frankreichs republikanische Grossmachpolitik, 1870–1914. Innenansicht einer Aussenpolitik (Philipp von Zabern Verlag, 2007). Apart from considering the interdependence between internal and external policies, his researches dealt with the problematics of migration, identity and memory.

CHAPTER 13

‘Rodolph – How Nice He Is!’

Contact between German Prisoners of War and French Civilians, 1944–1948

( Fabien Théofilakis

Once Upon a Time there was Rodolph On 29 August 1946, an article appeared in Le Dauphiné Libéré, the ‘major news daily for the Alps and the Rhone Valley’, with the ironic title Il est si gentil Rodolph! (‘Rodolph – How Nice He Is!’). It reported that a German prisoner of war (POW), Rodolph Hermann, was employed by Monsieur Coutant in his workshop in Chambéry and was . . .  . . . the object of touching attention from his boss and the boss’s family. Hasn’t a splendid civilian suit been bought for him? Hasn’t he been offered a pair of tinted glasses to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun? Hasn’t he been given a dictionary to help him perfect his French?

The article added some details: ‘[T]his spoiled child is, of course invited to the family table and on Sunday, accompanied by his good bosses, he spends the day at the lake’ at Bourget. But the paper then charged that a crime was committed on 26 August when ‘the prisoner, dressed in his handsome suit, delivered himself to the arms of Mme. Coutant – to the pleasures of the dance – at the Amiral, the most elegant nightclub in Aixles-Bains’. For this journal of the Resistance, the elements of the drama were very clear: a German prisoner treated like a civilian, a public ball, employers who had forgotten that they were French. Rather than looking at the full range of contacts between the French populace and German POWs, we reflect here on the impact of two fea­ tures of the former German soldiers’ internment on immediate post-war France and the renewal of Franco-German relations after 1945. First of all,

164 | Fabien Théofilakis

and most saliently, we should consider the impact of the sheer numbers involved here, since this was a mass internment. With more than 700,000 detainees – double the Great War figure – this was the first French experi­ ence of a large-scale encounter with Germans outside active warfare. The prisoners began to arrive in the French internment camps at the end of 1944; the last of them were repatriated on 31 December 1948.1 Second, in contrast to the nearly two million French citizens held in the Third Reich, this peacetime imprisonment of former soldiers took place within the framework of a democratic regime, the restored French republic: a politi­ cal configuration creating a cultural and practical challenge ever more difficult for the new republican authorities to cope with, namely how to counter the ‘softening’ dynamic of cultural demobilization. Taken together, these factors had a direct impact on the nature of rela­ tionships between the French populace and the prisoners. On the one hand, the impact of the numbers affected by the dynamics of demobi­ lization forced the public authorities to develop a substantial corpus of regulations to establish norms for relations between the two groups. In defining acceptable behaviour vis-à-vis the former enemy, these regu­ lations also define a ‘good Frenchman’: it is precisely this inferred line between individual behaviour and national community that forms the focus of this discussion. On the other hand, the prisoners arrived in vil­ lages as an indispensable workforce for the task of reconstruction, increas­ ing personal contact between the former enemies to the extent that, at a local level, the separation between public and private spheres was often eliminated. Genuinely all-seeing disciplinary control became impossible, despite it being a fundamental condition imposed by the public authori­ ties in allowing prisoners to operate outside the camps. Daily proxim­ ity tended to transform every contact into an example and, soon, into an infraction of the regulations. This development makes a study of rela­ tions with the defeated ex-enemy a powerful indicator not only of the tensions experienced by French society in leaving the war behind but also of discordant experiences already familiar in the war and occupation – a factor that endowed the German prisoner with an entirely different role in the drama of captivity that was played out in the Coutant household and throughout France. Relationships between the local populace and prisoners were trans­ formed outside the pattern of disciplinary regulation introduced by the authorities. The outcome shows how the treatment of prisoners became an issue of public order disturbance, defined as a ‘crime of lèse-République’ (Simonin 2008: 20).

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A Certain Vision of the Enemy, A Certain Idea of France: The Disciplinary Effort on a National Scale Starting in late 1944, the arrival of German prisoners in French depart­ ments across the country became a feature of the experience of victory. This new German presence was initially a visual, almost physical, phe­ nomenon of a close relationship between victor and vanquished. A broad tendency emerges in this context, characterizing the population’s state of mind: a prevailing hostility on one hand, established in an anti-German context that was part of the experience of the war; and on the other hand, popular expectations regarding the practical use of a captive workforce for reconstruction. A brief look at French regions illustrates these perceptions and attitudes between 1944 and late 1945. The arrival of prisoner trains at stations in Gironde provoked incidents in which the captives were insulted, hit, and even stripped;2 in Savoy, ‘the hatred of the Germans . . . so deeply embedded in the heart of the Savoyards, who suffered particularly severely from the occupation’,3 was the source of ‘acts of resentment’, in the words of the regional prefect. In the autumn of 1945, this hatred took the form of anonymous attacks with explosive devices against prisoners sent out in squads to work in the country or in factories;4 at Vuillemin military hospital in Paris, ‘the use of uniformed German doctors’ to bring in recruits was denounced in a letter to de Gaulle from France’s National Committee of Pharmacists ‘so that the insult extended to our young comrades in being examined and judged by a German will not be repeated’.5 In a letter to the president of the International Red Cross (ICRC), customs inspector Louis Gueno requested:  . . . in the name of my comrades who were fellow prisoners, in the name of the concentration camp martyrs, in the name of all those resting in a land of exile, not to shed tears for their torturers. . . . [I]f morality calls for the reintegration of human beings, their crimes must nevertheless not go unpunished.6

These denunciations were accompanied by marked disapproval of how ‘the boche’ prisoners were being treated – they were seen as better fed, clothed and housed than the French. In June 1945 in Eure-et-Loir, the criticisms were focused on ‘isolated labour’, which could ‘succeed on the express condition . . . that the German prisoner does not mix with the French, that he does not eat with the agricultural workers . . . .’7 In BasRhin, protests to the prefect piled up concerning prisoners who walked around freely ‘without any distinctive sign of their prisoner of war status’.8 In the face of such complaints and denunciations, the main socially authorized route for contact was in putting the prisoners to work. In

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Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhône) in October 1944: ‘the population is very satisfied to see that German prisoners are being employed in a range of work, notably the removal of mines from the Old Port’. It ‘hopes that in the future, this workforce will be extensively employed in restoring damaged cities and railway lines’;9 in France’s northern mining area, the ‘principle of employing German POWs to help in France’s reconstruction and to speed up the economic recovery of our country is accepted by the population as a whole’.10 This acceptance of German Prisoners involves seeing the rela­ tionship as being for the benefit of many, justifying civility in the world of work. Nevertheless, we also see from the beginning how direct contact with prisoners nourished a process of fragmentation, individualizing the French population’s relations and attitudes towards the prisoners. This might depend on varying war experiences and the nature of individual relationships with the defeated party; and also on the degree of individual awareness of a gap in relation to the national community, perceived as a shared community of emotions or representations. This is expressed in a third concept of relationships between the two populations. In HauteVienne, the domestic intelligence service reported in the autumn on reac­ tions that were making themselves heard in the different departments of France: The weak physical state of the POWs is provoking much criticism. People cannot understand that under the pretext of base vengeance, the Germans can be subjected to the same treatment, particularly in terms of inadequate food, that they inflicted on the French. It is felt that it is in the national interest to ensure that these prisoners are fed sufficiently well to be capable of undertak­ ing the different sorts of work imposed on them.11

Many people complained that: the treatment being inflicted on these Germans is not worthy of France. . . . that she has no claim to fight against Germany in the name of the eternal principles of Latin civilization if this entails inflicting the same treatment on German prisoners that the French endured in Germany.12

These dissonant voices appealed not only to humanitarian motives; under the cover of a certain idea of France they also declared their position and in secret proposed another link between the individual and the collective – expressed in new patterns of behaviour, as suggested by one woman who wished ‘that many French voices would speak up against this forced labour, this moral and physical degradation that every nation on earth impose on those they have defeated’. She wished, further:

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 . . . that many former French prisoners would think of the present captives without hatred and offer help instead of humiliation . . . [But] . . . this is all an illusion. People have “good” thoughts but don’t act. They don’t dare.13

Doubtless that was the reason she was careful to sign herself only as a ‘French nurse’. To set limits on these local reactions, in late 1944 and early 1945 the public authorities – aware of the need to put the defeated former sol­ diers to work but also sharing a certain anti-Germanism – established a regulatory framework designed to avoid two extremes: the dangers of inadequate supervision and the need to ward off any hint of ‘exces­ sive fraternization’. For these reasons they opted to increase penalties for behaviour seen as deviant: deeming that the presence of a prisoner in ‘any place of public access’ (cafés, cinemas, dance halls, etc.) constituted a ‘disturbance of order’.14 They stipulated that offenders could be punished by having their establishments closed down; employers guilty of negli­ gence could be deprived of their prisoner workforce and, in the event of an escape, could be fined 1,500 francs. By official decree, maximum separa­ tion was to be ensured though ubiquitous markings: the prisoners must be accommodated in a place that was secure and permanently guarded, to which they returned directly after their working day, and which they must not leave on Sundays or holidays; they must always wear their uniforms, with the initials ‘PG’ for prisonnier de guerre (war prisoner); they must be accompanied at all times, under penalty of being considered escapees; their correspondence must automatically be centralized in town halls and in the holding centres; and so on. At the other extreme, the public authorities were anxious to avoid exces­ sive forms of discipline, which would damage the German workforce, hamper reconstruction and harm the French image abroad. Instructions from the central management for war prisoners therefore prescribed a ‘firm discipline without harassment or brutality’.15 The aims were to ‘pre­ vent escapes’ on one hand and ‘protect war prisoners working outside the holding centres from any violence’ on the other. The purpose here was on persuading public opinion that the Germans were no more than ‘soldiers working for the recovery of France’ and must be treated as such.16 This disciplinary logic, applied in the prison camps, was thus aimed at encour­ aging civil society’s respect for the public authorities. Based on ‘constant surveillance’,17 it was clearly designed to institute omnipotent and omni­ present physical control of the prisoner within French society. These observations can be summarized thus far: the growing interven­ tion of France’s post-war public administration in the lives of German

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prisoners was part of a broader process – the assertion of the republi­ can authorities’ sovereign prerogatives. In defining a unitary framework, the state proposed a form of reconciliation between moral and economic interests, between individual experiences of war and the reconstruction process, private lives and collective destiny. The legal normalization of relations between French civilians and German prisoners not only defined a certain image of the Germans but also aimed to convince the public of a certain idea of French unity and uniqueness. With this in mind, it is easier to understand the identity of those involved in the process: central actors, of course, included ministers and commissioners of the Republic, followed by the prefects, mayors, and, exceptionally, the gendarmerie.18 However, auxiliaries such as labour unions in the economic domain and, in the politico-moral domain (including the ICRC), associations of former POWs, resistance fighters and deported persons were also more or less tolerated in this first phase, which ran until 1946.

The Calming Local Effect of Demobilization through Labour While the central authorities were managing the captive workforce through a system of camps and large labour units their aim could still be accomplished. By late 1945, a shift in the economy of this workforce made this illusory: facing a surge in the number of German prisoners, the authorities sought to maintain their function as a useful workforce by all possible means – even if this meant adapting disciplinary norms to employers’ needs. Notably, permission was now given for prisoners to work for private individuals, above all in rural areas. The growth in num­ bers shows clearly the emergence of a new regime of captivity, henceforth determined by the civilian milieu: more than three quarters of the 550,000 prisoners were employed in the reconstruction of France between 1945 and 1948.19 It was in this context that Monsieur Coutant, a saddler by trade, took the agreeable Rodolph into his employment in June 1946. These structural changes had a direct impact on the pattern of con­ tact between civilians and German prisoners. In the first place this was because, as shown in the map of labour contracts signed in Savoie, the prisoner was no longer solely a symbol of the Liberation but instead became a participant in the national reconstruction. This economic intru­ sion at the local level de facto inserted German prisoners into the heart of the production process. For their employers, once the captives became an everyday presence they tended to lose their singularity; the relationships that developed between them lay outside the framework of the aftermath

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of war. Normalization could develop all the more rapidly when the pro­ cess was eased by the limitations of a central administration unable to ensure that their regulations were respected on site. Widespread shortages of both food and clothing pushed employers to turn away from the mili­ tary authorities, guarantors of disciplinary logic, in order to seek out sup­ plies from civilian sources. In turn, this change further favoured efforts to increase the cost-effectiveness of a labour force that was more oner­ ous than anticipated, and thereby reinforced the integrational dynamic.20 This normalization of relations between French civilians and German war prisoners then benefited from the paradox of this large-scale captiv­ ity in peacetime: dispersal outside the camps took place at the same time as demobilization was removing the means of control from the military authorities. Standardized regulation now became impossible at the level of the French departments, and supervision of the prisoners passed to their employers. In practical terms, this development changed the prisoners’ daily lives and expanded their potential contacts within the setting in which they were employed. Two examples point to the change in logic of prisoner management. The use of clothing designed to identify the enemy clearly in public spaces broke down in the face of both the growing limitations of military stewardship and the employers’ search for cost effectiveness. Les prisonniers de guerre en Savoie (1945-1948)

1946

1945

286 contracts (3 of which are outside of the department)

1,843 contracts (13 of which are outside of the department)

Number of contracts

96 24 10 3 1

1947 588 contrats (39 of which are outside of the department)

1948 117 contracts

Sources : AD - Savoie (Chambéry), 1367 W 1 Cartographie (avec Philcarto) : J.Robert et F.Théofilakis Université Paris Ouest 2012

Figure 13.1 German prisoners of war in Savoie (1945–1948) Source: Archives départementales de Savoie (Chambéry) 1367W1. Cartography (with Philcarto): J. Robert and F. Théofilakis, Université Paris Ouest 2012.

170 | Fabien Théofilakis

Records from the gendarmeries show how prisoners endured a regular revision of their clothing, so that they ended up wearing unlikely gar­ ments, located somewhere between war and peace, economic efficiency and everyday familiarity: German but more often American boots moving along next to barefooted captives and others wearing lace-ups, clogs, espa­ drilles – all civilian footwear. While in 1947 increasingly threadbare mili­ tary outfits were still being worn by most prisoners, ever more incomplete uniforms were visible, such as a prisoner wearing a green jacket with ‘PG’ on its back, a pullover of dark red wool, a khaki shirt, dark blue baggy sport pants and German boots. On the other hand, if so many billets had keyholes without keys, win­ dows closing from the inside21 and guards who did not work on Sundays or holidays, the situation was not the result of political complicity, as the authorities suspected. It stemmed, rather, from the excessive expense of the shift from disciplinary order to civilian life. We thus find the mayor of Thann (Haut-Rhin) pleading to the relevant military official that ‘it is clear that the farmer who is generally alone on his farm cannot always be at his prisoners’ heels’, a requirement that would render their employ­ ment impossible.22 Meals eaten round the same table, the supply of civil­ ian clothes, returning to the local camps unaccompanied – all these were micro-adaptations imposed on disciplinary logic as part of the costeffective use of the captives. Nonetheless, these adaptations respected the official watchword: maximization of profit, minimization of costs. Having become inoperable, yet still lingering on, this disciplinary logic exposed the gaps used by private operators to make full use of their cap­ tive workforce in their own manner. Productivity thus lay behind the new relations between the two groups, in line with a double purpose: intensive exploitation and equally intensive integration. Left to their own devices, some employers no longer applied physical violence (as in the Liberation of 1944–1945) but a forceful economic harshness, as reported by one pris­ oner in 1948, in an attempt to correct an excessively benign picture of cor­ dial relations between the German workforce and French employers. On the first evening of his employment,  . . . entering the kitchen after finishing work, I wished to place myself near the fire, my clothes being wet, but I was ordered . . . to wait outside – in the stable, or the grain store which was used as a dormitory, until I was called. Apart from meal-times I was not allowed to enter the kitchen. I also had to withdraw before coffee was served. It’s entirely understandable that a prisoner doesn’t receive the same things as others. I confess to my shame that while working for a large-scale farmer I’ve already had occasion to eat my fill in a pig trough containing potatoes and cabbage with barley. That’s how far a man can sink. But is he still a man? Or a beast of burden or a machine?23

Contact between German Prisoners of War and French Civilians, 1944–1948 | 171

Heinz B., interviewed by the present author in 2003, was one former German prisoner who experienced the process of intensive integration. Captured after three-and-a-half years in the Wehrmacht, in June 1945 he was sent to Belfort POW camp and remained there for seven months. In 1946, when he was placed with a farmer, his experience of captivity changed radically. The encounter was not entirely without tension: he was discovered to have lied about having agricultural experience. While Heinz B. was very well fed, he initially ate apart from the family. But the proximity involved in working together in the fields encouraged a rap­ prochement: soon he was eating at the same table as those for whom he was forced to work and engaging in discussions with them ‘as if they were normal people, without any consideration of whether they were friends or enemies’. In the end he considered his captivity on the farm to be a form of liberation. In fact, wearing civilian clothes, he enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom; above all he had found a Gemeinschaft, a community, that he had lacked so intensely since being taken prisoner. This was his experience, for instance, during the shared event of liquor distillation: Yes, that was a real community, ah, there wasn’t any . . . I had the right to partic­ ipate, POWs weren’t even authorized to participate like that but I did precisely that, I was part of the group and I was accepted, I must say . . .24

Must we conclude that with distance from the war, German prisoners became less controversial or significant, now serving mainly as an addi­ tional workforce to be employed like any other? The contrary was in fact the case; gendarmerie records show that the cases involving social rela­ tions between the POW and his civilian environment25 only began to be processed in 1946, not 1945. At this point, we can consider possible reasons for this situation.

The Prisoner of War as a Problem of Public Order A West German journalist’s observation in an article published in March 1949 offers a partial response. How was it, he enquired, that the French no longer hated the Germans so soon after the conflict, despite the unprec­ edented levels of violence in the Nazi war? The paradox grew even greater in comparison with the situation following the Great War – marked, the article indicated, by an intense hatred of Germany even though 70 per cent of the French had not seen a German soldier and neither the Gestapo nor the extermination camps had existed.26 The reciprocal pattern of cap­ tivity – first Frenchmen in Germany, then Germans in France, no doubt contributed to this difference in understanding.

172 | Fabien Théofilakis

Yet extant sources point to another reason, located on the internal Franco-French level: if the German prisoners constituted a threat to public order after 1945 it was because they were first and foremost seen as a threat of a political nature, reviving the stakes in the recent French ‘civil war’ that the post-war process of political purging had not been able to overcome.27 As a result of the defeat, the Vichy regime and its so-called National Revolution, the French did not share a unified culture of war at the national level and for this reason hatred was now focused above all on an entirely internal enemy rather than on an external target. In the absence of a union sacrée during the war, post-war French society was confronted with the painful question of defining who was a good French citizen. The question was all the more pressing because the days following victory were far from admirable. Three topoi enable us to understand more clearly the place reserved for German prisoners in the process of emerging from the war. Denunciation of the presence of prisoners in public – that is, non-productive – places was very often accompanied by a defence of the spirit of the Resistance. Regarding the matter of charming Rodolph, the article in the Dauphiné concluded that: We clearly have nothing with which to reproach him. He would have been wrong to reject the kindness of the Coutant family; but from Monsieur the Prefect – and all those who suffered from the occupation will agree with us – we demand that severe sanctions be imposed on this family.

In his letters to the prefect, the local secretary of the Association de Prisonniers de Guerre in the department of Savoie, the Fédération National des Prisonniers de Guerre and the Mouvement National des Prisonniers de Guerre et Déportés was expressing his anger in the face of:  . . . the most disgusting scandal which has never been seen except during the occupation . . . We are sickened that certain French consciences have demeaned themselves since our return from captivity. Alas, many French people have still not understood and that’s what is so bad for our country.28

Attitudes of this kind were expressed in the public sphere of former resist­ ance members, deportees and French POWs. It burgeoned at the very moment when the setback in their transformation into a political force became clear. The German prisoner became an essential feature of their discourse, showing the reality of their own social utility and recalling the debt of recognition that should be their due from the new post-war France (see Théofilakis 2010a: 207–32).

Contact between German Prisoners of War and French Civilians, 1944–1948 | 173

The press, particularly in the regions, focused on the same rifts in the national community, insisting almost obsessively on the theme of escape, which was a genuine scourge for the authorities: if so many prisoners were escaping, this, so the argument went, was because of escape net­ works organized by an ‘anti-France’ that continued to collaborate with the enemy. In September 1946, the front page of the newspaper La Marseillaise29 denounced a ‘new scandal’ – the discovery of an escape network. The newspaper linked this to the arrest of ‘two bad French citizens’. But, remarked the paper, Their scandalous acts, their anti-French feelings, suggest that they are . . . enforcement agents working for a fascist organization. All possible light must be shed on this affair, which illustrates well the history of the purging in Marseilles and in France – a purge whose astonishing weakness is evident every day. Miliciens, members of the French Popular Party, and other collabora­ tors are still free.

The gendarmes were urged to ‘pursue their work of purification’. The archives fail to demonstrate the existence of such networks, but they do confirm the extent to which German prisoners had become a third figure for denouncing the unfinished purge, rampant collaboration and the com­ munity that was nowhere to be seen. Finally, in the economic domain, the figure of the prisoner was evoked by the unions in order to denounce social inequalities. Alerted by the General Confederation of Agriculture, the mayor of Cambes called on the prefect of the Gironde to remove ‘three boches’ from a ‘dirty Frenchwoman’, men who were being employed while repatriated French former POWs were unemployed.30 At the local level, allocation of the captive workforce emerged as a political stake in the reconstruction process, linking local rivalries with national production. In this manner, the contact between prisoners and French society reveals three phenomena at work in France’s second exit from war. The use of German prisoners for their economic contribution had the effect of depoliticizing them. In other words, it was the absence of any political discourse, in particular of a Franco-German rapprochement, that allowed their broader integration at the heart of the French reconstruction pro­ ject; but in legitimizing new actors, this process fed a growing failure of synchronization in cultural representations relating to Germany and fostered a fratricidal hatred that was centred on the French rather than the German element. The figure of the German did not disappear from this configuration but the Franco-German confrontation yielded to a Franco-

174 | Fabien Théofilakis

French pattern: henceforth, the prisoners played the role of a third party, providing an opportunity to expose and denounce. This configuration and role pose the eminently political question of the heritage of the war and the effects of the purge, the congruence between individual lives and collective destiny – in fact, of the possibility of establishing a national community once more.

Notes 1. Officially, barely a thousand prisoners remained, convicted under common law. 2. Departmental archives are referenced as AD, archives départementales. AD, Gironde, Bordeaux, SC 1628, document E6654 of the Commissariat régional de la République to the prefect concerning a ‘procession of POWs’, 26 June 1945. 3. AD, Savoie, Chambéry, 1382 W 23, document 3245 of the commissariat de police d’Albertville to the general secrétaire de police de Lyons, on the ‘state of mind of the population’, 14 Oct. 1945. 4. AD, Savoy, 1362 W 10, collection of administrative rules (no. 27) of the Préfecture de Savoie concerning ‘Acts of resentment and kindness regarding Axis war prisoners’, 1 Jan. POW. 5. Archives nationales de France (AN), Paris, 3 AG 4/36, letter from Comité national des pharmaciens, the Mouvement professional de la Résistance et de la renaissance phar­ maceutique to General de Gaulle, 4 April 1945. 6. Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (AICRC), Geneva, G17/51, G17/Fr.XII, 120, letter from Louis Gueno, customs inspector, Paris, to the president, 17 Oct. 1945. 7. AD, Eure-et-Loir, Chartres, 1 W 132, report of the Special Commissioner to the Director of the Intelligence Services on the ‘economic and social and political situation of the department , 18 June 1945. 8. AD, Bas-Rhin, Strasbourg, 1458 W 146, letter of the Comité de défense contre le Nazisme, Benfeld group, to the sub-prefect of Erstein, 8 Aug. 1945. 9. AD, Bouches-du-Rhône, 149 W 128, document of the Commissariat régional: Emploi de prisonniers allemands à divers travaux (the employment of German prisoners in various types of work) 1 Sept. 1944. 10. AD, Nord, Lille, 27 W 38361 (1), document 2623 of the Commissariat de la République: Emploi de PGA dans les mines (employment of German POWs in the mines), 26 June 1945. 11. AD, Haute-Vienne, Limoges, 986 W 175, report 3853 of the Intelligence Services on the period from 1–15 Oct. 1945, 17 Oct. 1945. 12. AD, Haute-Vienne, 986 W 532, note 3 778 of the Intelligence Services of the treatment of POWs, 12 Oct. 1945. 13. AICRC, Geneva, G17/51, G17/Fr.XII, 120, letter from ‘a French nurse’ to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 12 Oct. 1945. 14. SHD (Archives of the Service historique de la Défense, Department of the History of Defence, Armée de terre, Vincennes, 29 R 9, report on the liaison of Captain Bernard with the Minister of the Interior, State Security, regarding ‘action of the civilian author­ ities to suppress war prisoners’ access into places of public access’. (Re. Article 471, paragraph 17 or in application of the ‘law of 328 August 1943’.)

Contact between German Prisoners of War and French Civilians, 1944–1948 | 175

15. SHD, Armée de terre, 7P39, directive no. 2 of the Direction générale des prisonniers de guerre (DGPG), General Office of War Prisoners, 12 Feb. 1946. 16. Archives of the Ministère du Travail (MT), Ministry of Labour, Fontainebleau, 19770623/87, directive no. 3 from the DGPG, 31 Jan. 1947. 17. DDH, report on the liaison of Captain Bernard with the Minister of the Interior, State Security. 18. MT, 19770623/86, note 29031 DGPG/5 of the DGPG to the Ministry of Labour regarding discipline in war prisoners’ circulation, 13 May 1947. 19. The prisoners represented 2.3 per cent of the active population, with nearly half of them employed in the agricultural sector. See Horst Wagenblass in Kurt Böhme, Die Kriegsgefangenen in französischer Hand, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweitn Weltkrieges, vol. XIII (1971: 234–47). 20. A new logic of security developed, based on an overall balance in realistic terms, as soon as the prisoner had become a fully and officially identifiable part of the situation. See Foucault (2004: 49). 21. SHD, Département de la Gendarmerie nationale, Vincennes, 33 E 2413, record 191, 21 April 1946, Saint-Laurent. 22. AD, Haut-Rhin, Colmar, 1480 W 4 (85730), letter from the mayor of Thann to Captain Billot regarding Thann auxiliary camp, 13 March 1948. 23. MT, 19770623/86, letter from MG Karl Schmidt to the editors of the Journal des Allemands en France, 20 June 1948. 24. Interview with the author, Berlin 2003. 25. The cases concerned illegal relations, theft, assault, frequenting public places, clandes­ tine correspondence, accommodation in private houses, etc. 26. ‘Frankreich hasst die Deutschen nicht. Woher rührt die Wandlung?’ (‘France does not hate the Germans. What is the source of this change?), Allgemeine Zeitung und Wirtschaftsblatt, 25 March 1949, p. 2. 27. On the concept of a Franco-French civil war, see Azéma, Rioux and Rousso (1985: 3–6); Wievorka (2005: 5–19); and Rousso (1990) 28. AD, Savoie, 1362 W 10, letter from the departmental secretary A. Richard to the prefect, 29 Aug. 1946. 29. ‘L’évasion massive des prisonniers allemands est favorisée par une organization occulte’ (‘The Massive Evasion of German Prisoners is Facilitated by a Secret Organization’), Organe du Front National de lutte pour la libération de la France. Région provençale, 11 Sept. 1946, p. 1. 30. AD Gironde, 87 W 3, letter from the mayor of Cambes to the prefect, 14 February 1946.

Fabien Théofilakis is currently DAD visiting Professor (DAAD for the German academic exchange service) at the University of Montreal (Canadian Center for German and European Studies). In 2010 he presented a thesis on the German prisoners of war in French hands and their repa­ triation to Germany (1944–1949), undertaken jointly at the universities of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense and of Augsburg; rewarded in particular by prizes from the Université franco-allemande and the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris, it was published by éditions Fayard in 2014. He has published several articles on the subject and co-directed the proceedings

176 | Fabien Théofilakis

of a Franco-German conference on the camp at Dachau (2005). He worked on the exhibition ‘The Eichmann case, Jerusalem, 1961’, organized at the memorial to the Shoah (Paris 2001) and has continued since then with research on the notes taken by the Nazi criminal during his prosecution.

CHAPTER 14

The Other Point of View . . . The Sociologist The Boundaries between Friends and Foes

( Stéphane Dufoix

War captivity is not a common topic in the realm of social science in general, nor in the realm of French social science in particular. Even war per se is not a common object of study within social science. Sociology and anthropology have not paid very much attention to it, leaving it to either political science or contemporary history. Of course some references can be found en passant in the writings of ‘big figures’ in sociology or anthro­ pology but they are scarce and usually quite far from the heart of their conceptual enterprise.1 The only exceptions might well be Georg Simmel for whom conflict was a specific form of socialization,2 and Norbert Elias, whose notion of formation made it possible to address all forms of contest (Elias 1978, 1987). Somewhat paradoxically, the study of the social being, most of the time circumscribed within their national framework, is a hin­ drance in taking the war phenomenon and its consequences into account. As a result, the sociology or the anthropology of imprisonment is more often than not reduced to a mere sociology or anthropology of prison (Combessie 2009) – that is, to imprisonment in peacetime or at least in a context where war is not visible or conceivable.3 It is only recently that French social science, and more specifically political science, searched for inspiration in Giorgio Agamben’s reformulation of Michel Foucault’s bio­ politics and thus included the apparatus of the ‘camp’ within the various techniques of control and discipline.4 In its archetypal form, which is that of the extermination camp, the camp now appears to be the very symbol of a crucial and very recent evolution in the management of populations: an evolution in which, as Agamben put it, the state of exception becomes the

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rule (Agamben 2002: 47–56).5 Camps and their inmates may therefore be constructed as objects of investigation in order to revisit both the present and the past, and to examine the elements of commonality that might exist between the first concentration camps in the late nineteenth century or during the First World War, the internment camps of the interwar period, the extermination camps of the Second World War and the contemporary detention camps for illegal migrants.6 Once again, there is a great paradox: the ‘inmates’ in these camps are refugees, foreigners, illegal or undocu­ mented migrants, only rarely are they prisoners of war. However, the three case studies presented in the earlier chapters clearly allow us to make a connection between the issue of war captivity and con­ temporary interrogations about the camp as a social and spatial form for relegation and exclusion. This is particularly true as far as the lability of the boundary is concerned or, to be more precise, the lability of two bound­ aries: the political and social one between the national and the foreigner; and the spatial one between the inside and the outside. Considered in this way, war captivity may then be understood differently if we rely on two specific representations stemming from outside the historical discipline. The first of those has to do with the concept of heterotopia as it was pro­ posed by Michel Foucault, using that word to describe:  . . . real places – places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society – which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. (1986: 22–27)7

The camp, just like the asylum or the prison, can actually be seen as hetero­ topia insofar as it denotes a place that is outside the so-called ‘normal’ – that is, national and non-imprisoned – world even while it is encapsulated in it. The second representation is the distinction between friend and foe, which to the German lawyer Carl Schmitt lay at the very heart of the defi­ nition of politics, since it implies the necessity to take into consideration the ‘state of war’, the latter being defined not as actual war but as the possi­ bility of war (Schmitt 2007 [1927]). In this respect, the relationship between the inside and the outside relates to the distinction between friend and foe and to the exercise of loyalty. The issue at stake here is how to manage populations in a situation that is quite close to the state of war described by Carl Schmitt, or at least to its structural equivalent as far as the logic involved is concerned – that is, a state of political crisis in which the various multi-sectorial logics (cor­ responding to all those meaningful social universes in which temporality,

The Other Point of View . . . The Sociologist | 179

the scale of ranking or social value are specific and can scarcely be com­ pared to one another: art, economy, politics, sport, etc.) seem to be losing their specificity and to be undergoing the logic of politicization that characterizes political crises or war (Dobry 1986). This intense politiciza­ tion makes it necessary for social actors to find a solution to structural uncertainty and, more especially, to be able to know who is who, and this not only during the official war but also after the war has ended. Fabien Théofilakis’s study is an excellent description of this logic according to which the frames of war persist in peacetime without ever being officially recognized or pertaining to the legal or regulatory framework. The offi­ cial end of the war does not represent the end of the state of war but the beginning of a new period in which some blurring of the boundary between war and non-war prevails. The rapprochement between prison­ ers and French people as a result of the prisoners being allowed to work, or because the camp discipline has been loosened, hesitates between admira­ tion and condemnation. In the latter case, the impossibility of fraternizing with the German prisoners and the illegitimacy of their social integration echo another kind of division, the one that separates the good French people from the bad ones. In that case, as in some earlier cases, citizenship is not the most impor­ tant element in assessing who is good and who is bad. Loyalty prevails, and paradoxically even where foreigners are concerned. The complex stratification that can be observed goes beyond customary categories. French history is quite rich in such examples, both of a stricter adequation of citizenship and loyalty or of various reformulations of this equation. In the first years of the French Revolution, citizenship was inclusively opened to those foreigners who embraced the revolutionary dynamics. Such lead­ ing figures of the political change as Anacharsis Cloots or Thomas Paine were offered French citizenship while the emigrés – that is, those aristo­ crats who had fled France to find shelter abroad, especially in the German states, were denied the right to be French citizens. From 1792 onwards, the war in Europe changed the situation: if the emigrés were still considered as being outside France, physically and legally, foreigners living in France were no longer seen as ‘friends’ and their loyalty to the Revolution had to be proved (Wahnich 1997). We may find another example of this reformulation in the various projects set up by the French Ministry of War in the late nineteenth cen­ tury. In 1888, Colonel Jean Sandherr, who headed the Military Statistics and Reconnaissance section within the Deuxième Bureau at the French Ministry of War, had two different lists prepared: the so-called A and B notebooks. The former listed all foreigners – especially Germans – living in France and old enough to bear arms, whereas the latter com­

180 | Stéphane Dufoix

piled the names of all those who were suspected of being spies or who could become spies, whether they were French or foreigners. If war was to be declared, people whose names were on both lists had to be arrested and put in jail (notebook A) or interned (notebook B). In the early 1910s, a slight change appeared in the scope of notebook B: the targets were less actual spies than potential traitors, be they pacifists, left-wingers or, later, communists (Becker 1973; Baker 1978: 486–516; Mitchell 1982: 489–99). As early as 1915, France happened to be the first country that, through a law voted on 7 April, allowed for the denaturalization of alien enemies; the aim was to reorganise the links between origin, citizenship and loyalty in order to restore some kind of certainty about the actual identity of the people involved. As far as alien friends were concerned, whether they held the citizenship of an Allied country or were consid­ ered good foreigners because irreproachable French citizens had vouched for them, the suspicion of being a spy was always at hand. If we follow Hannah Arendt’s termi­nology about totalitarian regimes, foreigners in times of war or in times of political crisis structurally occupy the posi­ tion of the ‘objective enemy’, of those who are necessarily dangerous and suspect, regardless of what they have actually done or not (Arendt 1951). This is particularly highlighted by the experiences of interning enemy aliens during both world wars. In most Western countries (France, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and United States), democratic governments imprisoned, interned or relocated into other parts of the territory not only the nationals from enemy countries but also national – that is, French, Australian, American, etc. – trade unionists and pacifists.8 A close look at the relocation of Japanese-Americans in the United States after Pearl Harbor shows that roughly 60 per cent were born in the United States and were therefore American nationals. Their origin was the sole reason why they became objects of suspicion, exactly as in the case of the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians who had been granted French citizenship before the First World War and whose sincerity, reliability and loyalty towards France came to be challenged by the 1915 law. We thus have to deal with a dual operation that first defines ‘enemy aliens’ by their original citizenship and second identifies those who are the ‘bad nationals’. This operation aims at ‘removing’ or ‘distancing’ these people by relocating them into heterotopian structures, mostly camps. The possibility of interaction with the rest of the population is limited as much as possible. The various examples given by Georg Kreis in his study of Russian POWs in Switzerland are quite eloquent in this respect. They are to be understood as prophylactic measures aimed at preventing any potential political contamination. The rapprochement, proximity, or even intimacy that seems to characterize Rodolph’s situation (Théofilakis) does

The Other Point of View . . . The Sociologist | 181

represent a risk; they could challenge the established political and social order or relativise and negate what had previously taken place – that is, war. The dimensions of memory and forgetting are crucial, not only for societies within which the prisoners are living, but also for the prisoners themselves, whose progressive acclimatization and gradual taming are presumed. Here too, uncertainty prevails, as shown by Bob Moore when he gives the example of the German POW planting crocuses so as to form the letters of ‘Heil Hitler’ when they flowered. More generally, all these remarks are intended to draw attention to the interdisciplinary dialogue within humanities and social sciences. More often than not, historical analysis, as precise as it may be, is content to go as far as possible into the discovery of facts and dates, the quest for docu­ ments and sources. It would be interesting to achieve a more systematic comparison between the various interned populations (nationals, enemy aliens, POWs, collaborators, etc.) in several democracies and in dictator­ ships, during or after the war, in order to grasp as precisely as possible what is stake in the spatial, social and political construction of a friend-foe boundary, thus updating the national-foreigner distinction while making it evolve sharply. My intention is certainly not to replay the perpetual argument over the difference between history and social science. On the contrary my intention would be to push towards a greater confrontation of methods, concepts and ideas, in the hope that the historically constructed epistemic logics at the heart of these disciplines – be it insisting on the most comprehensive possible description or on a more general objec­ tive of explanation and comprehension9 – may become cross-fertilizing. Documentary research would thus cease to be in an ancillary situation in relation to conceptualization and the latter would not be considered as a vain and flawed quest for models that would be valid sub specie aeter­ nitatis. From this point it would become possible to envisage a positive and an interlinking dialectics in which the exploration and processing of data would enable the creation of complex interpretative and explana­ tory models. The objective of those models would not be to propose the final truth about the topic but would rather open new pathways in order to go further into broader, more diverse or more specialized empirical material – thereby allowing for a future inventory of both similarities and differences. Following this very logic, calling upon counter-voices, which the editors of this publication have found to be necessary, represents a rare and precious interdisciplinary initiative of potential value, provided these counter-voices function as complementary voices and not as ‘voices against’.

182 | Stéphane Dufoix

Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. Some reflections on war can indeed be found in the works by Emile Durkheim but they are closely related to the context of the First World War and can be understood as pertaining much more to the commitment of a French citizen than to sociological theory. See Emile Durkheim (1991 [1915]); Durkheim and Lavissse (1992 [1916]); and Denis and Durkheim (1915). 2. See Georg Simmel, ‘The Sociology of Conflict I’ (1904: 490–525). The second and third parts were published in subsequent issues, American Journal of Sociology, 9(5) and 9(6), p. 672–89 and p. 798–811. 3. We have to notice that even Anglophone works on the sociology of war do not neces­ sarily take captivity into consideration. See Siniša Malešević (2010). 4. By ‘biopolitics’ Michel Foucault designates a form of power that no longer operates on territory but on populations. The phrase seems to have been used for the first time in a lecture delivered at the University of Rio in October 1974. This concept was developed in the lectures given by Foucault at the Collège de France in 1976: see Foucault (2003). 5. See also Agamben Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998). 6. Among the most important or the most emblematic works on this topic, we may cite Fischer (2004: 179–199); Rigoulot and Kotek (2000); Bernardot (2008). 7. This article is the text of a lecture delivered by Foucault in 1967. 8. On this topic, see Daniels (1993); Panayi (1993); Cesarani and Kushner (1993); Nagler (2000); Saunders and Daniels (2000). For quite a long time the topic of internment was ignored in France. Apart from Anne Grynberg (1991), see Denis Peschanski (2002), as well as, on a lesser-known aspect, Jean-Claude Farcy (1995). 9. I use ‘insistence’ here because I do not assume that all sociological studies rely on conceptual analysis. Some of them, and perhaps an increasing proportion, are mostly based on an ethnographic exploration and account of a specific situation. Conversely, some historical studies happen to be closer to the logic of the social sciences due to their objective of comparing and then generalizing from the results of the compara­ tive study. Some sections of different disciplines happen to be closer to one another as regards their scientific logic (ethnographic and comparative, for instance) than they are to other sections of their own official discipline.

Stéphane Dufoix is Professor of Sociology at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre. He has recently published La Dispersion. Une histoire des usages du mot diaspora (Editions Amsterdam, 2012; Brill, 2016). In 2013, he co-edited with Alain Caillé Le Tournant global des sciences sociales (La Découverte).

Part IV

Captivity and Colonial Issues: The French Example

( Introduction Pierre Journoud

Among the four chapters presented in the following pages, two concern the Second World War and two concern Algeria. All attest to the renewal of wartime captivity as a subject for historiographical study, and to the enrichment of approaches in this respect. The prisoners are no longer studied purely for their own sake, but also in ways that go far beyond their own fate: as stakes in rivalry between the European powers, between colonizers and the colonized, and even between different groups in France. As specialists on captivity in the Second World War, Raffael Scheck and Sarah Frank offer a contrast to traditional historiography in showing that during those years, ‘indigenous’ POWs (some 80,000 soldiers stemming from the French colonial empire among the 1.5–1.8 million soldiers impris­ oned by the Germans) were the object of intense competition between the German authorities and the Vichy government, despite agreements signed within the framework of the politics of collaboration. Wishing to efface the memory of massacres by the Wehrmacht of black soldiers on French ter­ ritory at the beginning of the war (probably around 3,000 deaths) (Scheck 2007), the Germans tried hard to win the prisoners’ confidence through intense pro-Islamic propaganda. For its part, Vichy, hoping to present itself as a protective power, tried to nourish their loyalty to France by improv­ ing their general situation and, in particular, their access to provisions. Because of a lack of German guards, in 1943 the German High Command in fact obtained an agreement that Vichy would retain responsibility for holding several thousands of these prisoners. But Vichy itself saw this

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as a means to maintain a positive influence on these colonial soldiers, in respect to which the Scapini Mission, assigned by Pétain with the task of negotiations regarding POWs, showed special concern. In practice, the Vichy government ran into difficulties finding leaders with both suffi­ cient military experience and colonial experience, displaying persistently racist and humiliating behaviour towards such prisoners when it found them. On the other hand it saw to the development of various committees whose purpose was to offer material and moral support to the ‘indigenous’ prisoners.1 Raphaëlle Branche and Sylvie Thénault then address the case of prison­ ers and ‘internees’ in Algeria. Following a highly thought-provoking com­ parative approach juxtaposing France’s war of colonial conquest and the later Algerian war, Thénault makes it clear that the ‘internment’ imposed on the Algerian prisoners allowed the French military administration to bypass constraints that would have been linked to their recognition of POWs protected under, for instance, the Geneva Conventions. Although the situation surrounding ‘internment’ in the 1954–1962 period differed from conditions in the nineteenth century, the basic objective was the same: to rally the detainees to France’s side. In fact, 1940 had not elimi­ nated the territorial nationalism of the French elite, fed by a colonial ide­ ology that had permeated the Vichy government as much as General de Gaulle’s Free France. Everything was to be set in play so that the prisoners, just like persons of mixed origin (métis), would be definitively converted to the benefits of the colonial religion. Branche’s interest is in the release of prisoners held by the Algerian National Liberation Army (Armée de libération national, ALN). According to the official position declared by the National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale, FLN), the ALN was allowed to take prisoners and was obliged to treat them well. But this treatment was a function of the category to which the prisoner belonged (Algerian civilian or Algerian member of the military; French civilian or French member of the military); and, de facto, the survival prospects of prisoners detained in rural areas (the Maquis) were gener­ ally limited by both the living conditions and the effects of French army repression. Branche here uncovers carefully calculated policies of prisoner release reflecting a strategy consistently pursued by the FLN aimed at ­internationalizing the conflict. This strategy was partly inspired by one that was successfully pursued by the Vietnamese revolutionaries in their struggle with the French (Byrne, forthcoming); it had consequences for France’s own strategy of ‘counterrevolutionary warfare’, which was tried for a time by the French army in Algeria and involved, in particular, efforts at re-educating Algerian prisoners and internees (Thénault 2000: 235–49). But while the influence

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of the Indochinese experience on French officers in Algeria is now well known, historians of the Indochinese war can only deplore the inadequate attention paid to captivity in the French historiography of colonial and postcolonial Vietnam. The only work devoted to colonial imprisonment in Vietnam is, in fact, by an American scholar Peter Zinoman (2001);2 military captivity in Indochina has itself been examined in only a single thesis by Robert Bonnafous (1985). Bonnafous, a former French army colonel who fought in Indochina, focused exclusively on the fate of soldiers fighting for the French Union (FU) who had been captured by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAV). And however useful it may be, the rare work on military captivity presently being published is concerned less with the phenom­ enon itself than with the fabrication of its memory.3 As a result, this sub­ ject – charged as it is with both the legitimate claims and less legitimate polemics of associations of former fighters – is far from being exhausted by historians. In a book edited by Hugues Tertrais and myself Paroles de Dien Bien Phu (2012), we have already presented documentation of diverging – or even dissident – visions of the adversary’s captivity, which plays down, in par­ ticular, the political re-education sessions of which many former prisoners have retained traumatic memories (2012: ch. 5). A central task for histo­ rians is to question and restore ‘memory’ in its manifold nature; to ‘desanctify’ it having been monopolized by a group that was better organized and more efficient than others in a field determined by books and media. Thus the uncertainties over the number of losses among French POWs in the Indochinese war facilitated the process of one-upmanship of victim­ hood among a section of former combatants. While there is no question of denying their suffering and resentment in respect to their guards, evident in many accounts,4 the correcting of inaccurate figures reprinted with­ out question from one publication to the next is nevertheless called for. According to the archives of the high command in Indochina, in December 1954 68,080 Vietnamese military prisoners and internees were released by FU forces, but the PAV claimed 11,085 more. The PAV released 14,032 pris­ oners from more than a hundred camps spread throughout the Mekong Delta in North Vietnam, but the FU forces claimed 15,078 more – most of them Vietnamese.5 Yet a ‘secret/confidential’ note, written on 1 November 1955 by the staff of the commander in chief, reassessed the number of missing persons as 30,000; 8,000 of them being non-Vietnamese, 13,000 Vietnamese who had been in the French armed forces of the Far East and 9,000 Vietnamese from the Vietnamese armed forces. The author indicated that the figure included men killed in combat and who had died in the camps; deserters considered in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) as having rejoined their forces; Vietnamese released in very great numbers

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in the Vietminh zone in violation of certain Geneva Convention clauses; persons repatriated to Germany and North Africa by way of Moscow or Prague (deserters, North Africans and Foreign Legionnaires); and perhaps some men who were still being detained.6 Consequently, as acknowledged a number of times by the staff of the high command itself, ‘there were numerous cases of indigenous prisoners rejoining the Vietminh cause’.7 Nevertheless, straight after the end of the war, through a manipulation of figures whose origin and development needs to be studied, an under­ standing was somehow reached that only ‘one prisoner in four returned living from the Vietminh camps’, as formulated in the early 1960s by Bernard Fall, the undisputed specialist on this war at the time (Fall 1960: ch. 9). The estimate taken up by all the authors after him, from deputies legitimately concerned with improving the condition of former prisoners8 to specialists in Indochina (Brocheux 2007) was between 60 and 75 per cent. The truly gruelling conditions of this captivity notwithstanding, the estimate of losses was thus skewed from the start by including some 22,000 ‘native’ POWs, most of them Vietnamese, in the category of the missing – rapidly confused with that of the dead. The problem is aggra­ vated with the claim, promulgated by France’s National Association of Former Prisoners and Internees in Indochina (ANAPI), that the losses in the Vietminh camps, presented as more than 60 or even 70 per cent for the prisoners taken at Dien Bien Phu, exceeded those in the Nazi exter­ mination camps. Suffering never gains anything from comparison – all the more the case with a process of industrial genocide unparalleled in humanity’s history. According to Georges Bouardel, president of the French Red Cross (IFRC) between 1947 and 1955,9 65 per cent of the pris­ oners died because of conditions particular to the Indochinese war: cli­ mate, food, difficulties in convoy movement, and, indeed, rejection by the communist authorities of international and humanitarian aid.10 The study initiated by Jean-Jacques Arzalier on mortality among the combatants at Dien Bien Phu merits expansion to the entire Indochinese war, even if on the basis of French sources alone. According to Arzalier, 5.4 per cent of officers, 6 per cent of doctors and 17.6 percent of NCOs (non-commissioned officers) captured during this battle died in captivity. And while the losses were higher in the camps for NCOs, above all because the hygiene was far worse there than in the other camps, we still need to nuance the usual figures, as the fate of 3,013 captives in Indochina is still unknown (Arzalier 2004: 165ff). Two other dimensions of captivity during this war also merit renewed scrutiny, the first being the treatment of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian POWs and internees held by the French and their Vietnamese allies. Bonnafous cites a letter from General Michel de Brébisson dated

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March 1955 to the French High Command urging that the fact that 9,000 ‘Indochinese’ POWs died or were executed in camps managed by the French, and by the young National Army of Vietnam created with their support, be kept a secret (Bonnafous 1985: 292f.). Although gener­ ally ignored, this figure deserves attention, since it reveals the resonance of the conflict’s civilian dimension, all too often overlooked in histori­ cal work on Vietnam. A second dimension involves the DRV’s policies towards the prisoners; here analysing certain traditions vis-à-vis China and, specifically, the weight of the Maoist influence would seem to hold promise. Some accounts, including the account of General Chen Geng, head of the Chinese military mission to the PAV, present this influence as a determining factor, particularly in the imposition of ‘political re-­ education’ sessions, experienced by a good portion of the French POWs as traumatic brainwashing (Beilan and Peifei 1988). The military captive was not only an enemy placed hors de combat, but an enemy with whom it was necessary to continue fighting with means other than arms (Fall 1960: ch. 9). Nevertheless, exploring the Maoist influence would benefit from being relocated – and perhaps relativized – in the long-term perspective of Sino-Vietnamese relations and the asymmetric conflicts flaring up in that framework, with Vietnam’s massive release of Chinese prisoners that served to mitigate the wrath of their powerful northern neighbour.

Notes 1. On the end of captivity for these prisoners and their release, see Mabon (2010). 2. Zinoman reveals the decisive role of the prison archipelago in Vietnam between 1862 and 1940 in the education and revolutionary-nationalist awareness of the Vietnamese. 3. Julien Mary, ‘La fabrique d’une cause mémorielle: celle des prisonniers français de la guerre d’Indochine’, thesis in preparation under the direction of Frédéric Rousseau, Montpellier III. 4. For example, Jean Pouget Prisonnier au camp N° 1 (2012 [1969]). 5. Service histoire de la Défense (SHD), Vincennes, DT, 10H214, secret report on exchanges of POWS and civilian internees detained by forces of the FU and the PAV, 15 Dec. 1954, signed by General de Brébisson, head of the high command delegation of the forces of the French Union at the central mixed commission for Vietnam. 6. SHD, DT, 10H248. 7. SHD, DT, 10H248. In Vietnam, I myself met former combatants and Vietnamese prison­ ers allied with the French who, willingly or otherwise, joined the PAV. 8. Written question no. 02540 of André Daugnac (Eastern Pyrenees – UC) published in JOSénat, 1 Dec. 1988, p. 1344 (http://www.senat.fr/questions/base/1988/qSEQ881202540. html, consulted 16 July 2012). 9. Not to be confused with his quasi-homonym Georges Boudarel, political instructor at camp 113 during the Indochinese war and at the centre of a media-legal polemic that broke out in the 1990s.

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10. SHD, 10H213, ‘top secret’ chart of the situation regarding missing persons presumed prisoners, 1 Oct. 1955. On the contribution of the ICRC in Indochina, see Perret and Bugnion (2010).

Pierre Journoud is Professor at the Université de Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. His publications focus on the conflicts and processes of peace in the Indochinese peninsula. Author of De Gaulle et le Vietnam (1945–1969). La réconciliation (Tallandier, 2011), he has also directed several collective stud­ ies and conference proceedings, including L’évolution du débat stratégique en Asie du Sud-Est depuis 1945. Études de l’IRSEM (no. 14, 2012), Vietnam 1968–1976. La sortie de guerre (with Cécile Menétrey-Monchau, Peter Lang, 2012) and 1954–2004. La bataille de Dien Bien Phu entre histoire et mémoire (with Hugues Tertrais, SFHOM, 2004).

CHAPTER 15

Wartime Internment of Algerians in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries For a History of Forms of Captivity in the Long Term

( Sylvie Thénault

Internment has become synonymous with detention in a camp since the First World War, with the general recognition of two types of camp: for prisoners of war or for civilian internees. Although the historio­g raphy relating to prisoners of war has developed recently, works on civilian internees remain rare. With the outbreak of war in 1914, however, Euro­ pean countries, followed by the United States in 1917, proceeded to the segregation and gathering together of individuals of enemy powers pre­ sent on their soil.1 Foreigners were not the only ones to be interned: all the ‘undesirables’ of police taxonomy, with vagrants and prostitutes heading the list, were also victims (Farcy 1995). Before the First World War, con­ temporaries talked more easily about ‘concentration camps’ – and, indeed, use of the expression continued in 1914–1918. It dated from the end of the nineteenth century, with the ‘concentration’ of populations inherent in warfaring colonial enterprises; the background might be conquest, war against movements of independence or anti-guerrilla struggles, in regions as diverse as Cuba, South Africa and German Namibia.2 After the First World War, internment camps reappeared on French soil in the context of the Spanish Civil War, when the Third Republic estab­ lished camps for Spanish refugees. Substantially extended by Vichy in a ‘policy of exclusion’ (Peschanski 2002), the practice of internment was extended after 1944 in the conditions – and the excesses – of the épuration, the purging of collaborators. Next, the Algerian War of Independence opened a third phase in this history of French camps in the twentieth cen­ tury. Militants and combatants in the Algerian struggle were also interned in metropolitan France as well as in Algeria (Thénault 2001, 2008).

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Such a war of independence, however, opens other perspectives – in fact, this war invites us in the long term to shift our gaze to the colonies, in this case towards Algeria. At this point, this War of Independence comes up against historiography, for the colonial long term reveals the much ear­ lier practices of internment in the First World War, at a time when intern­ ment was not synonymous with enclosure in a camp.

Captives in the War of Conquest The war of conquest in Algeria is much better known for its acts of vio­ lence than for the treatment meted out to prisoners by the two parties at war. The military establishment in command of this war was not alone in the matter. On the strength of his campaigns with the Imperial Army, in Spain and then in the Alps against the Austrians in 1808–1815, General Bugeaud gave this description of the advantages of taking captives from among the enemy ranks: they were economical, he said, because ‘in the time it takes to kill one man with a bayonet thrust, six men can be taken prisoner’.3 The raids practised in Algeria, designed to achieve the submis­ sion of populations through sacking and massacre, also served to seize individuals of all ages and both sexes; they might be taken as hostages to force the submission of those close to them, or simply be held as ‘prisoners of war’. In June 1843 the French were thought to have had 10,000 prisoners in detention.4 This total, however, included individuals detained for any reason, including for motives of common law: to the women and children, to the men – combatants or otherwise – seized in the heat of combat and during raids were added prisoners taken in the phase of occupation that followed immediately after. Men were arrested for theft, in particular, by the soldiers settling in the country as and when they took possession of it. This total of 10,000 prisoners in June 1843 had also just been further expanded by the capture of Abd el-Kader’s ‘smala’ – his extended retinue – more than 3,000 men, women and children. After this exceptional peak, 4–5,000 prisoners still remained in French hands.5 Amalgamation reigned. All the Algerians who had fallen into French hands were declared ‘prisoners’. The qualifications for this remained unclear: were those who had opposed the French with weapons to be con­ sidered as ‘prisoners of war’? At a time when no statute or definition had yet been developed, the question did not create any real controversy. The challenge was to know which administration, within the Ministry for War, was to take on the financial cost of these captives: the service for prisoners of war – if they were formally recognized as such – or, if not, the ruling authorities in Algeria? The argument was still in operation a century later,

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during the War of Independence, but it was rejected by the service for prisoners of war, on the grounds that ‘as subjects of France’, those who took up arms were no more than ‘rebels’;6 the pragmatic authorities in Algeria stated that, in fact, ‘the native people bearing weapons who were taken by our troops’7 had been treated as prisoners of war in being placed in various ‘depots’ set up for this purpose. The pattern of regulation was inherited from the Revolution and the Empire. During the war of conquest, the Ministry of War turned to a ‘law’ of 4 May 1792 for reference – in reality a ‘decree’ of 4–5 May 1792 – and an imperial decree of 4 August 1811. 8 These texts stipulated for residence to be allocated, combined with surveillance, and for hostages and officers to give their word not to escape. In the absence of such a promise, they were to be detained in ‘enclosed public buildings’, according to the revolution­ ary text, or in a ‘citadel, fort or chateau’, according to the imperial decree. In 1811, there was reference to a food ration and a variable wage payable to officers and ordinary soldiers, and soldiers could be accommodated in a ‘depot’ or in the houses of local residents.9 Algeria had ‘depots’, as they were known at the time, for example at Mers el-Kebir, near Oran, or in the Casbah in Algiers. Detention did not last long, however, for lack of premises and a long-term solution. Either liberation came rapidly or the prisoners were removed as a group and relocated on Algerian territory. Bugeaud also envisaged sending them to the Antilles or to Landes in south-west France, or placing them with peas­ ants in metropolitan France. These peasants would have employed them, while ensuring their assimilation through the simple sharing of a way of daily life.10 It was not a fantasy proposal insofar as the imperial decree of 1811 anticipated the placement of soldier-prisoners with private house­ holds. But the Parisian authorities forced Bugeaud to make the manage­ ment of captives on Algerian soil his priority. Prisoners could also be exchanged. Such exchanges would have been encouraged by the Tafna Treaty, signed in 1837, which marked a pause in the war between Abd el-Kader and Bugeaud. Nonetheless, the exchanges continued after the resumption of attack: on 22 May 1841, for example, 128 French men were liberated in exchange for 159 ‘Arabs’.11 Marshal Soult, the head of government and Minister of War from 1840 to 1845, congratulated himself on the operation. Enlisted in the army in 1785, veteran of the revo­ lutionary and imperial wars, Soult rejoiced at having ‘got rid of’ the ‘Arab [sic] women and children’ who gave rise to ‘the expenses of upkeep and a difficult protection’.12 The management of prisoners evidently had its cost. On the other hand, in May 1842 the French authorities could not explain the liberation of eight-five Frenchmen detained by Abd el-Kader, other than through the ‘terrible’ destitution of the emir.13

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Other prisoners were sent to France. The first transfer probably took place in 1836, on the initiative of Bugeaud. Depending on the documents used for reference, 118 or 119 prisoners, with four or six banners confiscated from Abd el-Kader, arrived in Marseilles on 27 July 1836. The General had rejected a written proposal of exchange sent by the emir. The authorities – military command and the Ministry of War – sought a propaganda advan­ tage. It was a matter of convincing these ‘Arab prisoners’ of the ‘immense advantage’ to be gained from submission to France so that once liberated and back in Algeria they would defend the cause.14 The Minister of War directed that they should have an interpreter and the ‘grants attributable to prisoners of war’. This meant that they must be provided with clothing, shoes and blankets as well as food and heating. If the provisions distrib­ uted inspired ‘disgust’ they should be replaced by ‘a cash indemnity’, ‘as is done for our native troops in Africa’.15 Regulation and customs relating to the management of prisoners of war, on the one hand, and the experience of African recruits, on the other, were thus brought together to define the pattern of these first transfers. The transfer to France became generalized after 1841, when the offshore Ile Sainte-Marguerite, near Cannes, was des­ ignated for the detention of Algerian captives. Thousands of them, includ­ ing women and children, were interned in France; the practice, going far beyond the war of conquest, was the consequence of successive insurrec­ tions in Algeria up to the early 1880s and encouraged the perpetuation of repressive French practices. Apart from the Ile Sainte-Marguerite, which was used until 1884, the Algerians were held in various Mediterranean forts and in Corsica. Calvi, the final ‘depot for Arab internees’, closed in 1903 (see Thénault 2012). Established under regulatory provisions inherited from the revolution­ ary period and the First Empire, the practices of soldiers in Algeria or the actual suggestions of Bugeaud at the time of the conquest were not very original. Apart from any radical innovation, this was the main repertoire of arrangements available to those then in command, well instructed and experienced in former wars. In a context of loosely defined categories, how­ ever, the contemporaries found no other designation than ‘internment’ to designate the various treatments reserved for Algerian captives – which might refer to detention in these ‘depots’, enforced residence in a private house or transfer to France. From its Latin root, the verb ‘to intern’ could thus be defined neutrally as ‘to take into the interior’. The word had a strong political connotation, however, and suggested constraint: it served to denote the assignation, by political decision, to a specific residence as well as the arbitrary confinement of those opposed to the various French regimes in the nineteenth century. The Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle defined it thus: ‘send into a residence, with prohibition from leaving it’.16

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Thus at the moment of conquest and submission of Algeria, intern­ ment represented a beacon of political repression. Further, the regime of detention of Algerian prisoners in France took its inspiration in part from the first measures to favour political prisoners. Under the July Monarchy, Adolphe Thiers, Minister of the Interior then leader of the gov­ ernment, recommended the separation of political detainees from others, to exempt them from work and to grant them freedom of communication. Nonetheless, nothing was yet legally established – no regime of political detention received the official seal before 1890 (Vimont 1993). As in the case of prisoners of war, at the moment of conquest and the submission of Algeria this lacuna reflected the absence of the fully developed catego­ rizations that would be established later. Nonetheless, as with prisoners of war, the concept of a specific regime for political detainees continued to advance. The first principles of this regime were then also added to the repertory available to those charged with deciding the fate of Algerians interned in France. The regulation of those who were sent to Corsica, in particular, came close to the principles upheld under the July Monarchy for the detention of political prisoners. The Algerians interned in Corsica were authorized to leave their ‘depot’ to go into town during the daytime (Colonna 1993: 95–109). Whether they were seen as prisoners of war or political prisoners, put on the same footing as these categories and treated as such, the Algerian captives of the nineteenth century were subject to treatment that con­ formed fully to the practices of the time. It was far otherwise during the War of Independence.

Camps in the War of Independence or Denial of Combatant Status With the arrival of the Third Republic, internment ceased to be a political matter. It came to be reserved for ‘undesirables’ – vagrants, prostitutes, for­ eigners, habitual criminals – subject to forms of assignation of residence or confinement without judicial control (Thénault 2012). With the confine­ ment of these stigmatized categories in camps at the time of the First World War, ‘internment’ became the synonym for detention in a camp. And it was indeed in this form that it reappeared during the Algerian War of Independence. During this conflict the French governments refused to apply in Algeria the international conventions regulating the state of war; they developed emergency laws in order to provide the conflict with a legal framework. This legislation authorized the assignation à résidence, enforced residence

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for any person who was ‘a danger to security and public order’17 and in fact this ‘assignation’ took shape as internment in a camp. Three types of camp were then set up during the War of Independence: ‘reception centres for internees placed under the responsibility of the civil authority’, in other words the prefectures; ‘centres of triage and transit’ where the army guarded its suspects long enough to interrogate them; and ‘mili­ tary centres for internees’ where combatants were held (Thénault 2001). In August 1960 Algeria had 7,000 internees in eleven reception centres, 10,000 thousand in eighty-six centres of ‘triage and transit’ and 3,000 in seven ‘military centres for internees’.18 The existence of the ‘triage and transit’ and ‘military internees’ cen­ tres shows that the army exercised enforced residence for military opera­ tions. With the ‘military centres for internees’ it used enforced residence to cover up the detention of captured resistance activists thus avoiding the attention of international conventions, at least until 1961 (Branche 1999: 107–8). Deliberation on the creation of these centres began in 1957, after three years of war. Algerian combatants were then destined for execution if they were not considered ‘retrievable’; however no arrangements were provided to take in those prisoners who were seen to be of interest in the eyes of the command. The question was posed within the command itself: Once the sector commandant has decided that, despite the instructions in force, the rebel taken armed in combat was not killed and that, further, he has picked him out as “good”, “a prisoner of war”, “capable of rehabilitation”, what was to be done ? [author’s emphasis]

The reply was logical: ‘Camps must be created for POWs (prisoners of war) which have to remain in the hands of the military authority and avoid the law’.19 On paper, the decision was taken in March 1958 by General Salan, Commander in Chief. The Centres militaires d’internés (CMI, military cen­ tres for internees) were set up for the detention of ‘captured armed rebels’ after ‘summary triage and operational Intelligence’.20 The official taxon­ omy was to settle on ‘PAM’ – ‘pris les armes à la main’ (taken with weapons in hand). Their detention was authorized by official orders of assignation to remain in a CMI. General Salan presented the winning over of these men as the real purpose of his decision. He denied that the opening of camps designed for the resistance Maquisards ‘taken with weapons in hand’ justified recognition of their status as prisoners of war: ‘The Geneva Conventions do not apply to them’. Two arguments sustained this asser­ tion: the objective of their internment was their ‘recovery through appro­ priate civic training’, which was forbidden by the conventions; further, the prisoners remained subject to ‘the search for information through interro­

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gation’.21 It should be added that not all combatants taken prisoner were to be interned in a CMI. The bringing to justice of ‘those who have commit­ ted exactions or who show a fanaticism susceptible of harming the favour­ able development of the overall state of mind’22 remained possible – not to mention summary execution, which was evidently passed over in silence by General Salan. It was in fact the sector commandant’s responsibility to decide on the fate of prisoners taken in action. Attention was paid to the naming of these camps to avoid any assimila­ tion of Algerian prisoners with prisoners of war. Initially, in fact, General Salan had written ‘centres of military internees’, before reconsidering and opting for ‘military centres for internees’.23 In the first expression, ‘centres of military internees’, it was the internees who were military; the defini­ tion of combatant was implicitly recognized – while the second formula, ‘military centres for internees’, which was ultimately chosen, made it clear that the centres themselves were military; those detained were no more than internees, a mass without specific qualification. Immediately accepted by the Ministry of Defence, General Salan’s decision was not confirmed until July 1958, after the fall of the Fourth Republic. There was a maximum of eight ‘military centres for internees’ holding 4,500 men at most.24 Their undisputable reality remains little known, so invisible were they at the time as key elements in the intern­ ment system operating in Algeria. The ‘reception centres’ and the ‘centres of triage and transit’ were far more numerous and held activists who were more important in other ways. Investigators and inspectors from various organizations – the International Red Cross and French com­ missions of inspection – showed no great urgency over the CMI. They noted in general that the material conditions posed no problems and that the administrative registers were kept with regularity – which was not always the case elsewhere. They certainly invoked the regime for the prisoners of war when they enquired into conditions of daily life, but in their records this regime remained an imprecise frame of refer­ ence. They never quoted the detailed prescriptions of international texts. In their minds, a ‘prisoners’ regime’ was synonymous with a ‘military regime’: the discipline, rigour and severity that was the rule in the ‘mil­ itary centres for detainees’ did not shock them. Working was normal. The Geneva Conventions authorized this conditionally, particularly concerning pay for this labour force.25 In March 1959 the internees from Boghari, in southern Algeria, and those from Hammam Bou Hadjar, in Oran, organized these military camps without payment.26 Similarly, in January 1961, the internees at Lamoricière (Ouled Mimoun) were ‘used outside the camp, either on barrages or in units’ without any remunera­ tion being mentioned.27

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These military camps did not escape the spiral of triage and separation of the most determined members in opposition to the French authorities – everywhere, imprisonment of internees was reflected in the organization of a form of resistance that the French authorities could not eliminate; they contented themselves with identifying the ‘leaders’ in order to isolate them from their fellow detainees, placing them in a particular section of the camp or transferring them to another camp reserved for the most truc­ ulent internees. In the case of the CMI, the camp at Hammam Bou Hadjar, in Oran, was thus reserved for the ‘hardest elements, considered irrecover­ able’, in January 1962.28 At Boghari, in 1961, the regime of a ‘special section’ of the camp was denounced in the book Le Camp by Abdelhamid Benzine, head of the Algerian Communist Party (PCA).29 The book did not appear until 1962 but at the time of the events his lawyer, Angeline Dominique, succeeded in instigating an enquiry by alerting General Durand, head of the commission for the inspection of administrative centres of detention. He himself was pitiless in his judgement of what he discovered in the ‘special section’ at Boghari: Manoeuvring at whistle signals, they pass from standing to attention to “Stand easy” like automata and form up with terrifying speed, some who were lame being dragged along so as not to risk being late. On parade, I confirm that many of them are trembling, several bear wounds on their faces which they immediately attribute to accidental falls, many have chapped lips. During indi­ vidual interviews, after much reticence, most complain of blows, acts of brutal­ ity, vexatious or humiliating measures of all kinds.30

The General also enquired into the deaths of three internees, in circum­ stances that were not explained. For the higher authorities, the relief of the guard unit in the centre and a change of director and sanctions would have resolved the problem. The use of the expression ‘internment’ in the two wars marking the limits of French colonization in Algeria gives a false effect of continuity. The two periods were entirely different, in fact, with regards to the rela­ tionship with enemy Algerians. In the nineteenth century, when legal cate­ gories were fluid, the social representations and usage relating to prisoners of war as well as to political prisoners were carried over to the Algerians captured during the period of conquest and then in the struggle against the insurrections. During the War of Independence, on the other hand, the regulations relating to the treatment of prisoners of war were scrupu­ lously kept separate and held at a distance, down to the smallest semantic details, as seen in the deliberation surrounding the denomination of the ‘CMI’. In comparing these two periods, the history of the concept of intern­ ment can be retraced: from a concept closely linked to political repres­

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sion to focusing on ‘undesirables’ as synonymous with confinement in a camp. With the Third Republic, although internment had been removed from the political field, it now became a legal marker of difference, one of the tools for stigmatization and discrimination. It was indeed the stand­ ard approach to Algerians in their struggles for independence – to which the intervention of international conventions was refused. Moreover the National Liberation Front (FLN) recognized its refusal to implement the conventions as an excellent propaganda slogan (Meynier 2002).

Notes 1. Hervé Mauran gives a complete overview in ‘Les Camps d’internement et la surveil­ lance des étrangers en France pendant la Première Guerre mondiale (1914–1920)’ (2003). 2. On the taxonomy of the camps see Annette Wieviorka (1997: 4–12). 3. For observations on some details of the war and extracts taken from the books of instruction of the 56th Regiment, with explanatory illustrations, see (1831: 76). 4. SHD (Service historique de la Défense), Vincennes, Armée de terre, IH 90 dossier 1, letter from the Minister of War to the Governor General, 9 June 1843. 5. According to a proclamation from General Bugeaud to the ‘Arabes et Kabyles’, 22 June 1846, reproduced by Paul Azan (1948: 273). 6. ANOM (Archives nationales d’outre-mer), Aix-en-Provence, F80 562, note of 12 June 1847. 7. ANOM, F80 562, note of 29 May 1847. 8. ANOM, F80 562, in its decree of 30 April 1841 regulating the despatch of Algerian prisoners to France. 9. The decree of 4–5 May 1792 is cited by Vieillard-Baron (1903: 16). The decree of 4 August 1811 was published in the Bulletin des lois de l’empire, year 1811, vol. 15, p. 95. 10. See Bugeaud’s letters to the War Ministry dated 25 May 1843 (SHD, 1H 90 dossier 1) and of 11 October 1845, reproduced by Paul Azan (1948: 237). 11. ANOM, F80 562, telegram from the War Ministry, 22 May 1841. 12. ANOM, F80 562, telegram from the War Ministry, 22 May 1841. 13. SHD 1H 82, dossier 1, correspondence between the War Ministry and the General de Bar, commanding the territory of Algiers, May 1842. The international conventions on prisoners of war ‘revealed the reflexes of developed and rich societies’ as François Cochet remarks (2003: 3). 14. SHD 1H 39 dossier 1, letter from the War Ministry to the General commanding the 8th military division in Marseille, 28 July 1826. Other documents relating to this despatch are preserved in 1H 39, dossier 2. 15. SHD 1H 39 dossier 1, 28 July 1826. 16. Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, français, historique, géolgraphique, mythologique, bibliographique, littéraire, artistique, scientifique, etc. Paris, Administration du grand dictionnaire universel, 1866–1877. 17. Written into the law of state of emergency of 3 April 1955, this expression remained in use in all the other texts relating to internment during the War of Independence.

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18. SHD, I1H 1100/1, number of camps and number of internees according to the statistics of the army. 19. SHD, 1 H 3799/2, handwritten note stapled to a slip recapitulating the treatment of Algerian prisoners. 20. SHD, 1 H 1100/1, service note of 19 March 1958. 21. SHD, 1 H 1100/1, service note of 19 March 1958. 22. SHD, 1 H 1100/1, service note of 19 March 1958. 23. SHD 1H 100/1, correction of the service note of 19 March 1958, dated 23 March 1958. 24. According to a map and the lists of numbers conserved in the SHD in 1H 1100/1. 25. Section III, articles 49–57 of the third Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 deals with the conditions of work of prisoners of war. 26. ANOM, 81F 943, according to the report of General Zeller, for the Commission of pro­ tection of individual rights and liberties, 14 March 1959. 27. SHD, 1H 1100/2, report from General Durand, chairman of the Commission of Inspection for the administrative detention centre, 5 January 1961. 28. ANOM, 81F 943, report of the Commission for protection, 18 January 1962. 29. See the biographical notice of Abdelhamid Benzine in René Gallissot (2006). 30. SHD, 1H 1100/2, report of 6 May 1961.

Sylvie Thénault is Director of research at the Centre d’histoire sociale du XXème siècle (CNRS). She is a specialist in law and the colonial repression in Algeria. Having worked on the War of Independence, she extended her research to colonial administration in Algeria. She is the author of Algérie: des ‘événements’ à la guerre. Idées reçues sur la guerre d’indépendance algérienne (Le Cavalier Bleu, 2012) and Violence ordinaire dans l’Algérie coloniale. Camps: internemements, assignations à résidence (Odile Jacob, 2012). She co-edited (with Aderrahkmane Bouchène, Jean-Pierre Peyroulou and Ouanassa Siari-Tengour) Histoire d’Algérie à la période coloniale (1830–1962) (La Découverte/Barzakh, 2012).

CHAPTER 16

Helping ‘Our’ Prisoners

Philanthropic Mobilization for French Colonial Prisoners of War, 1940–1942

( Sarah Ann Frank

Among the almost two million French soldiers who became prisoners of war when France was defeated in June 1940 were approximately 80,000 men from the colonies in Africa, Madagascar, Indochina and the French West Indies. While European prisoners were eventually taken to Germany, colonial prisoners of war (CPOWs) remained in camps called Frontstalags throughout Occupied France. Believing that total German victory was now inevitable, the newly appointed Prime Minister, Philippe Pétain, requested an armistice. The new regime established at Vichy designed its political programme to rebuild France along traditional lines. Pétain believed that collaboration would ensure the prisoners’ return and give France a better place in the new German-dominated Europe than Britain, who had kept fighting. To convince the French people of the same, Vichy exploited two issues: prisoners of war and the French Empire. If the prisoners’ return was a goal widely supported by French opinion, the role of the Empire as a source of French strength and status in the world seemed a potential asset for Vichy in dealing with the Germans, since it remained beyond the lat­ ter’s control. CPOWs were at the juncture of these two entities. As highly visible components of the French Empire and as colonial subjects who had witnessed France’s defeat and who would eventually return home to the colonies, CPOWs were left in a unique and delicate position. The paternalistic traditions of the French for their ‘natives’ influenced Vichy’s negotiations on their behalf. Although Germany was in the dominant position, the overarching French goal in this regard was to encourage the idea that France remained an important imperial power able to protect its

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colonial subjects. Vichy’s actions for CPOWs were directly related to this preoccupation. Vichy saw material and moral aid to colonial prisoners as a way to offset the effects of the defeat and reinforce the status quo. Through govern­ mental and private organizations based in France and the colonies, Vichy sent CPOWs individual packages, colonial delicacies, extra clothing, games, books and musical instruments. In helping the CPOWs through captivity, Vichy sought to prove their dependence on France, and thus confirm the legitimacy of French colonial rule at a time when this was under considerable threat. By pushing the French towards their imperial duty, to help the CPOWs, Vichy inadvertently created a different kind of assistance, outside the typical philanthropic efforts. Aid organized by Vichy was regulated to ensure it delivered the correct message: Pétain, Mme Weygand and the colonial governors rewarded discipline and obedi­ ence. It came with a healthy dose of imperial rhetoric stressing duty and loyalty. By contrast, direct aid from the French citizens was as varied as the people providing it. Instead of aid coming from the top down, it came from French men and women whose help often ran contrary to Vichy’s goals. Help from individuals often placed the French at great risk, creating bonds and friendship not approved by Vichy.

Politics of Aid: Top-down Assistance In Vichy’s eyes, French prisoners were the architects of the New France, whereas the CPOWs were to be the manual labourers fortifying French legitimacy in the Empire. Vichy hoped that ‘upon their return to their home countries, our natives, conserving the memory of the help and assis­ tance they received during their time spent on French soil, will be the best representatives to their friends and families of upholding the unity of our great colonial Empire’.1 At its most basic level, helping prisoners, colonial or French, served the same purpose: reminding them that they had not been forgotten.2 The Direction du Service des Prisonniers de Guerre (DSPG) was tasked with improving conditions for French prisoners as thoroughly and rap­ idly as possible.3 This included providing CPOWs with both collective food deliveries and individual packages.4 To do so, it founded the Comité central d’assistance aux prisonniers de guerre (CCAPG) to supervise all aid to the Occupied Zone.5 The overseas section, under General Andlauer, specifically targeted the CPOWs.6 Vichy decided that all aid for CPOWs and prisoners in France must come from the Occupied Zone7 or the French colonies. Each department had a delegate under the prefect’s authority to

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liaise with the CCAPG, the French Red Cross, local charities and the local German authorities.8 These charities reinforced Vichy’s goal of a paternalistic supervision of the CPOWs. Amitiés Africaines rapidly became one of the most important aid organizations, helping CPOWs and their families as well as advising the government how to protect the CPOWs from the physical and mental consequences of a long captivity.9 Belkacem Recham argues that it was established as part of a concentrated effort to prepare the North Africans intellectually for war by actively cultivating a military spirit among sol­ diers and tightening links with veterans (1996: 89). This trend of linking material aid with intellectual influence expanded under Vichy. North African POWs were politically and numerically significant to both Vichy and Germany due to the strategic potential of the Maghreb in the war effort. North Africans represented about 70 per cent of the CPOWs. The potential use of French bases in North Africa tempted Germany until the Allied invasion of French north-west Africa in late 1942. As for Vichy, North Africa continued to hold a special place in its heart, since Algeria was not considered a colony, but was made up of three French depart­ ments, and had been French longer than the Savoie. A large settler popula­ tion helped motivate charities and the government to assist both CPOWs and pied-noir prisoners. Instability in the region would give Germany the excuse it sought to increase controls and the number of inspectors on the ground. Vichy, naturally, wanted to avoid any potential uprisings, espe­ cially as it feared Spanish and Italian claims. Both powers therefore saw the CPOWs as an element for either stability or chaos upon their return. There were strong political considerations at play with the types of aid provided. Material aid, like increased food rations or donations of warmer clothes, improved the CPOWs’ physical conditions. Moral aid was a more targeted attack on German propaganda. Aid was never simply about send­ ing rice or books but rather was aimed at strengthening ties to France and improving the CPOWs’ morale. For example, supplying rations from the colonies gave CPOWs the comfort of their favourite foods and proved that the links between the metropole and the colonies remained intact despite threats from de Gaulle and the British. Each group of prisoners was given items of either cultural significance, like Kola nuts for the Senegalese,10 or culinary traditions, like couscous for the North Africans,11 and rice for the Indochinese and Malagasy.12 When possible, these rations became monthly deliveries.13 Between the Armistice and 31 December 1941, the Frontstalags received a quarter of all donated food, despite having less than 10 per cent of the French prisoner population.14 The National Revolution’s encouragement of appropriate leisure activi­ ties designed to improve the moral character of the nation spilled over to

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the CPOWs, who were encouraged to become the best version of native subjects possible. They received books, games, musical instruments, phono­graphs and Arabic music and could attend French classes or tradi­ tional craft workshops organized in the camps.15 Between October 1940 and 1941 the Bibliothèque et Jeux, a subsection of CCAPG, sent 18,000 games and traditional musical instruments from the colonies and books designed for ‘natives and illiterates’.16 The YMCA also sent 135,000 books in nine languages.17 Prisoners were grateful for the deliveries and often sent thank you notes to the charities. Echoing the discourse of the period, Bonko Hambrié wrote thanking Pétain ‘both in the name of all the Senegalese prisoners and in my own name, for the favours that France has generously given to its African children prisoners in captivity with their brothers from the metropole’.18 These aid organizations attempted to improve the prisoners’ daily lives and their moral standing. Sometimes the CPOWs themselves were used to generate interest in their own plight and raise funds on their own behalf. For this, they were encouraged to make and sell stereotypical colonial crafts. The German officials at Montargis were quite enthusiastic about the YMCA’s sugges­ tion to reproduce African statues.19 The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) suggested that artisan work would be good for the CPOWs. They believed that the CPOWs ‘cannot devote their time only to reading and harmful idleness is likely to lead to unfortunate attitudes. The OKW goes further by allowing objects made in the camps to be sold outside via the Kommandantur’.20 In January 1942, General Andlauer wanted CPOWs to make small objects in raffia, leather, wood, clay, etc . . . or drawings that could be exhibited and sold by OFALAC [Economic and tourist office for the Government General of Algeria]. The public’s interest in this charity auction will draw attention to our native prisoners, to the sacrifices they have made and demonstrate their attachment to our country, and the bonds that unite our overseas territories to France. 21

These activities were ‘safe’ as they kept CPOWs in traditional roles. They also reinforced preconceived notions that all colonial subjects could ­whittle wooden sculptures and would enjoy doing so. By purchasing these ‘traditional’ crafts, the French were reassured that they had done their duty to help those who had sacrificed their freedom for France. Their sale was quite successful, raising approximately three million francs.22 With the Empire remaining an important symbol of French independence despite German occupation, CPOWs, willingly or not, became part of that. The CPOWs provided a personification of France’s imperial goals. Even during the zenith of French imperialism under the Third Republic, much of the population remained unconvinced of the Empire’s necessity, and

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the same continued during the Occupation. Paul Marion, Secretary of State for Information, declared in 1942 that ‘we have only imperial terri­ tories, we do not yet have an imperial soul [but] we will also be Europe’s imperial educators, since we know how to keep and defend our Empire. We will become pioneers who will lay down powerful bridges, our bridges, between this continent and Africa’.23 Without the Empire, France had little of value to offer the new Europe. The colonies brought ‘immense resources and the reasons for hope in the New France’.24 The fate of CPOWs was caught up in these goals. Vichy publicly celebrated the colonies and encouraged the French to learn more about their Empire. Events like the Quinzaine Impériale and the Semaine de la France d’Outre-mer, accord­ ing to the daily paper Le Matin, encouraged ‘the mainland and overseas French to demonstrate their feeling of community, which is also echoed in the many Oflags and Stalags that organized small exhibits, conferences and lectures during the Imperial Fortnight’.25 Overall, these celebrations were designed to help the French citizens regain faith in their country, not help the CPOWs. Public reception often remained lukewarm. In the Eure-et-Loir the celebration was unsuccessful due to the ‘population’s total lack of interest in the colonial question. The propaganda posters did not achieve the desired effect’.26 The risks the French took to help the CPOWs suggest that helping individuals from the colonies, itself a form of resist­ ance, was more appealing than supporting Vichy’s imperial goals.

Organizational Problems The chaos of the first months of the occupation facilitated disorganization and corruption within the philanthropic mobilization and the fluid nature of the work camps made it hard to ensure an even distribution of parcels to CPOWs scattered in fields and forests.27 The discrepancies between packages from different colonies exacerbated tensions when prisoners from Senegal, Indochina, Martinique and Madagascar did not receive the same monthly packages as the North African prisoners.28 Attempts to ensure CPOWs received their packages at the same time failed because there was no single organizing committee in the Free Zone.29 Corruption and theft existed at all levels of charitable donation. In Saint-Médard unclaimed packages were supposed to go to the most needy prisoners; instead they were sent to ‘the German camp officer [who] emp­ ties the parcels, takes what interests him, cigarettes, chocolates, etc. and sends the rest to the kitchen’.30 On the French side, the DSPG was accused of providing rotten produce, artificially inflating prices, and general dis­ organization and theft.31 An audit concluded that even if some of the cri­

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tiques were accurate, there was no reason to reorganise the entire DSPG.32 Amitiés Africaines came under similar scrutiny after auctioning food to raise money for CPOWs, instead of donating food directly to them. This effectively allowed the wealthy to circumvent rationing restrictions.33 The occupation afforded many opportunities for the unscrupulous under Vichy. The amount of money and donations destined for the CPOWs were certainly tempting. However, most of the problems were due to disorgani­ zation and overzealousness, and not to criminal masterminds. Despite this corruption within the aid organizations, they did substantially improve the CPOWs’ rations. Despite Vichy’s substantial efforts for the CPOWs, they remained first and foremost colonial subjects. Vichy feared the dangerous precedent if the CPOWs thought that France owed them something even as small as rations. Despite providing extras, Vichy did not want CPOWs to feel enti­ tled to these deliveries or start making demands on the state. Regular distribution of chocolate, couscous, rice, sugar, kola nuts, dates and other food by the French Red Cross and the DSPG in the Ardennes created an unfortunate situation for Vichy. CPOWs had got the idea that this was a normal ration owed to them and that they could claim it as such. The German guards helped reinforce this view by pointing out the merits of their claims, and often joining the prisoners in complaining . . . if there were delays or reductions in the quantities distributed.34

The Germans provided a useful third party for Vichy in relation to their CPOWs: Germany could be blamed for the harsh experience of captiv­ ity, unless the Germans were encouraging the CPOWs in their demands. Vichy, on the other hand, actively helped to improve conditions – improv­ ing matters in the Frontstalags was one way to fight German assertions that France had abandoned the CPOWs. Vichy felt its donations were a simple and effective counterweight to German propaganda and feared that any complaint about the French contributions, not about the German captors, was a slippery slope to outright rebellion. Vichy’s fear was greater than the actual risk represented by CPOW complaints. Nonetheless, the potential for subversion of Vichy’s authority was real.

Gender and Paternalism As seen, the type of aid was tied to its perceived benefit. The individual package was archetypal of the POW experience. Whereas French and European prisoners depended on family parcels, this was harder for the CPOWs owing to distance and cost, hence the government individualized

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parcels for CPOWs. By taking over the family’s role, Vichy, through Pétain, was further able to present itself as the father of the nation and the French Empire. His photo was often included in the CPOWs’ packages35 with a note explaining which colonial authority had sent it. For the CCAPG,  . . . the individual package . . . brings the native the proof of solicitude, not only of the nation but of a particular element in this community: the colonial organization, the Governor or Resident General, substitutes itself for the pris­ oner’s far-off family.36

Aid needed to appear individualized to be effective, even if this increased cost and time.37 The traditional French view that its colonial subjects were inherently childlike and in need of guidance resonated with Vichy paternalism. The question of paternalism was intimately linked with that of gender and colonial politics. Colonial subjects were seen as children or men with an infantile understanding of French civilization. For the CPOWs, the subordinate colonial authorities actually replaced the CPOWs’ families, whereas helping French families with their packages was seen as a way to reinforce the familial bond, not replace it. If Pétain was a father figure, then who was the mother of the French Empire? A few formidable women, like Mme Weygand and Mme Noguès, coordinated relief efforts for North African POWs. 38 The women Red Cross drivers also provided the personal touch, even when bringing group deliveries to the Frontstalags. They often had more access than other Vichy officials, as camp commanders made exceptions and let them visit the work groups.39 Sometimes France itself was personified as the mother or mère-patrie. One CPOW wrote to Pétain: Without France’s benevolent attention, we do not know what severe treatments would be inflicted on us natives. But now our good mother, watching over her children, knew how to soften yesterday’s enemies and manage to pamper us through the mesh of the barbed wire.40

CPOWs had more contact with French women during their captivity than under the strict segregation of the colonial states. Women personified the differences between top-down and bottom-up assistance to the CPOWs. Seeing French women in these maternal roles – from Mme Weygand, in all her glory, to the local girls playing godmothers – placed them on a pedestal. Vichy hoped this would remove them as potential objects of the CPOWs’ sexual desire. Sexual policies for colonial soldiers were problem­ atic, and never more so than under Vichy’s reactionary gendered politics. During the First World War, colonial and French troops shared broth­ els. This ensured the men’s needs were met while keeping them away from respectable French women. The Vichy regime’s return to traditional

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French values reinforced a reactionary approach to both women and sex. One sometimes shared by the camp guards who did not condone all inter­ actions between CPOWs and locals. One 23-year-old prisoner, Tayeb, met a suspicious death after he ‘was caught talking to a young Frenchwoman delivering milk – with whom he was suspected of having relations’.41 That Germany did not want colonial prisoners interacting with German women was abundantly clear after the occupation of the Rhineland. Was this a reaction of white European solidarity with the French milkmaid, jealousy that a CPOW was able to seduce a French woman, an act of terror designed to deter other CPOWs from sexual or friendly relations with the French population or simply an act of violence against a colonial prisoner? The fact that Vichy requested an inquiry does not imply they encouraged relations between the CPOWs and French women. Both sides preferred less controversial interactions between the French population and colonial prisoners of war. Godmothers were Vichy-approved maternal role models for the CPOWs. At Epinal: Girls accept to be godmothers. To allow them to meet their godsons, we sent the [godsons] for medical visits in Haxo on prearranged days and along the road to the hospital they had all the time they needed to meet a Samba Diouf or a Santa Troaré transformed into Jean Jacques or Jean Louis (those were the fashionable first names) and were very impressed with their recent promotion to an apostle and proud to have a godmother who sends them, from time to time, a parcel or a letter.42

One prisoner, Léopold Senghor, first president of Senegal, observed that many prisoners ‘had a godmother who spoils them as much as possible. The Frenchwomen, through their selfless generosity and courage, were the best propagandists for France’.43 The bonds created between the CPOWs and their godmothers were often tight. However, Vichy discouraged relationships between CPOWs and their godmothers, since they placed French women in a subservient position to a colonial subject (Mabon 2010: 94–95). The postal control regularly censored letters from prisoners in ‘the habit of sending photos to Madagascar with them wrapped around European women, supposedly their wives, who were “easier” than the Frenchwomen of the colony’.44 While worrying about the potentially nega­ tive effects, Vichy understood these godmothers were effective in improv­ ing the CPOWs’ morale. So they assisted the godmothers in their efforts. The CCAPG allocated the godmothers the carte de colis which provided the same assistance with parcels as the French had for their family members in Germany.45 As mentioned above, parcels and packages were essential to the prisoners’ mental and physical well-being. They not only provided

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extra food, but as seen, they represented a connection with the family and home. The French officials understood the importance of the parcels and assisted poor families in paying for the contents. The Vichy regime recog­ nized the importance of including the CPOWs in this gesture of solidarity for all prisoners of war. These parcels were all the more effective when they came from specific people, like godmothers, and not the simply the colonial authorities.

Blurring the Lines: Escapes and Bottom-up Assistance Reinforcing the links between France and the colonies went in both direc­ tions. As French citizens responded to the call to help the CPOWs, the lines between top-down aid from Vichy and direct aid between French men and women and individual CPOWs began to blur. Local populations often supplied food and clothes to CPOWs, especially in the early days of captivity.46 Others smuggled in packages or letters. Populations continued to provide all manner of help, even after the establishment of regular Red Cross deliveries. Michel Gnimagnon recalled that civilians adopted god­ sons, distributed soup to CPOWs working nearby, and bought extra food in town for the CPOWs.47 The danger, for Vichy, was that this bottom-up assistance was unregulated, did not follow the established propaganda and sometimes moved into illegal activities.48 Smuggling food to the CPOWs was tolerated, but helping them escape was murkier. Here, the French were not concerned with Vichy’s goals of imperial solidarity. Instead, they were helping individuals escape from the enemy. CPOW escape reports universally praised this solidarity from below. Before escaping, CPOWs studied the possibilities and learnt about potential civilian aid.49 Civilian assistance came in two forms: engaged individuals who helped as they could, and those belonging to a more formal network. The networks at Vesoul and Epinal were particularly effective and served both CPOWs and French prisoners. One resistance leader was also the Frontstalag locksmith.50 Once out of the camp, CPOWs were given false papers, food, lodged in town and transported away by drivers from the Citroën factory.51 Without the support of local populations, CPOWs found it difficult to navigate an unfamiliar countryside. Informal assistance, food, civilian clothes and directions were found throughout the Occupied Zone. Men, women and children all helped CPOWs escape. In one village a mutilé de guerre and former prisoner from the Great War provided food and civilian clothes, and advised walking during the day to avoid German patrols.52 Aomar Ben Mohamed Ben Aissa concurred: ‘All the peasants I met along

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the way helped as much as they could: feeding me, sheltering me, cloth­ ing me (nearly new civilian clothes) and even giving me money’.53 On the contrary, Senghor reported that few prisoners escaped in the Gironde as the camps were surrounded by complex systems of barbed wire and the civilians were indifferent to the CPOWs.54 As Gnimagnon stated, ‘in most cases, we could not escape during the day like the Europeans; despite the best disguises our colour betrayed us’.55 Creativity helped overcome these disadvantages. Albin Bancilon was hidden in plain sight on a French farm whose owners pretended he was their servant.56 Mohamed Ben Ali took a risky but simple approach: dressed in civilian clothes and carrying a bucket, he pretended to be a North African civilian worker.57 Crossing the demarcation line was the most dangerous part of their journey. Initially understood as an administrative marker, the demarca­ tion line rapidly became a closed frontier. Civilians and even Vichy offi­ cials required passes to cross from one zone to the other. For those without passes, underground organizations facilitated the crossing. Two brothers in a village near Dôle collected the signatures of 400 prisoners they helped sneak across the line.58 Escaped CPOW Hassen-Ladjimi explained how one crossing worked: I crossed at a farm that had expressly installed a millstone along the border. While two women were lookouts, a child brought the prisoner thirty metres along the road where the track was made in such a way that it was always camouflaged and all the difficult parts are fitted with a ladder or holes in the fences.59

Prisoners who crossed the demarcation line before November 1942 were considered free and could not be sent back to their Frontstalag. Once across the demarcation line CPOWs had to decide whether or not to report to the French authorities. Shelters for North African prisoners provided beds and enough money to continue to Fréjus or Marseilles. Helping prisoners escape was against the law and punishable by arrest or even deportation.60 Prefects were expected to locate escaped prisoners and report back to tribunes in the Frontstalag.61 After the French General Giraud escaped from captivity in Germany, Scapini publicly asked pris­ oners to abstain from escaping (Bories-Sawala 2008: 97). However, there was a complicated relationship between the legal aspect and the potential propaganda benefits. French officials in the colonies acknowledged that ‘our best propagandists on this subject are the escaped tirailleurs who all emphasize the kindness shown them by the metropolitan French, and blame [Germany] for the beatings and brutality they suffered during cap­ tivity’.62 Additionally, escaped prisoners provided much of Vichy’s infor­ mation on captivity in both France and Germany. As with the potential for

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‘awkward’ relationships to be formed with the godmothers, Vichy accepted that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages, choosing to publicly denounce the escapes while benefiting from them. Between 1940 and 1945, 6.7 per cent of the CPOWs escaped from cap­ tivity.63 This was slightly higher than the total figure for French prisoners, fewer than 5 per cent of whom escaped (Durand 1994: 107). Three reasons could explain the difference: significant help from the location popula­ tions, shorter distances to reach the unoccupied zone (ibid.) and access to French francs through their work. Perhaps a final consideration is that the German authorities allowed an unknown number of CPOWs to escape so as to help their propaganda efforts in North Africa (Thomas 2001: 671) (the numbers of North Africans who escaped was higher than that for other colonies). Some escapees were repatriated to their home country before November 1942, whereas others were placed in French-run camps in the south-east. After the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942 relations with the colonies were cut off completely, as North Africa went over to the Allied side. Germany riposted by invading the southern zone, leaving the Vichy regime only nominally in control. Vichy had lost the Empire and its Free Zone. The question of escape changed dramatically after the loss of the southern zone and the Empire. CPOWs knew they could not return home. Unless they could find work in Paris or wanted to join the resistance, as a small minority did, conditions in the former Free Zone were much like captivity. Who benefited most from Vichy’s philanthropic mobilization for its CPOWs? Duty required that the Vichy government take care of their loyal native soldiers. Previous scholarship argues that the limited number of CPOWs meant they were neglected in favour of French prisoners (Thomas 2002: 660; Mabon 2010). Certainly, CPOWs were in the minority. But their potential to make trouble, as colonial subjects who had witnessed the defeat of France, outweighed their numeric importance. Before repatria­ tion, CPOWs were monitored in French camps for exposure to propaganda and its residual effects. Like the idea of imperial unity, there were cracks in Vichy’s philanthropic mobilization on behalf of CPOWs. CPOWs did ben­ efit from Vichy’s assistance. Their material comfort was greatly improved by the additional rations provided by the Red Cross and other organiza­ tions. Packages provided the prisoners with regular mail even when cor­ respondence with their families was slow or non-existent. While for Vichy helping CPOWs was as much a political as a philanthropic cause, indi­ viduals generally helped CPOWs out of kindness and solidarity. CPOWs did benefit from Vichy’s philanthropic mobilization in their favour, but, as post-war events demonstrated, that did not ensure their continued obe­

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dience. The Germans also profited from Vichy’s material assistance for CPOWs. By donating extra rations Vichy allowed the Germans to pro­ vide only the minimum while reaping the benefits from better-fed prison­ ers in better spirits. Vichy’s goal was to ensure colonial prisoners would remain obedient to France, and it consistently underestimated the CPOWs’ loyalty. The traditional paternalism was offset by individual interactions with the French population, who often helped CPOWs escape. Worse, for Vichy, the bottom-up aid had led many CPOWs to believe that formal hierarchies between coloniser and colonized were crumbling, or at least blurring. However, as the occupation and captivity continued, CPOWs became increasing disillusioned with their situation. All the packages and goodwill could not compensate for the release of all white prisoners from the Frontstalags in the spring of 1941. As CPOWs lingered in France their frustration with the lack of change grew accordingly. Vichy dismissed the CPOWs’ disappointment at finding the colonial status quo reinforced once under Vichy’s sole control as the result of German propaganda. Much of the resentment and revolt came in 1944 and 1945 after five years of captiv­ ity and difficult repatriation.

Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. SHD, 2P67, CCAPG, founding and goals, 16 December 1941. 2. SHD, 2P67, Section Bibliothèque et Jeux, report of activity during its first year, October 1940 to October 1941. 3. SHD, 9R37, Le Service des prisonniers de guerre en zone occupée (Paris: DSPG, 1942). 4. SHD, 2P67, Dupuy to Madame Weygand, [n.d.]. 5. AN, AJ/41/1839, note for the CAA, 4 August [no year]. 6. SHD, 2P67, CCAPG, founding and goals, 16 December 1941; see also AN, F/1a/3650, CCAPG, report, 1 January 1942. 7. SHD, 2P66, Besson to the General Delegate of the CRF, 2 December 1940. 8. SHD, 2P67, Léon Noel, mandate for the CCAPG, 22 July 1940. 9. SHD, 2P67, Huré, report on Amitiés Africaines, 19 November 1941. 10. SHD, 2P66, Besson, summary of the DSPG’s activities from 20 December to 12 January 1941, 20 January 1941. 11. SHD, 2P66, DPSG, summary of activities from 2–15 December 1940, 26 December 1940. 12. SHD, 2P66, DSPG, summary of activities from 27 January to 15 February, 7 March 1941. 13. SHD, 2P66, Besson, summary of the DSPG’s activities from 1–16 March 1941, 1 April 1941; summary of the DSPG’s activities from 17 March–6 April 1941, 26 April 1941. 14. SHD, 9R37, Le Service des prisonniers de guerre en zone occupée (Paris: DSPG, 1942). 15. AN, F/1a/3650, CCAPG, report, 1 January 1942; SHD, 2P67; CCAPG, founding and goals, 16 December 1941. 16. SHD, 2P67, Section Bibliothèque et Jeux, report of activity during its first year, October 1940 to October 1941.

Helping ‘Our’ Prisoners: Philanthropic Mobilization | 211

17. AN, F/41/266, ‘Service de l’aide aux prisonniers de guerre’, La Gazette de Lausanne, 21 January 1941. 18. AN, F/9/2351, Bonko Hambrié to Pétain, [n.d. but response dated 11 August 1941]. 19. AN, F/9/2351, Anderson and Senaud, YMCA report on camp visits in Occupied France, 20 January 1941. 20. SHD, 2P77, Röhrig, note on making art and other objects in POW camps, 31 December 1941. 21. AN, F/9/2352, Andlauer, memo to CCAPG overseas section, 12 November 1942. 22. AN, F/1a/3653, note, Minister of the Interior, Algerian Affaires, 10 March 1942. 23. AN, F/41/305, Paul Marion, speech in Toulouse, 24 January 1942. 24. AN, F/41/273, report for the inspector of finance, 4 March 1942. 25. AN, F/9/2929, ‘Carnet du Prisonnier’, Le Matin, 12 June 1942. 26. AD Eure et Loir, 1W9, P. Le Beaube, monthly information report, 2 August 1942. 27. SHD, 2P69, CCAPG, Overseas Section, 24 November 1941 minutes, 28 November 1941. 28. AN, F/9/2351, Bonnaud to Salle, Minister of Colonies, 16 July 1941. 29. SHD, 9R37, Service des prisonniers de guerre, end of the year report for 1941, 27 January 1942. 30. AN, F/9/2351, Paul Gibson to Noirot, 29 October 1941. 31. SHD, 9P38, Honnorat to the Director du Contrôle et du Contentieux 22 May 1942. 32. SHD, 9P38, Honnorat to the Director du Contrôle et du Contentieux 22 May 1942. 33. SHD, 9R8, report on Amitiés Africaines particularly the Lyons branch, 17 November 1942. 34. AD Ardennes, 1W146, L. Bonnaud to Contrôleur de l’armée sous-directeur de Service des prisonniers de guerre, 19 August 1942. 35. AD Marne, Reims, 6W R819, Bouret to Popelain [n.d.]. 36. AN, F/9/2959, CCAPG, minutes, 13 January 1942. 37. SHD, 9R38, Honnorat, report of the inquiry into the supplying of clothing and rations to prisoners by individual package, 22 May 1942. 38. SHD, 1P33, CRF of Algiers, meeting, 28 June 1941. 39. AN, F/9/2351, Bonnaud to Commandant Jalluzot, 15 December 1941. 40. AN, F/9/2351, Bonko Hambrié to Pétain, [n.d. but response dated 11 August 1941]. 41. Besson to Scapini, 18 September 1942 (AN, F/9/2351). 42. SHD, 14P46, Prost, escape report [n.d.]. 43. SHD, 2P70, Senghor, captivity report, 7 July 1942. Raffael Scheck identified this report as being written by Léopold Senghor. 44. ANOM, FM 1 AFFPOL/929/Bis, Service des Contôles Techniques des Colonies, Secretary of State for Colonies, 5 November 1941. 45. AN, F/9/2351, Andlauer to the sous-délégués d’outre-mer aux associations marraines, 27 April 1942. 46. AN, 72/AJ/291, Roger Dabin to the Secretaire general de la Communication d’histoire de la captivité, 14 August 1958. 47. SHD, 14P46, Gnimagnon, captivity report, 7 February 1941. 48. AD Loiret, 11R14, Secretary of State for National Education and Youth to the prefects, rectors and academy inspectors, 2 April 1941. 49. SHD, 14P16, Gregoire Pische, captivity report, 16 August 1941. 50. AD Haute-Saône, 9J10, Journal de marche du ‘Mouvement Lorraine’ de la Haute-Saône, 28 September 1940. 51. AD Haute-Saône, 9J10, Pierre Choffel, isolated resistance: escapes from Stalag 141, 22 June 1956.

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52. SHD, 14P17, Sergent Mohamed Ben Mohamed Ben El Habib, escape report, 29 August 1941. 53. SHD, 14P17, Aomar Ben Mohamed Ben Aissa, information provided after his escape [n.d.]; see also SHD, 14P31, Debayeux to Chef d’Escadron commanding the IV/64th RAA, 10 October 1940; SHD, 14P17, Mohamed Ben Mohamed, escape report as told to Lieutenant Charpentier, 29 August 1941; SHD, 14P16, Salah Allag, escape report [n.d.]. 54. SHD, 2P70, Senghor, captivity report, 7 July 1942. 55. SHD, 2P70, Senghor, captivity report, 7 July 1942. 56. SHD, 14P16, Nussard, recommend Albin Bancilon for commendation, 1 August 1940. 57. SHD, 14P17, Mohamed Ben Ali, escape report, translated by Ould Yahoui, 7 November 1940. 58. SHD, 14P46, De Peralo, captivity and escape report [n.d.]. 59. SHD, 14P16, Hassen-Ladjimi, escape report, 28 September 1940. 60. AD Haute-Saône, 9J10, Journal de marche du ‘Mouvement Lorraine’ de la Haute-Saône, 28 September 1940. 61. AD Gironde, 45W82, Tribunal de la Feldkommandantur 529 to prefect of Gironde, 14 December 1940. 62. SHD, 3H159, political and economic information bulletin, 9–15 March 1941. 63. Calculations based on the ICRC ‘capture cards’ at the Archives Centre for the Victims of Contemporary Conflicts (BAVCC), Caen.

Sarah Ann Frank received her doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. Her thesis entitled ‘Colonial Prisoners of War and Vichy France, 1940–1942: Experiences and Politics’ was funded by the Irish Research Council. She holds a BA from Hamilton College, Clinton, NY in French and History and an M.Phil. in Modern Irish History from Trinity College, Dublin. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State in South Africa.

CHAPTER 17

French Guards for French Colonial Prisoners of War in German Captivity, 1943–1944 An Anomaly in International Affairs

( Raffael Scheck

In January 1943, the German Military Commander in France (Militär­ befehlshaber in Frankreich, MBF) requested that the Vichy government provide French cadres (officers and NCOs) as guards for an undisclosed number of French colonial soldiers in German captivity. This request pro­ posed that officers of a defeated army replace the soldiers of the victorious detaining power, essentially guarding their own rank-and-file soldiers as foreign POWs on behalf of the enemy power. Following an order by Hitler not to keep prisoners of non-European descent on German soil, the German army had already transferred almost all French colonial prison­ ers (essentially all non-European prisoners) to occupied France in 1940– 41. The MBF had complained about the shortage of guards from the very start, and the lack of manpower, as well as the poor military qualities of the guarding units, had become worse since then. The Vichy government accepted the German request in February 1943, and work detachments (commandos) of colonial prisoners began working under French supervi­ sion in March.1 Clearly, the Geneva Convention on POWs of 1929 did not envision this kind of arrangement, which is exceptional, perhaps unique, in the history of POWs. It would seem that putting prisoners under the watch of their own officers is a risky strategy for the detaining power. The prisoners and their officers might decide to escape together or, worse, stage a rebellion. On the other hand, a government that in good faith accepts the request to take responsibility for guarding its own soldiers as POWs of an enemy power appears to be either foolish or spineless. Such

214 | Raffael Scheck

an arrangement could damage the prestige of this government and under­ mine the prisoners’ respect for it. The deployment of French cadres as guards for colonial POWs in German captivity also occurred in a colonial context. Soldiers of colour from the colonies, used to discrimination based on race, might come to the disturbing conclusion that the colonial power accepted the arrangement as a way of better controlling its own colonial soldiers and that the interests of colonialism trump the hostility between two European powers. What light does the agreement on French cadres throw on Vichy’s collaboration? Not surprisingly, the agreement on French cadres has attracted bitter criticism from some French historians. The agreement appears to repre­ sent one of the most reprehensible examples of collaboration, as a trea­ sonous act by the Vichy state that allegedly allowed the former enemy to husband his manpower and replenish his forces on the Eastern Front after the disaster in Stalingrad. The agreement also appears as an insult to colonial soldiers, some of whom were volunteers. Historian Armelle Mabon, for example, argues: The Vichy regime shatters the notion of citizenship by supporting and accept­ ing the idea that officers guard their own soldiers for the enemy, thereby making the submission of these men a crucial virtue and involuntarily fanning the desire for sovereignty. (2010: 152)

By contrast, I propose that the development and the application of this agreement were dominated less by a spirit of collaboration than by an intense rivalry between German and French officials. While the Germans undoubtedly wanted to save guard personnel and at the same time maxi­ mize the labour productivity of the colonial prisoners, the French were primarily interested in protecting these prisoners from abuses and from German pro-Islamic propaganda, hoping to restore or confirm their loy­ alty to France as the colonial power (Scheck 2012: 447–77). It was not spine­ less complacency that motivated the French government, but rather an interest in maintaining the allegiance of colonial prisoners to France. On a lower level of priority, the French government also wanted to use the agreement as a way of providing some military engagement for officers from the recently dissolved French Armistice Army and for French offic­ ers detained in German POW camps. The French government hoped to preserve for a section of the French officer corps their military spirit and the experience of commanding rank-and-file men. Moreover, it is important to note that the history of this agreement was marred by misunderstandings and lacking coordination amongst the different military and civilian agencies on both sides. These problems

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helped to create mistrust on the German side, leading the MBF to limit the number of colonial prisoners entrusted to French cadres to only 6,000 (approximately 15 per cent of all colonial prisoners in German captivity at this time) and to rapidly suspend the agreement after the D-Day land­ ings. Finally, the reaction of the colonial prisoners cannot be reduced to an outrage over an alleged governmental betrayal that nourished the colo­ nial prisoners’ desire for sovereignty. In short, the agreement on French cadres admittedly serves as a powerful example of collaboration, but of a collaboration that pursued the national and colonial interest of France in a perceived intense rivalry with German interests. At the outset, one should note that the French cadres were never meant to enable German guards to serve on the Eastern Front, quite simply because most of the men drafted into the German guard battalions were either too old or physically unfit for front-line service (Scheck 2010a: 428– 29). The German army was not so desperate in 1943 as to deploy these men against the Red Army. If the German army did use the guards in Eastern Europe, it was almost inevitably for guarding Soviet POWs, men whom the Germans had initially allowed to die (Streit 1978). It was above all the shortage of guard personnel that motivated the German demand for French cadres. The reports of the MBF, dispatched to the higher German commanders every 2–3 months, read like a litany on the lack of guard personnel and their poor military quality. While German army regulations demanded a minimum of 12 guards for every 100 prisoners, and 20 guards for 100 prisoners in commandos near the Demarcation Line separating German-occupied France from the so-called ‘Free Zone’ until 12 November 1942, the MBF had no more than 9 guards for 100 prisoners during the most favourable times, December 1940 to January 1941. The ratio quickly deteriorated as German offensives in the Balkans and later the Soviet Union depleted the manpower at the disposal of the MBF, and it reached crisis proportions in 1943.2 At the same time, the recruitment of French workers for German industry under the relève programme (which set free one French POW in Germany for three ‘volun­ tary’ workers from France) and the compulsory labour service (Service du travail obligatoire, STO) created a labour shortage in France itself. Small work detachments were economically more versatile in France, a country that had many small enterprises and small farms. The lack of guards had restricted the deployment of prisoners in the decentralized way that was best adapted to the structure of the French economy. The MBF therefore had a simple aim when he requested French cadres for the colonial prison­ ers: he wanted to maximize the prisoners’ labour output while minimiz­ ing the deployment of German guards.

216 | Raffael Scheck

Negotiating the Officer Arrangements for Colonial Prisoners A look at the origins of the agreement on French cadres reveals that the initial German messages were vague and ambiguous. The first message, dated 7 January 1943, suggested that the MBF:  . . . has the intention of employing for work in the occupied zone a significant contingent of coloured men who are presently prisoners in the Frontstalags [German POW camps outside German borders] of the occupied territory.3

This was a strange proposal because, after all, these prisoners had already been working under the orders of the MBF for two-and-a-half years. The message further announced that the employment of these ‘Negro pris­ oners’, as they are called elsewhere in the note mentioned above, would mean an improvement of their situation. Here again, the language was ambiguous. The term ‘Negro prisoners’ was perhaps not surprising in light of the fact that the Germans often used it interchangeably with the terms ‘coloured prisoners’ or ‘colonial prisoners’ even though these pris­ oners included not only Blacks but also North Africans (the majority), Indochinese and other non-Europeans from the French colonial empire. But it certainly remained unclear in what ways a different employment of these prisoners would improve their situation. Finally, the message claimed that this improvement would only materialize if the French gov­ ernment mobilized personnel for supervising these prisoners and also committed themselves to the recapture and return of escaped prisoners. The German term for the projected role of the French officers was ‘überwachen’, which means more to ‘monitor’ or ‘supervise’ than to guard, but the commitment to recapturing escaped prisoners implies a guard duty. This passage therefore essentially demanded French guards for French colonial prisoners while leaving the specific status of guards and pris­ oners unclear. Did the MBF perhaps envision a transformation of POWs into more or less free civilian labourers? Such a programme, called ‘trans­ formation’, was introduced for French prisoners in Germany in April 1943, but it did not apply to the colonial prisoners in the Frontstalags of occupied France. Another possibility is that the MBF expected to organ­ ize colonial prisoners as labour battalions under French command. Such units already existed in the ‘Free Zone’, where the Vichy military authori­ ties had integrated colonial soldiers who could not be repatriated into the Indigenous Worker Programme, the Main d’œuvre indigène (MOI) (Mabon 2010: 111–14). In any case, it is clear that the French government faced a half-baked and poorly phrased request. It is equally clear, however, that the French

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government did not ask for any clarifications before accepting the German proposal. Perhaps French officials reasoned that the ambiguous wording of the German note would allow more room for negotiation. The French reply, coming from the Ministry of War on 9 January, used a different terminology than the initial German note. It refers to companies of ‘indig­ enous labourers’ (not prisoners of war) and mentions a mobilization of French officers as ‘cadres’, not as guards. This terminology suggests that French officials understood – or wanted to understand – the proposal as an arrangement similar to the MOI battalions. This would mean a libera­ tion of the colonial POWs from German captivity, something the French POW authorities had demanded several times already (Scheck 2014: 70–73). After a meeting with a representative of the MBF on 23 January, the Vichy ambassador in Paris, Fernand de Brinon, reported to prime minister Pierre Laval that the MBF would, in the first instance, ‘liberate’ 300 ‘black prison­ ers’ as labourers and that the French authorities would be responsible for supervising them.4 It is significant that it remained unclear whether French officers and NCOs would simply replace the German guards of the colonial prisoners. The terms employed by the Germans and French left open the possibility that the colonial prisoners might be transformed into civilian labourers similar to the workers and former soldiers from the colonies already inte­ grated into various labour battalions such as the MOI. Did the Germans mean to transform the colonial prisoners into civilian labourers similar to the transformation programme in Germany, which was already being discussed? In any case, the verb ‘to liberate’ in de Brinon’s report is note­ worthy and surprising in light of the fact that the German authorities normally emphasized that any releases of French prisoners were only conditional and that the prisoners could in theory always be recalled to a POW camp. The German term for conditional release was ‘beurlaubt’ (home leave) (Scheck 2014: 67). No records seem to have survived on the French government’s delib­ erations leading to the acceptance of the German request. Detailed docu­ mentation exists, however, about later discussions prompted by the Vichy government’s efforts to evaluate the agreement. During these discussions in the fall of 1943, some French officials shed light on their initial expecta­ tions and on their motivation for supporting the programme. The primary motivation for acceptance seems to have been the hope to alleviate the situation of the colonial prisoners. This motivation rested on the assump­ tion that French cadres would treat colonial prisoners better than German guards and that the prisoners, many of whom suffered greatly from the lack of contact with their families, would feel more ‘at home’ under offic­ ers from their own army than under German guards. Another motivation

218 | Raffael Scheck

clearly was the French fear of German pro-Islamic propaganda, which targeted foremost the North African prisoners and threatened to under­ mine their loyalty to France. The Vichy authorities were always worried about the reintegration of colonial ex-prisoners into a colonial routine after the war and considered maintaining the attachment of colonial soldiers to France a very high priority. The Vichy authorities also expected that colonial prisoners would receive better supplies and higher pay under French guards than under German guards. This consideration implied a certain competition: we, the French, take better care of the needs of colo­ nial prisoners than the Germans. Another important rationale for accept­ ing the agreement was the interest of the Ministry of War to reinstate recently demobilized officers from the French Armistice Army, which the Germans had dissolved following their occupation of the southern zone on 12 November 1942, and to liberate some French officers with colonial experience from camps in Germany. As the Ministry of War summarized this rationale, it was meant ‘to provide a temporary activity for cadres in circumstances favourable to the preservation of their military spirit’. This motivation reflected a powerful group interest of French officers from the Armistice Army, as highlighted with some cynicism by Robert Paxton in his book Parades and Politics at Vichy: The French Officer Corps under Marshal Pétain (2004 [1966]: 391).5 The contact that led to the creation of French cadres for colonial prison­ ers reflected rivalries and misunderstandings amongst the military and civilian agencies on both sides. It is significant that the MBF first chose to test the waters by suggesting the idea to the Vichy ambassador in Paris, de Brinon, who was known as a pliant and avid collaborator. Formally, it would have been more appropriate to contact the agency that Pétain had actually put in charge of negotiations on French POWs, namely the Diplomatic Service for the Prisoners of War (Service diplomatique des prisonniers de guerre, SDPG) in Paris, also called the Scapini Mission after its director, Ambassador Georges Scapini. The Scapini Mission protected its prerogatives in negotiations on POWs jealously, but not always success­ fully. But the Scapini Mission thought in legal terms. Georges Scapini him­ self was a lawyer, and he would very likely have requested clarifications and demanded that the agreement did not violate the Geneva Convention on POWs. Scapini, moreover, had irritated the Germans when he had insisted in talks with Gauleiter and labour plenipotentiary Fritz Sauckel that the relève programme involve the exchange of one French prisoner for one specialized French labourer, whereas Sauckel demanded a quota of three labourers for every dismissed prisoner (Scheck 2010b: 367–68 and 383–84). Neither the Vichy government nor the German authorities con­ sulted Scapini about the proposed arrangement. Scapini learned of it only

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through indirect channels after it was a fait accompli. He protested several times against the agreement and requested that the colonial prisoners with French cadres be transformed into civilian workers, but to no avail.6 On the German side, the MBF made commitments without consult­ ing the German supreme command, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). The MBF, for example, promised the French that the German army would release French officers and NCOs from POW camps in Germany for the supervision of colonial prisoners. Yet, the prisoners in the camps in Germany were under the authority of the OKW, which learned of the agreement only later and disliked the idea of releasing hundreds of French officers and NCOs to take charge of colonial prisoners in France. In the end, the OKW only agreed to transfer 60 reserve NCOs from the camps in Germany for service with colonial prisoners in France, and the first of these cadres arrived in France only in June 1943. The commander-inchief of the German forces in Western Europe, Gerd von Rundstedt, only learned of the agreement when the cadres arrived. The MBF had not deemed it necessary to inform him.7

The Recruitment of French Officers and Non-commissioned Officers The lack of enthusiasm among the OKW for the release of large numbers of French officers was only the beginning of a string of problems that marred the recruitment of the French cadres. The German and French authorities agreed that some cadres should come from this force, but the French Ministry of War managed to attract only a few volunteers from the former Armistice Army. In March 1943, the MBF became impatient and simply ordered that 5,000 colonial prisoners be placed under French command immediately, even though there were not nearly enough cadres for them.8 Given the lack of volunteer cadres, the order put the Frontstalag commanders in a nasty dilemma. Individual commanders therefore came up with their own solutions. Some of them wrote to the local French pre­ fect or mayor asking that they drum up some ‘volunteers’ among retired or released officers and NCOs. In Bordeaux, a German commander ran­ domly rounded up some French civilians for guard duty, probably young men who were not unhappy to avoid being deported to Germany as forced labourers. They received hunting rifles and were ordered to guard colo­ nial prisoners. In the Frontstalag of Charleville (Ardennes), the German camp commander simply ordered the colonial NCOs already present in the camp to take charge of their comrades.9

220 | Raffael Scheck

The French authorities understandably feared that these arbitrary German recruitment methods would have nefarious consequences for the prisoners and therefore redoubled their own efforts to find suitable cadres. The French efforts, however, were hardly more systematic and appropri­ ate than the German efforts. For example, French officials called up the graduates of the Colonial School in Paris, gave them a military rank (ser­ geant), and sent them to guard work detachments of colonial prisoners. This procedure had the benefit of protecting the graduates from being sent to Germany as forced labourers, but the newly minted sergeants had of course no experience with military command (Vinen 2006: 265). Criteria for colonial experience were equally dubious in the enrolment practices of French cadres. The Ministry of War enlisted, for example, a young NCO from the military academy of Aix-en-Provence simply on the basis of the fact that he had spent two years of his childhood in Tunisia. The Ministry of War accurately summarized the situation in May 1943: ‘There is, indeed, a complete mess in the recruitment of the cadres’.10 Disorder and confusion also characterized the status of the cadres and work detachments under French command. The French insisted that their cadres were not meant to be replacements for the German guards. If a prisoner escaped, the cadres had to alert the German authorities and the French gendarmerie, but – unlike the German guards – they should have no duty to prevent an escape by force of arms. In theory, the cadres should not carry arms, except for the officers, who could carry a revolver, but this weapon served more as a symbol of authority than as a weapon for control and repression. Yet, we have seen that some cadres in the south-west of France carried hunting rifles, and it occasionally happened that French cadres shot at prisoners trying to escape.11 In Salbris, a French NCO even killed a prisoner during an alleged escape attempt.12 The food supply and wages for colonial prisoners under French command were not consist­ ently better than they were for prisoners still under German guard. The French authorities tried to pressure the French employers to offer better pay and nutrition to the prisoners under French cadres, but the situation of the work detachments under French command resembled very much the conditions of prisoners under German guards. Occasionally, French camp inspectors of the Scapini Mission, which had the right to inspect all camps and work detachments regardless of the guards, found that colonial prisoners under French command fared worse than prisoners under the Germans, a fact that the inspectors considered to be scandalous. In a work detachment of the Haute-Saône department, for example, the inspectors of the Scapini Mission discovered in April 1944 that a group of Indochinese prisoners under French command did not receive any wine rations whereas the prisoners of all nearby commandos under German

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guards did receive wine on a daily basis. The conclusion the inspectors drew illustrates their sense of competition with the Germans: ‘It is just intolerable that the fact of being put under French administration should deprive them of this right [to have daily wine rations]’.13 The German and French negotiators came to a swift agreement on only two specific questions: the uniforms of the cadres and their pay. With respect to the uniforms, the Germans agreed to distribute French uni­ forms from the stocks of the Armistice Army to the cadres. The French demanded, however, that those guards who had no military rank and experience wear civilian clothing. On the question of payment, the French insisted that the cadres be paid by the French Ministry of War in order to avoid the impression that the cadres were simply working for the Germans. Predictably, the cash-strapped MBF office did not object. Unfortunately, however, the French administration was often incapable of paying the cadres on time, a fact that enhanced the temptation of corruption and lowered the morale of the cadres.14

Franco-French Relations between French Officers of All Ranks and Those under their Command In light of the chaotic selection of the cadres, their unclear status and their irregular pay cheques, it does not come as a surprise that complaints mul­ tiplied quickly. In Guérigny (Nièvre), the town mayor and some civilians denounced two French officers who allegedly abused the prisoners and embezzled tobacco from aid parcels sent to the prisoners. When the work detachment went on strike to protest against the abuses, the cadres called on the next Frontstalag and asked the Germans to discipline the prisoners. Yet, instead of punishing the prisoners and forcing them to resume work, the Germans made an inquiry and decided to dismiss the two French cadres. The work commando reverted to German control, apparently to the complete satisfaction of the prisoners.15 In the Frontstalag of Nancy, the West African prisoners complained that a French officer habitually called them cannibals, beat them and threatened them. In La-Guerche-surl’Aubois (Cher), the inspector from the Scapini Mission found six French cadres who were indifferent to the plight of the colonial prisoners, whose housing was inadequate and whose clothing was in poor shape. When the inspector asked the cadres about the needs of the prisoners they merely replied that the prisoners needed ‘more wine and more visits to the broth­ els’.16 In many work detachments under French command, the inspectors noted the proliferation of intimate relations between colonial prisoners and French women and a marked increase in venereal disease among the

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prisoners. Visiting a work detachment of 212 Malians in a suburb of Nancy, an inspector noted, for example: ‘One of the primary tasks of the French cadres is to protect the tirailleurs [West African soldiers] from the dan­ gerous solicitations by numerous women belonging to the lowest classes of prostitution’.17 Prisoners themselves reported numerous cases of cor­ ruption and abuse and sometimes called for the return of the German guards. In a suburb of Bordeaux, for example, a work detachment suf­ fered so much from an abusive French officer that the Scapini Mission concluded: ‘A hellish atmosphere rules at the camp, and the men do not stop repeating to me that they would rather deal with the Germans than with a French officer of that calibre’.18 The French Ministry of War soon acknowledged that the morale of the French cadres was very low. The volunteers (a minority) felt disillu­ sioned because they had hoped that they would facilitate the dismissal of comrades from German camps and would then be replaced by these com­ rades. Yet, the OKW’s restrictive dismissal policy meant that most of these volunteers had to stay in their jobs without any hope for an imminent replacement. The irregular pay further damaged morale. To make matters worse, many cadres encountered sharp hostility from French civilians. In Vesoul, for example, pamphlets announced: ‘Hold tight: the bootlickers of the debacle have arrived’. In a bar, civilians insulted three French officers in charge of colonial prisoners saying: ‘You bunch of lazy-bones, what are you doing here? You will all be hanged!’ When a French officer hit a prisoner in public at the railway station, he triggered a riot among civilian witnesses.19 Similar incidents occurred in other places, too. Occasionally, it even happened that the prisoners attacked their cadres, calling them traitors and cowards. In the fall of 1943, the Scapini Mission sounded the alarm, arguing that the French cadres commanded no authority in the face of prisoners and civilians and that this fact created severe risks for the prestige of the French as a colonial power. The Scapini Mission believed that the inferior status of the cadres, who were always subordinate to German commanders, contributed to this lack of authority. It needs to be pointed out, however, that the MBF was not deaf to these concerns; the Germans occasionally transferred German commanders who were abra­ sive and condescending towards French cadres.20 The French Ministry of War and the Ministry of Colonies blamed all the problems on the faulty German selection of cadres, but this was only a half-truth because quite a number of corrupt cadres had been selected by Vichy from the dismissed officers of the Armistice Army.21 Despite all the problems, the higher Vichy authorities opted for a continuation of the programme and even suggested that it be expanded to all colonial prisoners, but the Germans always remained suspicious, fearing that work detachments under French

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officers might defect to the resistance, as happened occasionally in June 1944 (Scheck 2014: 130). The colonial prisoners reacted to the substitution of French cadres for the German guards in contradictory ways. On the one side, there undoubt­ edly were prisoners who felt that the deployment of French cadres was a typical example of colonial discrimination and a betrayal of loyal sol­ diers by the Vichy state. A vocal minority among the prisoners advanced precisely this argument, particularly prisoners from North Africa and from colonies in which all inhabitants possessed French citizenship – such as the French Antilles.22 Other prisoners did not reject the agreement in principle but complained, as demonstrated, about indifferent, corrupt or abusive cadres. Still other prisoners, however, told the Scapini Mission that they appreciated the French cadres because they allowed them more freedom than the Germans and took better care of them. Even the inspec­ tors of the Scapini Mission, which never endorsed the agreement, admitted that some prisoners were indeed happier with French than with German guards.23 Women working for various French aid organizations such as the Amitiés Africaines and Assistantes coloniales confirmed that many prisoners were satisfied with their French cadres. The German and the Free French secret services intercepted prisoner letters that expressed grat­ itude for the French cadres. In May 1944, for example, the North African prisoner Omar ben Ahmed wrote in a letter to his family opened by the Free French secret service in Alger: ‘I am not unhappy here . . . ; for six months already, we have been in the company of French cadres who know us well, like us, and do all they can to help us’.24 Interestingly, ben Ahmed did not call the French cadres ‘guards’ and seems to have seen them more as supportive comrades rather than as oppressors. Unofficial inspections and private testimonies convey a sense of disappointment among many colonial prisoners when the Germans again took control over the com­ mandos with French cadres following the D-Day invasion in June 1944.25 In an internal assessment, the French government in the fall of 1943 reviewed the agreement and its implications and reflected on the rea­ sons for agreeing to put it into place. The priority was always to improve the situation and supply of the colonial prisoners in order to boost the prestige of France as a colonial power (in spite of the fact that Vichy had by this time lost all of the empire). In reality, the French cadres did not make much of a difference. Inspection reports showed that some French work detachments fared better than the detachments under German guards, but others fared worse. Although the French authorities asked French cadres to remunerate the prisoners better, the daily wages of pris­ oners remained approximately the same (usually 10 francs per day, with higher wages being paid in some industries regardless of whether the

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prisoners were under French or German command). While French offi­ cials may have hoped that the colonial prisoners under French guards would not be used for war-related work, a violation of Article 31 of the Geneva Convention tacitly condoned by Vichy, some detachments under French officers did have to perform war-related work (although it seems that the MBF made an effort to minimize such deployments) (Scheck 2014: 182–91). Those prisoners who appreciated the French guards mentioned greater freedom. Yet at the same time the Germans also gave more free­ dom, especially to agricultural work detachments, because of their own shortage of guards. In the Jura region, for example, many black prisoners worked on the farms without any guards. A German soldier just made a daily round on his bicycle, checking at every farm whether the prison­ ers were still there.26 One could certainly hope that French cadres would treat their soldiers better than German guards, but we have seen that this was not consistently the case. Some French officers abused and insulted the prisoners. Undoubtedly, the German treatment of colonial prisoners had also improved significantly after the widespread massacres of black POWs during the campaign of May–June 1940 and the frequent abuses in the following months (Scheck 2007: 2006). The German guard battalions consisted largely of older men unfit for front-line service and generally not very committed to Nazism. In many rural work detachments, relations between German guards and French colonial prisoners became rather friendly, so much so that the French military officials at the end of the war suspected that the Germans had deliberately favoured the colonial prison­ ers in order to destabilize the French colonial empire (Scheck 2014: 264–67). The history of the use of French cadres to guard colonial prisoners exemplifies Franco-German rivalries and an odd logic that character­ ized much of French collaboration: in an effort to maintain or reassert its national sovereignty, the Vichy government agreed to German directives while trying to implement them on its own terms. The result was, as so often, a compliance with German demands that ended up compromising the French position so as to have no real influence on the implementation of policies. In the back of the minds of many French officials, the threat of German pro-Islamic propaganda loomed large. This propaganda had been intense in the first two years of captivity. Placing colonial prisoners under French guard seemed to promise the Vichy government an opportunity to counteract or at least to neutralize this German propaganda. It is also important to consider that the French government already had a certain direct responsibility for the colonial prisoners through earlier agreements; the French government, at the behest of Hitler, had assumed the role of a neutral protecting power for its own prisoners in November 1940, and the imprisonment of colonial prisoners held mostly on French

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territory already involved the Vichy government, through the Scapini Mission. Franco-German agreements had led to the dismissal of some French POWs belonging to certain categories (such as fathers of four chil­ dren or certain World War I veterans), although the German authorities usually resisted applying these agreements to colonial prisoners, espe­ cially the prisoners from the more distant territories. This discrimination, although caused by German decisions, had already created a bad mood among many colonial prisoners in the Frontstalags (Scheck 2010a: 437–41, 2010b: 376–77). To place the remaining colonial prisoners under French cadres appeared to be a welcome opportunity for the French authorities to help improve the morale of these prisoners. Collaboration in this matter was motivated by the French desire to maintain or restore the loyalty of the colonial prisoners to France and to its colonial empire, despite Vichy’s loss of virtually every overseas territory by 1943. It is important to consider, however, that this concern was also important to the new French provi­ sional government installed after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.

Notes Proofread by Helen McPhail. 1. For a more detailed version of this chapter and for more context, see Raffael Scheck (2014: 115–31). 2. Lagebericht Dezember 1940–Januar 1941 and Lagebericht Februar 1941, Archives nationales (AN), site de Paris, AJ 40/443; Lagebericht Januar–März 1943, AN, AJ 40/444. See also ‘Les rapports du Militärbefehlshaber’, a publication of these sources albeit without the extensive appendices, on the site of the Institut d’histoire du temps présent in Paris: http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/prefets/ (last visited: 15 February 2015). 3. Note verbale, 7 January 1943, Roussillon, Ministère des Affaires étrangères (MAE), Papiers de Brinon, vol. 2. For another copy of this text, see: Pour l’ambassadeur de Brinon, 7 January 1943, Service historique de la Défense (SHD), 2 P 78. 4. Telegram, Secrétariat d’Etat à la Guerre, Vichy, 9 January 1943 (signed by Delmotte), MAE, Papiers de Brinon, vol. 2; De Brinon to Militärbefehlshaber, 11 January 1943, SHD, 2 P 78; Communication faite par M. de Brinon au président Laval, 23 January 1943, MAE, Papiers de Brinon, vol. 2; Secrétaire d’Etat aux Colonies to Chef du gouverne­ ment, Vichy, 23 January 1943, MAE, Papiers de Brinon, vol. 2. 5. Note (Chef de Bataillon Daveau), 20 December 1943, SHD, 2 P 78; Rapport confidentiel du Cpt. Detroyat sur l’encadrement des prisonniers Indigènes des Frontstalags par des Militaires Français dépendant du Ministère des Colonies, 9 December 1943, AN, F9, 2276. 6. Note pour la délégation de Berlin, 29 November 1943, AN, F9, 2276. 7. Note pour le Secrétaire d’Etat à la Guerre, par le général Sarrat, Chef d’Etat Major des Colonies, Vichy, 5 March 1943; Note pour le général de Division, Secrétaire général à la défense terrestre, par le généralSarrat, Chef d’Etat major des Colonies, Vichy, 17 April 1943; and Note pour le cabinet du Secrétaire à la défense terrestre, 19 May 1943,

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SHD, 2 P 78; Abteilung Ia to Abteilung Ic, 28 May 1943, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg im Breisgau (BA-MA), RW 34, 60: Verbände ausländischer Arbeiter und far­ biger Kolonialsoldaten. 8. Note pour le Secrétaire d’Etat à la Guerre du Secrétaire d’Etat aux Colonies, Vichy, 4 March 1943, SHD, 2 P 78. 9. Letter to Mr Raymond Aubry (Marne), 12 April 1943, and Note No. 2, Délégation à Paris, 6 May 1943, as well as Note à la direction du personnel militaire, by Daveau, 11 November 1943, SHD, 2 P 78; Tätigkeitsbericht des A.O. [Abwehr-Oberkommandos] für die Zeit vom 11.5. bis 10.6.1943, AN, F9, 3657. 10. Note pour le cabinet du Secrétaire d’Etat à la défense terrestre, 19 May 1943, SHD, 2 P 78. 11. Note de Service au sujet des kommandos de prisonniers de guerre sous surveil­ lance française, 15 February 1943, SHD, 2 P 78; Tätigkeitsbericht des A.O. [AbwehrOrtskommandos] für die Zeit vom 11.5. bis 10.6.1943, AN, F9, 3657; Note by Daveau, Paris, 29 July 1943, SHD, 2 P 78. 12. Scapini to Chef du Gouvernement, 12 August 1943, and Note by Daveau, Paris, 29 July 1943, SHD, 2 P 78; Rapport confidentiel du Cpt. Detroyat sur l’encadrement des prisonniers Indigènes des Frontstalags par des Militaires Français dépendant du Ministère des Colonies, 9 December 1943, AN, F9, 2276; Note pour l’Ambassadeur, by Jean Detroyat, 18 April 1944, AN, F9, 2305. 13. Inspection of commando Bussières-les-Belmont (Hte. Saône), by Bonnaud and Detroyat, 19 April 1944, AN, F9, 2354. 14. Note pour le Général de Division, Vichy, 20 April 1943, SHD, 2 P 78. 15. Note pour le Secrétariat d’Etat aux colonies, 14 October 1943, AN, F9, 2276; Note pour le cabinet. A l’attention de Mr le Capitaine Segond, 16 December 1943, and Zaouche to Bonnaud, 6 December 1943, AN, F9, 2345. 16. Inspection of commando La Guerche-sur-l’Aubois, by Detroyat, 6 November 1943, AN, F9 2353, et Annexe 1: Compte-rendu du Cpt. Detroyat, Frontstalag 133, 4–7 November 1943, AN, F9, 2276; collective letter to the Scapini Mission, 9 August 1943, AN, F9, 2351. 17. Inspection of commando Neuves-Maisons, 25 January 1944, by Guion and Scapini, AN, F9, 2354. 18. A Monsieur le Commandant Bonnaud, undated, AN, F9, 2276. 19. Martinoty to Colonel Mermet (Commissaire régional à Besançon), Vesoul, 6 May 1943, SHD, 3 P 84. 20. Note (Chef de Bataillon Daveau), 20 December 1943, SHD, 2 P 78; Annexe 1: Compterendu du Cpt. Detroyat, Frontstalag 133, 4–7 November 1943, and Inspection of Frontstalag 194 (Nancy), by Dantan Merlin, 16 September 1943; Scapini to Chef de Gouvernement, November 1943; Rapport confidentiel du Cpt. Detroyat sur l’encadrement des prisonniers Indigènes des Frontstalags par des Militaires Français dépendant du Ministère des Colonies, 9 December 1943, all in AN, F9, 2276. 21. Note pour monsieur le contre-amiral Secrétaire d’État à la Marine et aux Colonies, Vichy, 27 August 1943, by Gén. Sarrat, SHD, 2 P 78. 22. For examples, see: Note pour le cabinet. A l’attention de Mr le Cpt. Segond, 16 December 1943, and Zaouche to Bonnaud, 6 December 1943, AN, F9, 2345. 23. Scapini to Chef du Gouvernement, 12 August 1943, SHD, 2 P 78. 24. Omar ben Ahmed to Izza Bent Larbi ben Mohamed, 15 May 1944, AN, F9, 3115. For other examples, see: Tätigkeitsbericht des A.O. [Abwehr-Oberkommandos] für die Zeit vom 11.5. bis 10.6.1943, and Tätigkeitsbericht des A.O. für die Zeit vom 11.7. bis 10.8.1943,

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AN, F9, 3657; Michel Vu Von Minh to man of confidence of Frontstalag 141, 2 August 1943, and Sergent chef Ould Bessi to Colonel Daveau, 6 August 1943, SHD, 2 P 78. 25. One example: Rapport de la Section d’Aisny s/Armentson (Yonne), dossier Rapports d’activité des sections d’assistance aux P.G. coloniaux, AN, F9, 2966. 26. Feldkommandantur 560 to Kreiskommandanturen, 22 February 1941, AN, AJ 40, 954.

Raffael Scheck, born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, is Katz Distin­ guished Teaching Professor of Modern European History at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, United States, where he has been teaching since 1994. He received his Master’s degree at the University of Zurich, and his Ph.D. at Brandeis University in 1993. In 2003 he completed his habilitation at the University of Basel. Scheck is the author of five books and more than thirty articles and chapters on German history 1871–1945. He started out with studies of right-wing politics in Germany during World War I and the Weimar Republic before focusing on French colonial prisoners of war. In 2006, Scheck published the book Hitler’s African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940 (Cambridge University Press), which also appeared in French (2007) and German (2009). The German version was selected as the fourth best non-fiction book published in German in 2009 by a group of editors and journalists. In 2011, Scheck dis­ covered an unknown captivity report of Léopold Sédar Senghor, the first president of Senegal (1960–80). His latest book is French Colonial Soldiers in German Captivity during World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Scheck is currently working on a project on the forbidden love relation­ ships of French prisoners of war and German women during the Second World War.

CHAPTER 18

Why Release the Prisoners?

The Algerian Army of National Liberation

( Raphaëlle Branche

On the night of 1 November 1954, a new political actor emerged on the French political scene: the National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale; FLN). Through its ability to carry out simultaneous attacks in a number of places on Algerian territory, the new arrival would demon­ strate both its organization and its determination not to respect the rules of the colonial game. It focused on seizing independence from France, who had considered Algeria their own possession for more than a century. The armed option was not a matter of confrontation between two armies: in Algeria, France was not facing the same kind of enemy that had defeated the French army a few months earlier in Indochina. Even at its strong­ est period the Algerian National Liberation Army (Armée de libération national; ALN) would never inflict the level of daily losses – sometimes reaching several thousand – that had been the mark of the earlier war; it would never take control of whole areas like the Viet Minh, and it would never gain the organizational and logistical capacity shown in the attacks on, in particular, the Route Coloniale 4. The War of Independence, begun by a few hundred men at the most at the end of 1954, would remain asymmetric and unequal until its conclu­ sion in 1962. In the first two years of the war, the influence of the FLN expanded considerably within the Algerian population. Various hide­ outs swelled with new recruits, too often badly trained and inadequately armed. Nevertheless the army was organized and at the height of the mili­ tary confrontation, in 1957–1958, real military units consisting of several hundred men (the Katibas or companies) could be brought together on the ground. Still, the ALN always preferred guerrilla warfare, concentrating

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on localized surprise attacks, with other networks engaged in targeted assassinations or indiscriminate attacks. The French military repression was extremely forceful. Ultimately, around half a million men were concentrated in Algeria, and the French army had total control of the sky. Gradually it managed to stifle the ALN by making any contact outside the country extremely difficult, in partic­ ular to the east and west, the potential sources of arms, munitions and recruits. While the situation varied according to location, a general mili­ tary deterioration in France’s favour was increasingly apparent from 1960. The FLN did not enjoy a rear base comparable to that of the Viêt Minh and the resource that China represented for them from 1949 onwards, and the organization had no previous experience from an earlier guerrilla war – as Ho Chi Minh’s fighters had gained between 1941 and 1945; but the Algerian nationalists were quick to learn how to use the international arena in promulgating their claims and putting diplomatic pressure on France. In September 1958, the executive organ steering the struggle against France took the name of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Algeria (Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Algérienne; GPRA); under this name it took steps towards international recognition.

French Soldiers in the Hands of the ALN The question of captured French soldiers became an element in this ambi­ tious initiative.1 For, despite the practical imperatives of guerrilla warfare, the ALN did indeed take prisoners, who were generally treated as well as possible in very precarious conditions (Connelly 2002). The instructions on treating prisoners that are extant in the archives consistently show concern for maintaining a certain humanity – although prisoners are not always directly mentioned. At the beginning of the war, for example, the ‘Liberator’s Guide’ seized by the French army in July 1956, and probably taken from the archives of Belkacem Krim (leader of the struggle in the region of Kabylia), stipulates that ‘treacherous or barbarous means are forbidden, in a word anything that aggravates suffering without a direct influence on the outcome of the struggle’.2 Most of those in charge of the war, which had been initiated eight­ een months earlier, assembled in a remote Kabylia setting, the Soummam valley, at the end of the summer. The outcome was a re-organized structure for the FLN/ALN.3 At its head, a collective, the Committee for Coordination and Action (Comité de coordination et d’exécution; hence­ forth CCE) would now draw conclusions and establish the course of action

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for a movement whose influence had expanded considerably in Algeria, both politically and militarily. A certain number of generally applicable rules were laid down at the Soummam Congress, with the aim of putting an end to the considerable differences in the way the struggle had been undertaken until then. The congress took a clear position on the question of prisoners: it was necessary to take prisoners of war from the enemy forces, and to treat them well. Taking its inspiration from the rules of international humanitarian law, the FLN recommended taking the prison­ ers’ names, communicating them to the hierarchy and assembling the men in a place where they could be held together. But there was one nuance; the congress also recommended the gather­ ing of information on the officers to ascertain ‘whether they committed or ordered war crimes (collective reprisals, arson, various types of destruc­ tion, rape, etc.)’ – anticipating trials that would take place or at least be announced by the ALN in certain cases.4 The prisoner’s rank could indeed play a role either in overexposing him or, to the contrary, giving him a par­ ticular value as booty. In fact not all the prisoners could expect the same treatment: Algerian civilians in particular must be identified separately, their abduction being perceived differently from the capture of French prisoners – the concern here was to terrorize the civilian Algerian popu­ lation. As for Algerians serving as military personnel, they were either considered victims of the French army as conscripts, in which case they were offered the opportunity to join the ALN, or they were executed for being members of the French army, either as volunteers or auxiliaries.

Figure 18.1. Politico-military areas and location of ALN units, 1 October 1958. Source: Guy Pervillé, cartography by Cécile Marin, Atlas de la guerre d’Algérie © Editions Autrement, 2011.

Why Release the Prisoners? The Algerian Army of National Liberation | 231

Theoretically, when deserters from the Foriegn Legion deserted, they were meant to be returned to their countries of origin (‘except the Spanish who have something to fear from their governments’ according to a docu­ ment recovered in the west of the region of Oran in September 19575), but their fate when taken prisoner was far more uncertain and still needs research. As for French civilians, with the exception of women, who seem to have been freed more quickly than the men, they shared the life of the military prisoners. At the same time, their liberation was not an occasion for dramatic propaganda discourse, as in the case of liberated French sol­ diers and particularly those freed in Tunisia and Morocco. The contrast between living conditions in the Algerian maquis (rural areas) and outside Algerian territory was very striking indeed, for both the Algerian combatants and their prisoners. The difficult conditions in the maquis in general were intensified by both the repression based on setting up forbidden zones and the secondary impact of direct repression by the French army. The mortality rate among prisoners reflected this con­ trast: once transferred outside Algeria, a French prisoner had every chance of survival – not at all the case for a prisoner who remained inside the country. In any case, the death rate was very high: more than 58 per cent for these military prisoners and more than 70 per cent for the civilians. Once outside Algeria the prisoners were no longer in the hands of their captors. Prisoners became a political instrument for external FLN officials and, de facto, one of the elements revealing the tensions that could exist between the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic, based in Tunis, and nationalist forces inside Algeria. Once the individuals who took the prisoners were no longer the same as those who held them or those who negotiated their release, the complex stakes at play in the liberation struggle became evident; political and military interests did not necessar­ ily converge, while local assessment and national aims were potentially in conflict with each other. The management of prisoners is interesting to analyse as a stake in both the relations between France and the FLN and within internal Algerian politics. This double perspective was even more evident when it came to their release, a process involving issues tied to the specific conditions of detention as well as to international humanitarian law. Although the Geneva Conventions preceded the conflict and had been ratified by France, the country did not apply them during the conflict. More precisely, the French government admitted reluctantly that the third convention, con­ cerning prisoners, might have a certain application in the ‘operations to maintain order’ being carried out in Algeria. On nine occasions the gov­ ernment authorized representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit certain places of detention (Branche 1999: 101–25;

232 | Raphaëlle Branche

Klose 2011: 107, 126). The Swiss organization tried to use the principle of reciprocity to obtain access and a similar acknowledgement from the FLN and the GPRA, but the task proved virtually impossible. The FLN was in the end not susceptible to the same international pressure as France. The fact that it evolved during the course of the war represented its perception of the Geneva Conventions as an international instrument enabling it to attain the de facto status of an international interlocutor. During the first years of the conflict the action of the FLN on these questions was very limited. Representatives of the ICRC tried in several ways to obtain information on prisoners held by the FLN, but consistently ran into negative or delaying responses. Nevertheless, at the end of 1956 the FLN delivered to the ICRC a copy of two letters written by French prisoners to their families. Later, on several occasions, the ICRC received mail and even tapes recorded in Oujda, Morocco, by other prisoners; nine messages from prisoners in the Algerian interior were likewise transmit­ ted in March 1959. But no systematic action was apparent; the ICRC had no success in its attempts to exercise influence on its Algerian contacts. At the end of 1956 the organization was informed that an Algerian Red Crescent was to be established, and in May 1957 its head, Dr Djilali Bentami, was officially accredited by Ferhat Abbas, acting for the FLN, to be the sole Algerian intermediary with the ICRC.6 At the end of May 1958, the ICRC, weary of the lack of cooperation from the Algerians, addressed a memorandum on the Geneva Conventions to both parties. This bore results: the CCE now asked all the FLN author­ ized to make decisions in Algeria to supply the names of all FLN mem­ bers who had been captured, killed or convicted by the French authorities. In turn, the CCE also added that it wished to be informed of the iden­ tity, rank, ID number, region of origin and date and place of capture of every French soldier taken prisoner ‘from the moment of capture’. It also stipulated that ‘once this information is made available, the fate of enemy prisoners will depend solely on the CCE’.7 In this respect the CCE acted as a central executive organ, something that was broadly contradicted in practice on the ground, particularly where prisoners were concerned. In the summer of 1958 messages from prisoners being held in Morocco were transmitted to the ICRC as a gesture of good faith; but by the autumn of that year the CCE was forced to admit that it had failed to obtain a guarantee from certain local wilaya (public authority) officials ‘that the commitments subscribed to by the CCE concerning the prisoners will be effectively honoured’.8 Already at the time of its self-proclamation in September 1958 the GPRA declared itself in favour of ‘the application of the humanitarian clauses of the Geneva Conventions’,9 and in the spring of 1960 it took an addi­

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tional step. Supported by Libya, which offered its approval, it declared its agreement to the Conventions.10 But great complexities stood in the way of the practical realization of these declarations: relations between the ter­ ritory’s exterior and interior had been made increasingly difficult by the French army’s construction of two electric fences at the Algerian frontier and large-scale methods of repression. In practical terms, therefore, at the end of 1960, Abdelhamid Mehri (at the time the GPRA’s Minister for Social Affairs) could only admit to his contacts at the ICRC that ‘he faced very great material difficulties, being almost totally without any links with the interior’.11

When the Liberation of French Prisoners Becomes a Stake in International Recognition When it came to the question of recognition, prisoner releases served as the most effective form of publicity. The maximalist position that ‘if you don’t recognize us, no release’ was largely ineffective. In March 1958 France introduced internment centres (Centres militaires d’internés, CMI), which showed greater respect for the Geneva Conventions relating to captured armed combatants. Basically, however, they represented an effort to fragment the FLN by alienating its combatants, somewhat in the manner of the ‘peace of the brave’ subsequently proposed by de Gaulle to the ALN fighters.12 Did the establishment of the CMIs – camps where the Geneva Conventions for captured armed soldiers were recognized – have any effect on the release of French prisoners? It is very likely that this approach did not match the intentions of the CCE, for whom the totality of arrested and interned militants were, at least in theory, worthy of the same recognition. Conversely, for the FLN one type of performativity was certainly intended: ‘We release prisoners, hence we act in respect of the laws of war; hence we are valid interlocutors with international stature’. This dimension was evident in the case of the releases organized in Morocco and Tunisia with the support of the Red Crescent and the ICRC at the end of 1958. At this point the GPRA very clearly wished to demonstrate its desire to act in conformity with the laws of war, in order to strengthen its demands for international recognition. It therefore opted for non-recip­ rocated releases rather than retaining prisoners with a view to future exchanges or as blackmail to influence the fate of prisoners condemned to death. Wishing to assert its authority more firmly, at least in relation to the international community, and perhaps to divert attention away from

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the difficulties in imposing its will in the country’s interior, the GPRA announced an ‘amnesty’ on 3 October 1958. Imitating the French posi­ tion in this respect, which held that nationalist prisoners were criminals whose release was only possible through an amnesty, the GPRA promptly proclaimed that it would free several prisoners. This was done on 19 October, with the release in Tunis of four French soldiers captured in January 1958 near the Tunisian town of Sakiet Sidi Youssef. The release opened an auspicious period for the prisoners, with eight more being freed in Morocco in December and a further forty-three men over the following thirteen months. But from January 1960 the pro­ cess dried up very visibly. If we look only at conscripts, the reduction is even more striking, since from July 1959, with the exception of three prisoners freed in December in Morocco, only members of the Foreign Legion were freed. Morocco and Tunisia had been supporting the Algerian nationalists and were logically stakeholders in the releases. Accordingly, a ceremony was held in Tunis to celebrate the 19 October 1958 release of the four pris­ oners, presided over by the president of the Tunisian Red Crescent. In Rabat the king’s daughter Princess Lalla Aïcha performed the honours in the presence of the media and ambassadors from the Arab countries, who were present for the occasion. These prisoners, the first to be ceremonially released, were particularly symbolic of the wish to internationalize the conflict, since their capture near Sakiet Sidi Youssef in January 1958 was used as the main French justification for bombarding the Tunisian village – accelerating precisely that internationalization. Already at the end of that month – in the first such occasion of its kind – the FLN had authorized a visit by two ICRC representatives to the prisoners and publicized the event despite a certain doubt that the men were indeed on Algerian soil. This relationship with location also lay behind the irritation among French military authorities when, at the beginning of 1959, information filtered out that prisoners were going to be freed in Kabylia. The news fol­ lowed a decision taken by Amirouche Aït Hamouda (known as Colonel Amirouche), leader of wilaya III, doubtless in accordance with the amnesty decree of October 1958. For General Allard, commander of Algiers mili­ tary regions, such a release carried two types of risk: on the one hand a suggestion that the FLN controlled entire areas of Algerian territory; on the other the need it generated for ‘contacts’ or ‘negotiations [that] would thus constitute an indirect recognition of the FLN’s status as a belligerent party’.13 Be that as it may, the French had no room to manoeuvre; nine pris­ oners were freed in Kabylia on 18 May 1959. The fact that this took place in Algeria indeed sent a strong signal in the direction of France, attesting as it did to the ALN’s confidence in its capacity to act and resist – and

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this despite information that would certainly be furnished by the released prisoners. More broadly, this action bolstered the global GPRA discourse regarding the ALN’s respect for the Geneva Conventions; at the same time it seemed to show that the recommendations of the GPRA were followed by results in Algeria’s interior, thus pointing to the existence and nature of links with the country’s exterior (the GPRA commanded, wilaya III carried out the orders). In reality, the situation in Kabylia had been strained. Colonel Amirouche genuinely controlled areas where he could hold his prisoners; but he also suffered considerably from French military operations and the lack of weapons and reinforcements from the exterior. In March, he had set out for Tunis, intending to plead the cause of his wilaya – but was killed in the course of this march eastwards. News of his death was broad­ cast by the French, for whom the death of this charismatic and feared leader was a triumph. Nevertheless, his successor, Abderrahmane Mira, did not question Amirouche’s decision to liberate prisoners. Further, feel­ ing threatened by French military operations, he no doubt wished to be free of the burden that the prisoners represented. On 11 May, he informed the nine men still being held prisoner (several others having died in cap­ tivity) that they were going to be set free. They were shaved and had their hair cut, were supplied with new clothes and canvas boots, and received more food than usual. They then marched for seven days before reaching the tarred road to Yacouren, where they were released.14 Among them were three men captured fifteen months earlier: it appears that wilaya III had now decided to settle the prisoner question by disposing of its holdings. It is probable that all other French people who had vanished in Kabylia were dead, since their removal to Morocco or Tunisia would have been virtually impossible.

Prisoners of the FLN Facing International Law Looking at this complex case, we see that the fate of French prisoners oscil­ lated according to variable assessments of the local military context, global political interests and relations between wilaya III and the exterior. In any event, the interior always had the last say in the matter of prisoners. The FLN was certainly interested in the disposal of prisoners by having them sent to Morocco or Tunisia when possible, but when they were retained in Algeria, the exterior could not exert influence. Some were convicted by ALN tribunals and executed without any consultation with the CCE or the GPRA. On 9–10 May 1958, for example, Si M’hamed, leader of wilaya IV, first instructed the council of zone three to ‘execute the two prisoners

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immediately’, and then mark the location of their graves. He then justi­ fied his first order by indicating that the two men were ‘considered to be war criminals’.15 This internal justification – the FLN itself meting out justice – was also offered in respect of the civilian population and the French authorities: prisoners’ corpses were thus left in the open accompa­ nied by texts indicating that they had been convicted and executed. One of the first French soldiers to be the object of such treatment was Lieutenant Olivier Dubos, captured along with his men at his post on 4 February 1958. His body was found at the beginning of July 1958, with a letter to the French authorities pinned to his collar; it referred to his execution as reprisal for the death of an ALN officer. The letter was official, sealed and signed by the wilaya leader, Amirouche, and tracts were placed around the corpse entitled ‘the law of retaliation’ (i.e., ‘an eye for an eye’).16 In other cases the bodies were not produced but the verdicts were made known to the media. In the case of Lieutenant Dubos, when the French army decided on a blackout, Amirouche wrote directly to the man’s family, to the ICRC, and to the press to make his decision known. 17 Conversely, the prisoners could be used for blackmail not only vis-àvis the French authorities but also as part of the struggles at work within the FLN itself. This was doubtless the case with one of the two executions that received the greatest media attention in the war. The two 22-year-old cavalrymen involved, Clotaire Le Gall and Michel Castera, were executed in August 1960 after getting lost in fog near the Tunisian border and being captured on 5 May 1960. They had probably been seized in Tunisia. After announcing at the beginning of August that a trial would take place for crimes committed, the GPRA Minister of Information announced their death sentences, passed by an ALN tribunal. The possibility of a reprieve was then raised – the GPRA here imitating the French state – but in the end their execution was announced on 13 August. Neither the French authorities nor the ICRC could do anything. For the French observers, this execution was immediately understood in the light of the executions announced in May 1958, which had sparked anger in Algiers and culminated in the fall of the French government. Was the GPRA in effect trying to provoke a new development of the same kind? In the summer of 1960, negotiations with France on Algeria’s future had stumbled and been broken off. It was known that General de Gaulle was ready to try making peace separately with different wilayas, an effort he had already tried with Si Salah from wilaya IV in June 1960. The GPRA used these prisoners to prompt a development. Whether on account of enervating summer humidity or simply a sense of lassitude, in any event nothing happened in either Algiers or Paris. Despite the recent failure of negotiations in Melun, the French retained their confidence in both

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de Gaulle and Michel Debré. In Algiers, the fiasco of the ‘week of barri­ cades’ in January 1960, then the departure of General Challe in the spring, served as a clear reminder that Paris would not let itself be dictated to in its conduct of events in Algeria. While there was no hardening of position by the French, this was not the case on the Algerian side. It was this execution which de facto marked a tougher GPRA attitude, hence a revival of the sorts of events taking place before May 1958 – that is, before the FLN’s very clear accommodation with respect for the laws of war from the spring of 1958. The position of the Algerian negotiators had now been unmistakably weakened. Less than ten days after announcing the execution, the GPRA proclaimed its new position: no bilateral negotiations with France would lead to a solution. More than ever before, the internationalization of efforts at resolving the conflict was now on the agenda. Calls by the GPRA for the organization of a referendum on Algeria under the aegis of the United Nations were nonetheless fruitless; it thus had no choice but to return to the negotiating table. More than eighteen months later, article 11 of the Evian Accords would stipulate that:  . . . all prisoners taken in combat and held by each of the parties at the time the cease fire takes effect will be released; they will be handed over within twenty days after the cease fire to the authorities designated for this purpose. The two parties will inform the Committee [of the ICRC] of where their prisoners are located and of all measures taken for their release.

But the Evian Accords did not bring the negotiations to an end, with France refusing to free all its prisoners before knowing the fate of French prisoners. While the French army acknowledged that it held around 3,700 ‘prisoners taken in combat’ and detained in the CMIs, the GPRA gave no figures. Notwithstanding this failure, the French government gave ground rapidly, promising to release half of the prisoners in the expecta­ tion of a gesture from the Algerian authorities. At the end of April 1962, 1,865 prisoners were then released by the French authorities: the FLN then announced the release of three soldiers, freed in Tunis. In May, four additional French prisoners were released from Algerian hiding places in Morocco; two more being released in Algeria itself. French authorities waited in vain for more prisoners to be released. Eventually, in June, they opened the gates of all their camps and prisons: Algeria was not under French rule, and was to become independent at the beginning of July. The last such soldier, Maurice Lanfroy, who had been captured on 13 July 1957, was set free on 17 May 1962. His release received no publicity, and on his return to Paris he was deposited outside the door of the Val de Grâce military hospital after an examination that lasted only a few

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moments: the war of decolonization was already over and no one, apart from close relatives,18 seemed interested in this witness to an epoch that was already in the past.

Notes 1. For an extensive study on the topic of prisoners taken by the ALN, see Branche (2014). 2. Service historique de la Défense (SHD), Vincennes, 1H 1609/2. 3. The FLN was the political party within the structure that included a military branch, the ALN. The use of ‘FLN’ here refers to the nationalist movement in all its dimensions while ‘ALN’ refers to a more strictly military dimension of action. 4. SHD, 1H1613/2, memorandum of the wilaya IV council, 1 Feb. 1958. Note confirming Soummam Congress guidelines. 5. SHD, 1H 1654/1, information bulletin from the Troisième Bureau of the Oran Army Corps, 9 Sept. 1957. 6. Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (AICRC), Geneva, 210008003/2, internal confidential brochure on events in North Africa, June 1957. 7. SHD, 1H1511/1*, matters referred to in a letter from sub-lieutenant Si Zine el-Abine to the political commissioner, wilaya V zone 6 region 1, July 1958. 8. AICRC, 210008003, minutes of a discussion between Gaillard and Dr Bentami, 17 Sept. 1958. 9. Statement of Ferhat Abbas, 26 Sept. 1958, cited in AICRC, 210008003. 10. Formulated and signed by Ferhat Abbas in April, the request was conveyed by Libya on 13 June 1960. See SHD, 1H1755/1. 11. AICRC, 210 008 003, minutes of the interview of 22 November 1960 between Abdelhamid Mehri and Dr Bentami on one side and Gaillard and Gallopin on the other concerning the visit of Mehri to Léopold Boissier the previous day. 12. On the CMI, see Branche (2001). More broadly on the camps during the war, see Thénault (2012). 13. SHD, 1H2592/2*, letter of General Allard to his superior, General Challe, 6 Feb. 1959. 14. Interview with Robert Bonnet by the author, 3 Dec. 2010. 15. SHD, 1H1508*, messages of 9 and 10 May 1958 to the council of zone III, wIV. The French army believed that those involved were the soldiers Jaboulay and Perez, cap­ tured on 14 April 1958 near Orléansville. They had been in the company of a third soldier, Hercelin. 16. The principle was especially evident in the case of Captain Raymond Bouchemal, cap­ tured in June 1958, whose death was announced on Radio Tunis in July as ‘an execution responding to crimes committed by the French military’. 17. File on Lieutenant Dubos in SHD, 1H1510*. 18. The deputy for his department came to see him and upon arrival in his village a TV crew was waiting to film the return of the prodigal son. Interview with Maurice Lanfroy by the author, 4 Nov. 2010.

Why Release the Prisoners? The Algerian Army of National Liberation | 239

Raphaëlle Branche is a historian and Professor at the Université de Rouen. She specializes in French colonial history, counter-insurgencies and, in particular, acts of violence committed by armed forces, regular or irregular, in the nineteenth and twentieth century. She has published amongst others works La Torture et l’armée pendant la guerre d’Algérie, 1954– 1962 (Gallimard, 2001); L’Embuscade de Palestro, Algérie 1956 (Armand Colin, 2010); and Prisonniers du FLN (Payot, 2014). She has also co-edited the fol­ lowing English-language works: Rape in Wartime (Palgrave, 2012) and Combatants of Muslim Origin in European Armies in the Twentieth Century: Far from Jihad (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). With Rémi Lainé, she made a docu­ mentary entitled Prisonniers français du FLN, Alegria productions, France 3, 55 minutes, 2016.

CHAPTER 19

The Other Point of View . . . The Doctor Armed Conflict and Captivity: Aspects of Change between the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

( Jérôme Larché

The most terrifying cataclysm, the most destructive, is this: the absence that passes unnoticed. —Alexis Jennis, L’Art français de la guerre

Dipping into the past in order to gain a better grasp of the present: this work on wartime captivity in the twentieth century is part of the scien­ tific and commemorative effort that is essential to throw light on certain forgotten realities. The various contributions have responded to Fernand Braudel’s cherished concept of the ‘long duration’ of History. Choosing to concentrate more fully on the harsher elements of their studies, and in true empathy towards the subjects, these researchers have no hesitation in extending the direction of their scientific enquiries. Yet even though that is not the primary intention, these scientific subjects are also political in nature; they relate to the dark hours in which, according to the Clausewitz formula, war is no more than the continuation of political action by other means. Past events pose questions but, above all, extend understanding of the present and the direction of the future. As Max Weber (1963 [1919]) reminds us, there can never be true ‘neutrality’ in scientific work, even if the distinction between the two fields, political and scientific, is essential in order to ‘guarantee the autonomy of the scientist but also, in observa­ tion, the responsibility of the politician’ (Fassin 2009: 301). My view of the concept of captivity, in the twentieth as in the twentyfirst century, is a reflection of both the stakes involved and my own very heterogeneous range of activity – as doctor, humanitarian and researcher in political science. In the various contributions to this section to which I

The Other Point of View . . . The Doctor | 241

am invited to respond, I have sought to identify the key words that gave meaning – those which together expressed a local reality, temporally iden­ tifiable in relation to past conflicts and which, paradoxically, retained both meaning and an identification in the reality of current wars. Perception can also exceed reality, notably in the representation of one’s enemies. As Pierre Conessa recalls,  . . . if certain enemies are indeed genuine, others, analysed with the wisdom of hindsight, reveal themselves to be astonishingly artificial. The consequence is that if the enemy is a construct, in order to conquer it, it must be not attacked but deconstructed. (2011: 15 and back cover)

Starting from the experiences of wars and captivity in the twentieth cen­ tury illustrated by the preceding contributions, my intention is therefore to explore those of today with a prism that represents simultaneously the views of the humanitarian and of the political scientist.

Perceptions of the Enemy, from Capture to Liberation: Key Words The patterns of captivity and relations between prisoners and their guards in the major wars of the twentieth century – including the Second World War and the Algerian and Vietnam wars – are still largely dominated by stereotypes, disseminated in the main public media and elements of political discourse. This is not a criticism in itself, but a fact that can be explained by the need for a collective memory and an official history stripped of ambiguities. In effect, when responsibilities must be estab­ lished, ‘the choice of historic setting . . . is thus not only cognitive: it merges with political choice’ (Saada 2012: 152). Historical reality is in fact less dra­ matic and, above all, full of the paradoxes that underlie the full complexity of interpersonal relations during these troubled periods. Outside these case studies, several major stakes are in operation. First of all is the stake of the human condition, comparable to the human propensity to make war, and the conditions in which they make war and deal with each other in situations of captivity. The second stake is of a judicial nature, aimed particularly at respect for international humanitarian law (jus ad bellum/ jus in bello) in armed conflicts. Finally, we must not underestimate the stake of traumas – physical, psychological, even social – created by these conflicts, and their consequences. Sylvie Thénault presents us with a comparative study of the treatment of prisoners in the French wars in Algeria, covering both the wars of con­ quest (1830 and 1847) and the War of Independence (1954–1962). The term

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‘internment’ was used in both cases, but with very different meanings; in the earlier period of conflict, the term ‘prisoners’ was used somewhat indiscriminately, covering combatants, robbers, civilians, women and children, while the second war was more discriminating in this sense, since the concept of individuals ‘taken with weapons in their hands’ jus­ tified the status of ‘prisoner’. Nonetheless, the conditions of ‘internment’ were radically different, with systematic detention in the Algerian War of Independence. Securing these ‘combatants’ in organized detention camps, backed by the French military and political authorities, was above all char­ acterized by refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions – thus withholding the status of prisoner of war and de facto the duties of their jailers. In an echo of contemporary conflicts, this recalls the present-day situation in the American camp at Guantanamo where detainees are held under the terms of the Patriot Act, without prosecution or trial, in open violation of the Geneva Conventions. More controversially, at least in form, Raffael Scheck raises the ques­ tionof French guards being responsible for French colonial prisoners of war in German captivity (1943–1944). Seen as one of the most reprehen­ sible episodes in the collaboration between the Vichy regime and the Nazi state, this officer control appears as tangible proof of the compromise of the French government of the day with the Germans. The situation also adds a sickening reminder of colonialism, a sort of useless revenge on territories long since lost by the French. Yet, here too, the reality deserves closer examination: in fact, the French officer direction encompassed pow­ erful ambiguities that were not always unwelcome to the prisoners but that encouraged the Germans to replace the French as soon as they could. Further, although the soldier-prisoners from French colonies repre­ sented a mere 5 per cent of ‘French’ prisoners, the Vichy government ini­ tiated a system of charitable aid specific to this category, aimed partly at justifying its policy of collaboration and partly at asserting a certain degree of independence from the Germans. For Sarah Frank, these chari­ table actions must be understood as part of a wish to legitimize the French colonial empire in relation to its ‘native’ populations. With the material and moral support of its participants, it was above all a matter of mobiliz­ ing a political tool. To this end, nothing was spared, whether it was the reasoned aspect of the propaganda or religious proselytizing of an oecu­ menical nature. The strategy had collateral effects that were unpopular with Vichy; they were both a genuine rapprochement between the French population and those colonized (gifts in kind, sponsorship, complicity in escape plots, etc.) and also a German manipulation of predictable dysfunc­ tionality in this self-interested aid (delaying postal packages, misappropri­ ating aid, etc.). The invasion of the Free Zone in 1942 sounded the death

The Other Point of View . . . The Doctor | 243

knell of this double Vichy strategy, as much in relation to independence from Berlin as to the preservation of the French colonial empire. The Algerian war on which Raphaëlle Branche has concentrated marked an undoubted turning point in the prefiguration of wars defined as ‘new’, which, in these early years of the twenty-first century, predominate over interstate conflicts. This conflict marked the end of the French colonial era, but above all recalls the range and variety of non-conventional tactics used by the Algerian Front de libération nationale (FLN): terrorism, guerrilla warfare, diplomatic action and the ways in which captured French soldiers were used in the press. All these tactics came together in an asymmetric strategy undertaken by the FLN, the only strategy capable of making up for the military differential between a powerful French army and an FLN consisting largely of civilians who had taken to the maquis and weap­ ons. The result was an imposing military force facing a stronger political will, matched by the capacity to publicize prisoners captured from the French army. Second in command of the 45th battalion of colonial infan­ try, David Galula (2008 [1964]) presents a perfect grasp of the risks of the FLN approach and, combining his knowledge of the terrain with extensive intellectual reflection, has conceived a new counter-insurrectional strat­ egy. Simultaneously a philosophical reflection on the nature of the war and a summary of doctrine, in the years from 2000 it has provided great inspiration for the American general staff in undertaking its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An understanding of these past situations helps us to reach a better understanding of the significant developments that have emerged in the setting – the agents and the consequences of the wars – at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In fact, the paradigm of conflicts and appropri­ ate military strategies has changed in nature. The current multiplicity of actors (and their respective different levels of status) in these territories also deserves careful consideration. We will see finally how the question of captivity stands today at the heart of international humanitarian law, particularly in connection with the ‘Great War on Terrorism’ (GWOT) led comparatively recently by the U.S. administration of George W. Bush and of which the scars are still felt, notably in Guantanamo prison.

The Evolving Nature of Armed Conflicts in the Twenty-first Century The post-cold war period has changed the nature of armed conflicts, which have become essentially intra-state and asymmetric. Since the 1990s, the number and the violence of intra-state conflicts (the Balkans, Great Lakes,

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Sudan, Afghanistan) have increased, with a tendency towards polariza­ tion and radicalization. The collapse of the Soviet empire has resulted in a rereading of wars rather than of new conflicts, because it has revealed the existence of local dynamics that were already in operation during the cold war. A large number of states and non-state armed groups are engaged in confrontations that sometimes take on a global nature, in a clash between value systems and beliefs. The polarization acquires different aspects, such as ‘the Great War on Terrorism’ (GWOT), and ‘the north-south divide’; and the GWOT has led non-state movements to confront states through asym­ metrical strategies, determined to oppose what they see as a ‘neocolonial’ Western influence. The very long-standing north-south division still con­ tinues to raise economic questions, which offer fertile ground for militant ideologies in poverty-stricken communities. Internalization, urbanization, ethno-religious instrumentalization, asymmetry and the privatization (at least partial) of these conflicts have also taken root since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In addition, access to adjoining territories and the seizure of natural resources such as water, timber, pastureland, even oil, have become major stakes. Parallel to these ‘pragmatic’ causes, an ethnic and religious ideologization of hatred of the Other has been orchestrated by different protagonists, ending in neighbour-on-neighbour massacres, a fragmentation of societies already in a fragile state, and lasting changes in their endogenous capacities for reconstruction and resilience. In territories of such complexity, it appears that local dynamics triumph over global logics. In Darfur, for example, the political reading of alliances (and of ruptures) between the different tribes and armed groups occurs on geographical territories of 20–30 square kilometres, in a very shifting and volatile context. Thus, Huntington’s reductive thesis (1996) has mainly concealed the considerable heterogeneity of each cultural area, and nota­ bly the Islamic area, overlooking the fact that ‘in the conduct of wars, the logics of terror win over global interdependencies’ (de Montclos 2007: 12). Humanitarian action refers to the International Humanitarian Law (IHL),1 which is more and more frequently evoked, but also increasingly undermined in numerous states. Very recently the United States has had a very loose, even void, interpretation, using the GWOT in recent years as an argument to justify the unjustifiable. The ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ has therefore shown a new approach to post-conflict humanitarian action, combining security, governance, humanitarian response and reconstruction under the direct control of the American Department of Defence (DoD) within the framework of the Bureau of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid.2 Linking humanitarian activity closely to the United States security agenda, Colin Powell declared

The Other Point of View . . . The Doctor | 245

that the American NGOs would be ‘facilitators for American foreign policy’, notably in the setting of the ‘GWOT’. This strategy, supposedly regulating the inconsistencies in the humanitarian community, very swiftly revealed its limits and inadequacies, to the extent of installing a single line of com­ mand for all aspects of the response linked to the post-conflict era. The strategy of direct and total political subordination of humanitarian action thus appears to be have been settled by a setback, encouraging a more inclusive and multilateral approach respectful of the IHL. In Chechnya, instrumentalization of the ‘war against terrorism’ concept enabled the Russian authorities to avoid describing the situation as ‘armed conflict’, and to consider all Chechen resisters as terrorists. The situation today in the Kibri Dehar district of Ethiopia is a further illustration. This region of the Ogaden is the setting for a continuous conflict between the Ethiopian governmental forces (Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, TPLF) and those of the National Liberation Front of the Ogaden (ONLF), who are pleading for secession from the Somali region. In April 2007 the Chinese oil concession at Obole was attacked by the ONLF, ending with the death of dozens of Chinese and Ethiopian workers. In May 2007, after the explosion of grenades in the administrative capital of Jijiga, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi decided on an energetic politico-military operation to ‘contain’ the actions of the ONLF. In July 2007, many eyewitness accounts confirmed the strategy of the Ethiopian government to strengthen its struggle against the ONLF – designated a ‘terrorist’ organization – despite the contempt of the civilian populations. The IHL was violated in several ways: villages burned, crops destroyed, forced removal of inhabitants, rape, arbitrary detention, economic block­ ade of trade with Somalia, essential medicines frequently withheld. In the end, the ‘GWOT’, initiated by the American government after 11 September 2001, reinforced the discourse on the difference in values between the Western world and the Arab-Muslim world. Raising once more the question of the pretended universality of values, this strategy had first been an instrument for the strengthening of armed conflicts, international political instability and of increased ‘human insecurity’3 in resident populations. Since the end of the 1990s, civil-military operations (CMO) have become one of the major functions of external operations undertaken by Western armies. The French CMO doctrine was revised in 2005 and thereafter used the English-language terminology of Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC), also used in the European Union and NATO. In addition, several refer­ ence texts set out the use of military means and civil defence in support of United Nations humanitarian activities in cases of natural catastrophes or complex urgency. The Oslo Guidelines4 (on natural catastrophes) and the

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Military and Civil Defence Assets Guidelines5 were drawn up to clarify military engagement in the context of these respective emergencies. The recent deployment of the European Union Force in Chad (EUFOR) has shown, however, that the armies wished to be associated henceforward with traditionally ‘humanitarian and civil’ activities, such as water man­ agement and purification. As after the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, NATO increased its presence in response to natural catastrophes. Its role of ‘last resort’ is recognized by the NGOs, but it is also in the interest of the Atlantic Alliance to promote operations designed to ‘win hearts and minds’ in the context of the new doctrine of ‘Comprehensive Approach’ (Borgomano-Loup 2007: 83). It was clearly established that CMO is only there to ‘create an environ­ ment favourable to force’6 and that ‘the support given to civil actors should never compromise the accomplishment of the mission’.7 At the political level, a European Humanitarian Consensus was nonetheless approved at the end of 2009 by the Council and representatives of member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament. It stipulated clearly that the ‘humanitarian aid of the European Union is not a tool for crisismanagement’ (2008: Part I, Chapter 2) and constitutes a solid argument in favour of the NGOs, when it is a matter of avoiding the application of humanitarian operations to politico-military ends.

Multilateral Activists on the Ground in Armed Conflicts in the Twenty-first Century Parallel with this change in the nature of conflicts, new actors appeared and humanitarian activity gradually lost the relative immunity that it had enjoyed until then. Security had indeed become much more than a simple operational fact for the NGOs; the deliberate assassination of sev­ eral humanitarian workers, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Chechnya and Iraq, revealed the extent to which NGOs and international humanitarian organizations could constitute ‘soft targets’. Several studies have been undertaken to understand and assess the degrees of insecurity affecting humanitarian activists. A recent work has indicated that eighty-three humanitarian staff lost their lives in 2006 – that is, three times the number of soldiers killed on UN peace-keeping missions (Stoddard et al. 2006: 2). The same report concluded that ‘the humanitar­ ian organisations have largely failed to consider the ethics of transferring the risk on to the staff or premises or local NGOs’. In effect, the national personnel represented 80 per cent of the victims of serious security inci­ dents affecting humanitarian workers – who are, in fact, the people most

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susceptible to potential reprisals or measures of retaliation once foreign teams have departed. Another study (Stoddard et al. 2009) defines the close relationship between conditions of security and access to local popu­ lations. The spread of serious breaches of security is not uniform, with 60 per cent occurring in three countries (Sudan, Afghanistan and Somalia), while Pakistan and Chad also remain particularly dangerous zones. Libya and Syria are equally dangerous, but above all for the civilian population, with very restricted access to humanitarian activity. Whether it is a matter of attacks with small calibre weapons on convoys or buildings, abduc­ tions or individual attacks – with or without assassinations – these results underline a relative number8 of serious incidents, growing steadily since 2003 and for reasons that are increasingly politicized. Strategies of acceptance have been developed by the humanitarians as the cornerstone of their ‘security’ approach, in contrast to the ‘bunkeriza­ tion’ operated by other activists such as the United Nations or military forces. Even if this community approach has limits that must be recog­ nized, the proximity that it entails remains unavoidable for a lasting pres­ ence; it is operationally effective, reduces the existing risks and thereby respects a certain humanitarian ethic. In the field of ‘complex humanitarianism’ (Larché 2009) the security stake is above all one of access to populations, along with the survival of activity at close quarters and retaining the capacity to bear witness. In certain territories, such as Chechnya, innovative patterns of operation have been tried, such as remote support programmes. In Darfur, acts of violence combine banditry, predation and abductions with the deliberate intention to instil fear and prevent the presence of international NGOs. They target humanitarian staff and civilian populations – ‘unarmed’ oper­ ators in this conflict – creating zones where their situation is critical, on the level of both respect for international humanitarian law and their own conditions of survival – above all when it is known that several million individuals have been displaced during the conflict. The number of national armed forces (essentially North American) and interstate groups (United Nations, European, or from NATO) has pro­ liferated in the areas of conflict, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Darfur, Somalia and Afghanistan. In all these territo­ ries, humanitarian and military activists (national or independent) work side by side and look for ways in which they can achieve their objec­ tives: access and aid for the population in the case of the humanitari­ ans; final outcome for the military. The development of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams – PRTs9 – by the Western armies of NATO, and also Canada and Germany, for example in Iraq and Afghanistan, has however often prevented local populations (and also armed local groups) from dif­

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ferentiating between the humanitarian action of the NGOs and the infor­ mation activity of the PRTs. This necessary separation of roles is a matter of prime importance, nota­ bly in areas of conflict where interdependence is normal; also where a blurring of perceptions will have consequences for the security of all the protagonists – above all for the unarmed activists who thus become soft targets. The military role is clearly not to act as substitutes for humani­ tarian aid but to fulfil the operational mandate entrusted to them by the political authorities. The increased presence in recent years of private military and secu­ rity companies (PMSCs) in the principal areas of armed conflict (Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan) also constitutes a particularly worrying development in the armed conflicts of the twenty-first century. Already used earlier – mainly in Colombia, the Balkans and Africa – the PMSCs experienced a real expansion during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, becoming a full-scale global phenomenon and representing a considerable market. It is esti­ mated today that the annual turnover of the PMSCs amounts to 200 billion dollars (Charlier 2010: 66–72). Apart from the military presence, the PMSCs are used today by many other activists, including the United Nations or other international bodies when they are engaged in violent situations, NGOs or commercial com­ panies, particularly in relation to extractive activities in regions at high risk of violence. But although the presence of the PMSCs has become an undeniable feature of military, or even humanitarian, interventions on a large scale, ‘their existence and their actions raise a trail of legal and ethi­ cal concerns’ (Menon 2008: 3). The recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in which many British and American PMSCs have taken part have shown substantial opera­ tional, financial and politico-strategic deviations, as well as the disastrous human consequences that could ensue. In Afghanistan the American army itself recognizes that, apart from the major financial costs and dif­ ficulties of management for the chain of command, the PMSCs have led to negative effects on the political and military objectives of the counterinsurgency strategy. The scandal of tortures inflicted inside Abu Ghraib prison, implicating simultaneously the American Ministry of Defence and the PMSC CACI International, was thus revealed to be politically very counterproductive for the American executive, quite apart from vio­ lations of the IHL. Even though it is not legally binding, the Montreux Document formal­ ized in September 2008, initiated by Switzerland and with contributions from many states and PMSCs, instigated reflections of this kind. It is thus important to calculate carefully the outcomes linked to these new forms

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of mercenary activity – operationally (in terms of effectiveness – real or supposed – as the result of confusion), economically and politically – the latter notably in terms of the Weberian concept of the state and rupture of the ‘monopoly of legitimate physical violence’, claimed in Le Savant et le politique. The current stake is that of their regulation and supervision by the states, their accountability in the eyes of international humanitarian law, and the way in which states should continue to exercise their powers as rulers, particularly on the terrain of armed conflicts.

Changes in Patterns of Captivity and their Meaning: Hostage-Taking and Arbitrary Detentions Beyond the classic forms of captivity that still exist, new patterns of activ­ ity now predominate that are linked to the asymmetrical nature of con­ frontations, globalization and the weight of media information, and to the increasingly security-minded management of displaced and refugee populations in these conflict zones. Hostage-taking very often creates a crisis situation, which again raises the question of former operational patterns, even to the extent of halting activities hitherto judged essential. Next, crisis management is a lengthy multiform process, requiring the participation of negotiation specialists, who work discreetly, even if the publicity given to some hostage cases has apparently been helpful. Although the capture of one or more hostages is never neutral, the way in which they are treated at a media level is not neutral either – journal­ ists have made the clear choice to publicize situations that affect their col­ leagues. This is not a new attitude, if we recall abductions in the 1980s in Afghanistan. Military forces and government agencies choose discre­ tion, which is the logical choice in relation to their culture, but also per­ haps because of the difference between political and operational stakes. Contrary to the humanitarian abductions publicized in Afghanistan a few decades ago (the case of Dr Augoyard, for example), today’s NGOs prefer to keep a low profile and stress the discretion of negotiations, while they activate their local networks to obtain information. In different circumstances, there was the brutal death of two young French subjects seized by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb on 8 January 2011 at Niamey, in Niger. As in many other zones, the risks have expanded considerably for humanitarian NGOs in the Sahel. These new threats are principally the outcome of a ‘glocal’ (global and local) form of terrorism. Based on local and tribal dynamics, it is made up of opportunist alliances and defections, fed by the traffic in arms, drugs, even human beings, and

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by guerrilla techniques adapted to each context, in the Sahel desert just as in the inhospitable mountains surrounding the Durand line on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier. Yet the same rhetoric is used by these ter­ rorist groups, whether they are Katiba or Taliban, or part of the global jihad; and their methods of communication are an effective blend of advanced information technology techniques (the Internet, satellite tel­ ephones), converted 4x4 vehicles and ancient patterns of message bear­ ers, undetectable by electronic and satellite networks. The globalization of information has increased the effectiveness of these asymmetric strategies of taking Western hostages. This is further intensified because the strate­ gies of acceptance established by the NGOs, designed to improve links with local populations, do not appear noticeably better able to counter – or even to moderate – the risks of a negative perception linked to their Western origin. Hostage-taking cannot, however, become the pretext to ban the pres­ ence of journalists or humanitarian workers. A challenge to the right to information, or to international humanitarian law on contested terrain, would be harmful to the democratic principles of our states. The death of Bin Laden, killed in April 2011 by the special American forces in Pakistan, was a serious symbolic reverse for al-Qaeda – but the methods of this anti-terrorist struggle have nevertheless been at the origin of numerous controversies (Bigo, Bonelli and Deltombe 2008), the most violent of them concerning the repeated violations of human rights per­ petrated in Guantanamo prison. A recent article has made it possible to document the complicit passivity of American military medical authori­ ties in the face of the physical and psychological maltreatment of prisoners in ‘Gitmo’10 base, challenging the fundamental principles of medical ethics (Iacopino et al. 2011b). The authors of this article did not have direct access to all the prison­ ers concerned, but they were able to consult their medical and legal files. The physical and psychological traumas created over an average period of seven years have never led the doctors who were in charge of them to investigate and halt the causes of these acts of violence.11 To the contrary, it even appears that such medical ‘intervals’ were used to gather very inti­ mate and personal information, in order to use it a posteriori to break the psychological resistance of these ‘prisoner-patients’. None of these detain­ ees had been known to have psychological problems previously, but 90 per cent of them now suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, with psychiatric disturbances ranging from depression to the development of psychotic symptoms. As a confirming example, one doctor explained to a patient on antidepressants that he ‘should have relaxed when the guards became more aggressive’.

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We see therefore that the medical function has shifted from care and respect for the integrity of the individual to one of ‘information auxiliary’ and ‘interrogation support’, the whole in a context of extra-judicial and ille­ gal detention in the eyes of the IHL; moreover, the Geneva Declaration12 of the World Medical Association reasserts that ‘the health of my patient will prevail over all other considerations’. The war against terrorism initiated by George W. Bush, and of which Guantanamo prison remains one of the saddest symbols, today shows – beyond its counterproductive effects on jihadist terrorism – its profound consequences for the medical practices employed at this site (and at how many others?) (Marty 2006). This change in principles and practices, where the end is held to justify all means, confirms that the instrumentalization of health to political (or military) ends carries its own perversion within it. It is not therefore a matter of judging a whole profession – in this case, the military doctors – or a country – here, the United States of America – since history shows clearly that very few nations have been spared dark days of this kind. It is rather a matter of weighing up the responsibilities of a political discourse that has justified the introduction of a system in which medicine and its operators have deviated from their role to become auxiliaries in activities that are wholly in breach of the medical ethic (Iacopino et al. 2011a: 34–35). Whether as a result of armed conflicts or natural catastrophes, the camps for displaced people and refugees expand constantly, becoming sanctuaries for vulnerable populations and sometimes reservoirs for violent movements. The operating methods, as well as the purposes, of the humanitarian management of camps for the displaced and refugees have now become subjects for debate. In these camps, where basic living needs seem to eliminate all others, ‘the human as citizen’ (Agier 2008: 29) becomes, in humanitarian language, ‘a displaced’ or ‘a refugee’. The displaced populations are thus not only subject to a bio-power, strength­ ened unintentionally by the operational methods of the NGOs, but also to a powerful political instrumentalization, visible as clearly in Kalma camp in South Darfur (La Croix 2009) as in Manik Farm camp in Sri Lanka.. For certain governments, and often with the involuntary help of humanitarian NGOs mobilized to help the populations, ‘managing the undesirables’ (Agier 2008) at the heart of these establishments has thus become the means of containing civilian populations at a distance. The living conditions in these camps can sometimes be compared to retention, even detention, outside any legal framework. In this way the Kenyan authorities prevent Somali refugees in the camp at Dabbab (which today holds more than 400,000 people) from going out freely, imposing a double sanction on these vulnerable people: after the loss of their home of origin

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because of armed conflict comes the loss of their liberty. The situation of refugee (and displaced) populations across the world thus constitutes a ‘planetary scandal’ (Withol de Wenden 2012), made considerably worse by the subsequent increasing difficulties encountered in obtaining the right to refuge. It is therefore important to support the reflections and actions aimed at taking this problematic into consideration (Calabrese and Marret 2012).

Conclusion The last decade has been marked by a progressive semantic slide in which the term ‘war’ has been bracketed with numerous situations containing no military character whatsoever. We speak now of the economic war, the war of monetary currencies just as we talk about fishing wars. In the same period, a confrontation between two states or between a state and non-state entities has come to call itself ‘armed conflict’ or ‘armed intervention’. Whatever the name it bears, war is a ‘total social act’13 and, very often, the logical pursuit of a political action carried on by one or several states. Its moral legitimacy is naturally very controversial, being dependent on the identity and cultural corpus of each contributor to the debate and not only on the rationality of the political and military choices ahead of the decision to engage. In this accentuated context of ‘world brutalization’,14 the position of the various participants is thus most often guided by subjectivity. The bitter discussions that have followed each military intervention in the past twenty years (Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and even Timor) bear witness to this. Shrewd understanding of the present operates better, in general terms, in the light of the past. The knowledge of counter-insurrectional strate­ gies, theorized (among others) by David Galula and implemented during the Algerian war by the French army, as well as their metabolization by American military strategies, therefore makes it possible to grasp the cur­ rent situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also enables us to understand its limits and the setbacks that are the outcome today. In effect, and in contrast to the French who practised a ‘total’ counter-insurrectional war – implying a very coercive population control – the media overexposure of the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq has prevented this military strategy from being fully deployed, even if exactions against civilians have not been prevented. The complexity of armed conflicts in the twenty-first century demands fresh multidisciplinary keys to readings in which everyone can throw light on a specific situation through different filters and prisms. This col­

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lective intelligence must be both structured and fed by a certain disorder. As Edgar Morin suggests (1999), to adopt an ‘intelligence of complexity’ is to create interfaces of intellectual interdisciplinarity – but equally of intel­ lectual indiscipline.

Notes 1. In France, the Droit international humanitaire (DIH), the Geneva Conventions and their additional Protocols are international treaties that contain the essential rules establishing the limits on the barbarity of war. They protect individuals who are not participants in the hostilities (civilians, health/sanitation staff or humanitarian organi­ zations) as well as those who are no longer active in the conflict (the wounded, sick and shipwrecked, prisoners of war). 2. Directed by an Under Secretary of State for Defence. 3. In opposition to the concept of ‘human safety’. 4. ‘UN Guidelines on the use of Military and Civil Defence Assets in Disaster Relief’ (Oslo Guidelines, May 1944, brought up to date in November 2006). 5. ‘UN Guidelines on the use of Military and Civil Defence Assets to support United Nations Humanitarian Activities in Complex Emergencies’ (MCDA Guidelines), March 2003. 6. Interview in 2010 between the author and a senior officer in the French army. 7. Document No. 262/DEF/EMA/EMP.1/NP of 3 March 2005, entitled ‘Concept et doctrine Interarmées de la coopération civilo-militaire PIA 09.100’. 8. In 2008, 122 killed (against 87 in 2003) and 62 abducted (against 7 in 2003). The increase in the number of serious incidents is thus not only a reflection of the increase in the number of humanitarian workers in the areas at risk. 9. ‘Aid and civil-military relations in Afghanistan’, BAAG-ENNA, 2008. 10. The nickname given by the Americans to the Guantanamo base in Cuba. 11. Sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, degrading forced positions, beatings, dog attacks, deprivation of water and/or food, sexual attacks, simulated executions, mal­ treatment, etc. 12. See http://www.wma.net/fr/30publications/20policies/b3/index.html (last accessed 16 February 2016) 13. To take up the methodological tool developed by Marcel Mauss. 14. ‘Brutalization’ signifying ‘the erosion of the civilizational movement’: Laroche (2012: 14).

Jérôme Larché is a hospital doctor, responsible for the intensive care ser­ vice at the Narbonne hospital centre. Former member of the Administrative Council of Médecins du Monde, and responsible for its programmes in Sudan, he has undertaken many missions in the context of natural catas­ trophes and armed conflicts (Serbia, Chechnya, South Sudan, Darfur, Kenya etc.). He is Director Delegate and Editor at the online information website Grotius International (www.grotius.fr) dedicated to humanitarian

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and geopolitical questions, and wrote posts for the blog Des routes humanitaires. He is also associate researcher at the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) and lecturer at the Institut d’études politiques at Lille and Évry. Most of his articles and lectures are available on the Internet. The themes of his studies include the relationships between members of military forces and humanitarians, new forms of armed conflict and the privatization of warfare.

Part V

Captivity in Wartime: From One Century to Another

(

CHAPTER 20

Round Table Discussion

( Hervé Drévillon Christophe Bouton Michel Goya Daniel Palmieri

Hervé Drévillon We are now studying in the twenty-first century the extensions of the issue raised during the conflicts of the twentieth century by the status of prisoner of war. This reflection initiated by Jérôme Larché requires consideration from both a theoretical and a practical viewpoint across the field of observations arising from current conflicts. These conflicts often raise completely new questions and require constant adaptation of the law to factual situations and sometimes practices that are, in any case, inadequately assumed by States. This comparison of theoretical and empirical viewpoints will be provided by Christophe Bouton, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bordeaux-3 and junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France; Colonel Michel Goya, director of studies at IRSEM in charge of the field study of ‘new conflicts’ (Afghanistan and Iraq in particular); and Daniel Palmieri, director of historical research at the International Committee of the Red Cross. Most current conflicts are either asymmetrical or dissymmetrical. In the case of asymmetrical conflict (a state versus a non-state organization), the application of POW status is highly problematical. Some situations are similar to civil wars, mingling with foreign interventions that blur the categories of international humanitarian law. Facing this shifting reality, the Additional Protocol of 1977 expanded the 1949 Geneva Conventions to non-international armed conflicts so as to extend the status of prisoners of

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war to irregular fighters. This was the consequence of the wars of decolo­ nization. But while seeking to broaden its scope, and taking into account a greater field of situations, international humanitarian law has established more blurred legal categories, which are highly dependent on the belliger­ ents’ interpretations. This has been the case in Guantanamo, for which the Patriot Act of the United States defined the captives as ‘unlawful combat­ ants’ in order to deny them the application of international law. In some situations such as Iraq, prisoners found themselves trapped in a legal limbo that denied them any status. In prisons like Abu Ghraib the forms of captivity related to a pattern that had less to do with the captivity of war than with the penal system of Western societies, where prisoners are treated as criminals. Conversely, irregular warfare brings non-state armed groups to clear the boundaries of the law by presenting hostage-taking as a form of war captivity. The status of POW is nowadays an elusive legal object and a very fluid military, diplomatic and humanitarian reality. The first question we need to ask, therefore, is how contemporary conflicts put at stake and threaten the status of prisoners of war.

Daniel Palmieri The term ‘prisoners of war’ can still be used, but it applies only to some well defined – that is, interstate – armed conflicts, the legal basis for this being the 1929 and 1949 Geneva Conventions, which protect prisoners of war in international conflicts. In ‘civil wars’ we speak not of prisoner-of-war status, but of politi­ cal detainees, captured combatants and individuals deprived of liberty. Nonetheless, captives are still formally protected by international humani­ tarian law (the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions that cover non-international armed conflicts) and must, by analogy, receive treatment similar to that of prisoners of war. However, this protection status is not necessarily accorded automatically. It has to be negotiated, including by the ICRC, as there are often underlying political and ideologi­ cal issues at stake. There are many situations that are neither international nor non-­ international armed conflicts, but which belong to what we at the ICRC call ‘internal disturbances’ – that is, when violence erupts within a society. Syria is the best example at the moment. It cannot really be called a civil war, as only one party to the conflict is truly organized, and yet there is unrest and disorder that gives rise to victims and captives. Internal strife is not covered by international humanitarian law. Hence in real-life situations we need to find out how detained persons are being treated,

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although the ICRC has no definite mandate to help people caught up in this type of conflict, but only the right of humanitarian initiative as a neu­ tral, independent intermediary. Here again, the ICRC often has to negoti­ ate in order to ensure that captives – people deprived of their liberty as a result of internal strife – receive the most humane treatment possible in the same way as prisoners of war. The ICRC has drawn on its vast experience in the field of armed vio­ lence to introduce a fourth dimension into the consideration of conflict classification, namely ‘other situations of violence’. This term now covers anything that cannot be regarded as an international or national con­ flict or even an internal disturbance, which are only some of the mani­ festations of ‘other situations of violence’. It thus describes situations of quasi-civil war, such as, for example, urban violence in Latin America, particularly in Mexico and Brazil. In these arenas there are two oppos­ ing and highly structured forces: on the one hand, the army, police and government forces; on the other, armed groups and gangs, which are sometimes similar to the movements that fight in national liberation or civil wars, since they have a strict hierarchy and clear identity, making it possible to identify immediately the gang to which a particular individual belongs. However, the key difference to civil war or internal strife is that their members are not politically or ideologically opposed to the state, but are trying to hang on to mafia-type activities: so this type of conflict has more to do with banditry than with war in the strict sense. It is worth noting that the oldest guerrilla movements are part of this phenomenon and here I am thinking in particular about guerrilla warfare in Colombia. Although the latter was triggered by ideological and political opposition to the central state, it is akin to a war underpinned – this is true – by politi­ cal and ideological considerations, but where the commercial aspects of narcotics trafficking have become as or even more important. This being the case, when a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) com­ batant, who is also a drug trafficker, is captured in Colombia, should he be regarded as a prisoner of war or a common criminal? It is a valid question. Although the concept of what constitutes a prisoner varies according to the type of conflict, conversely, the protection that must be afforded to individuals deprived of their liberty as a result of armed violence is a constant and this has been the case ever since the beginning of the twen­ tieth century. These individuals, who have fallen into the hands of another state, organisation or group must be protected and treated humanely. For the most part international humanitarian law has taken on board these changes in the nature of conflicts and has adapted to them. The 1949 Geneva Conventions are proof of this, as they have provided protec­ tion for all categories of people who might get caught up in a ‘traditional

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war’ – that is, an international conflict – and Article 3, which is common to all four of the 1949 Conventions, had already paved the way to more extensive protection. This article makes it clear that in non-international conflicts, persons taking no active part in the hostilities are in all circum­ stances entitled to respect and protection. Indeed, Article 3 and the ICRC’s right of humanitarian initiative provide the basis for obtaining opportuni­ ties for humanitarian action, particularly in discussions concerning other situations of violence or internal strife.

Hervé Drévillon A first difficulty is raised by the intermingling between international and domestic laws of the countries involved in conflicts. Is international law even relevant for situations of internal conflict, where common law might appear more appropriate?

Daniel Palmieri We might have opened Pandora’s box by using the term ‘other situations of violence’. This is perhaps less obvious in the event of internal distur­ bances, which generally result in either a repressive regime where there are politically motivated arrests and where the ICRC may therefore have a right of humanitarian initiative and action, as was the case under the Pinochet regime, or in a civil war with two opposing armed groups, where common Article 3 and perhaps also the Additional Protocols of 1977 may be invoked. However, ‘other situations of violence’ can also cover many other cases of armed violence. We have already mentioned urban violence related to drug trafficking. We should not forget that ‘drug-trafficking con­ flicts’ cause the deaths of thousands of victims every year. This figure is all the more disturbing given that many ‘traditional’ conflicts no longer claim so many lives. This is therefore primarily an instance of armed vio­ lence, where the number of victims is much higher than that of ordinary crimes and one that is becoming increasingly entrenched, even though the chief motivation is organised crime. Other phenomena, such as the clashes that took place during the Arab Spring, could also be considered ‘other situations of violence’. In such situations the ICRC can use only its right of humanitarian initiative, which is dependent on the goodwill of the authorities. Nevertheless, the aim of the ICRC is not to decide at what

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point individuals’ status as prisoners of war is being violated, but rather to become involved before that – that is, as soon as armed violence is harm­ ing people and depriving them of their liberty.

Hervé Drévillon To address these new situations of conflict, states such as France have implemented strategies of ‘national security’, which operate at the levels of both war and policing. These strategies require major adaptations of mili­ tary and police presentation (particularly in the field of intelligence) and mobilize legal baselines that involve significant changes in national and international law. The very definition of conflicts is problematic in situa­ tions such as the fight against the international drug trade and against ter­ rorism. These strategies tend to eliminate the separation between internal and external security, and between the law of war and common law. This of course raises the issue of the legal regime applied to prisoners captured in these complex conflicts. It also raises the question of the law applicable to regular soldiers, who are subject to a regime of liability more and more clearly related to common law. Practical issues are thus raised, such as the legal protection of prisoners or soldiers in military operations; but beyond these practical issues, it is the very foundations of democratic regimes that are put at stake. Democratic states such as France have established clear distinctions between the different registers of the public force. These distinctions have even formed the essential foundations of the democratic process, as shown by Comte de Guibert, at the beginning of the French Revolution, in the Traité de la force publique (1790). The fate of prisoners is thus a challenge with regard not only to international humanitarian law but also to the legal basis of democratic states. Furthermore, we need to raise the issue of the capacity of international organizations to regulate war captivity in the context of domestic penal systems.

Daniel Palmieri Distinctions had already disappeared in conflict situations. You men­ tioned the cases of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, which have given rise to new legal terminology for the prisoners imprisoned there. No matter what term is used to describe the people incarcerated, they need protec­ tion. This is the overriding premise on which the ICRC bases its action.

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Hervé Drévillon These questions also concern military action on the ground, since the treatment of captives is a strategic issue. In specific situations such as Iraq, the forms of captivity are inserted in a more general counter-insurgency strategy. In this case, the treatment of prisoners of war was a key issue in the definition of the strategy, since prisoners were not only held in captiv­ ity but were also punished and corrected. Defining the status of prisoners of war, therefore, also means defining the kind of war that is waged.

Michel Goya When we speak of prisoners of war in the Iraq conflict, our thinking turns naturally to the exactions perpetrated at Abu Ghraib at the beginning of the war, at the end of 2003. These events show the difficulty encoun­ tered by the American forces in managing those individuals who were no longer prisoners of war but equally were not prisoners in common law: the context was one of anti-terrorist warfare, in which rapid action is essential and where suspects appear to be the swiftest sources of information. This whole period contributed to the glaring American setback early in this conflict. The revelation in April 2004 of what went on in Abu Ghraib was equal to a defeat on the field of battle. Three years later, the Americans tried a new strategy, ‘the Surge’, a sub­ stantial reinforcement of American troops under the command of General Petraeus. It was part of the effort to stifle jihadist organizations by every means possible, regardless of whether or not they were violent, civilian or military. One campaign was led inside prisons by General Douglas Stone of the U.S. Marine Corps, who arrived with the considerable contribution of three million dollars. Arab-speaking, with a fine knowledge of the Koran and the Arab world, Stones saw on his arrival that the Americans in Iraq had taken a large number of prisoners in relation to the number of rebels killed – three prisoners for every rebel killed. This trend was reversed in Viet Nam, where the balance was nine dead Vietcong for each soldier captured. In all, 100,000 Iraqis went through the prisons managed by the Americans. At the time of the Surge (2007), 20,000 Iraqis were being held in the two American-run prisons. Its particularity lay in the fact that the prison sentences were for an average of one year, and had a recidivism rate of 10 per cent. Out of ten prisoners released, the Americans knew that one would take up arms again with the risk that soldiers would be killed.

Round Table Discussion | 263

As soon as he arrived, General Stone set up a sociological study of the prison population and its motivation. An American-Iraqi team made up of Imams, psychologists and social educationalists produced an extremely advanced work of analysis. It emerged that most of the Sunni prisoners (85 per cent of those detained) were not young fanatics, and that a quarter of them were fathers of more than five children. It was, thus, often people of mature age whose actions were driven essentially by economic rea­ sons – the poor – who were paid to fight the Americans. A minority acted out of nationalism or vengeance and a very small minority for strictly religious reasons. This population, with very varied reasons, was gath­ ered together without any distinction and under the influence of the most extreme jihadis. Daily life in the prisons was extremely violent, including for the American guards. The first task under General Stone’s direction was then to separate out these categories and to identify the diehards who had surrendered to the Iraqi police. For the others – that is, the very great majority, a complete programme of rehabilitation was launched, based on education – with literacy in first place, since 40 per cent of the prisoners were illiterate. Paid professional apprenticeships were introduced under the General, and also religious education led by the Imams – many of the prisoners read the Koran for the first time by themselves. The rehabilitation also operated by means of social reconnection through the family. Visits and video com­ munications were organized for the first time. In parallel with this programme of rehabilitation, a course of American revision conducted by military field officers examined the files of the detainees every four months. This commission, which replaced the Iraqi commission, took the liberation rate from 8 to 40 per cent. Assessment of the results of this year-long experiment showed that prison violence had diminished considerably, and above all the recidi­ vism rate did not exceed 1 per cent. This campaign inside the prisons was unquestionably successful – it cut across the original management, but is rarely mentioned because it was much less spectacular. The operation has been reproduced in Afghanistan with much greater difficulty.

Hervé Drévillon It is thus striking that the empirical nature of the procedures applied to prisoners raises the essential issue of the definition of war and, conse­ quently, the question of the adaptation of international law. Is the legal framework sufficiently clear and binding to define a legal standard?

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Indeed, new forms of conflict seem to undermine the formal law, and leave room for a blurred juridical regime that integrates morals, politics and law and that largely remains to be defined.

Christophe Bouton I am neither a specialist in this military question nor a historian: but as a philosopher, I have taken an interest in philosophies of history, which often consist of reflections on war. When I was invited to this discussion, I had in mind the question of the new status of captivity in the transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. I also wondered, before approaching this question, what could, ultimately, be the figure of the prisoner in philosophical reflections on the war, or in the judicial theories devoted to the war. Replying to this requires a small step back before moving forward again. I have studied the philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century in considerable depth, in particular German authors such as Kant and Hegel, who paid close attention to the question of war and peace: yet the figure of the prisoner is hardly ever present in this tradition. We must go further back in time to find it. I think we must start with the treatise of Grotius on The Law of War and Peace, published in Paris in 1625. This text had a considerable impact on the philosophical reflections of his time and afterwards; it was the first systematic attempt to codify the ‘law of nations’ (jus gentium), the forerunner of modern international law. In the third part of this treatise, Chapter Seven deals with ‘On the Right over Prisoners of War’. It is not a matter of thinking of a law of prisoners but a law of the victor over prisoners. The rights of prisoners of war are more or less nil. The prisoner of war is a person without rights, without protection, at the mercy of the victor. Grotius explains that the prisoner, by the very fact that he has been captured, becomes a slave. The person responsible for his incarceration has the same hold over him as the master has over the slave and, I quote, ‘as for the effects of this law, they are infinite to the point that Seneca has said that there is no right that a master does not have over a slave, there is nothing that he cannot do to make him suffer, without penalty. What applies to the slave applies also to the prisoner: There is no action that one cannot command them to take or for which they cannot be forced to do in any way whatever’. The prisoner loses all his rights, and gains none in return. There is even impunity for the cruelty of masters towards slaves, which is valid for the victor and his prisoner. We have here a power of life and death. The question can be followed back to antiquity. It was the fate of Roman prisoners to become slaves.

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In reality, of course, the status of prisoner of war as described by Grotius is more complex. There are two limitations to the prisoner’s total lack of status, which explains why he was not always killed, even if this often happened in the historical context of wars at a time when fewer prisoners were taken than today. The first is a pragmatic, or utilitarian, limitation. Grotius quotes a text taken from classical times: ‘Since you can sell a captive, do not kill him’. A prisoner of war can be used as a slave; he can be made to work for free, but he can equally be sold as a slave. He can also represent exchange value. This question of the utility of prisoners recalls, mutatis mutandis, the treatment of French soldiers in Algeria held captive by the FLN (Front de libération nationale), which was described by Raphaëlle Branche in the previous section. At the beginning of the Algerian war, for reasons connected to the difficulty of managing pris­ oners, the latter were often executed by the FLN – who then discovered that they could be useful to their cause. It was this potential value of the prisoner that could save him; his value for propaganda or psychological warfare, or as a valuable exchange item. But Grotius proposed another ethical or religious consideration, which could equally help to improve the fate of prisoners of war. It may be that the inspiration behind international conventions on the protection of pris­ oners lies in motives of this nature – if not religious, at least ethical. In Grotius’s text we find the concept that ‘Christians generally agreed that when war arose between them, prisoners should never become slaves’. Rather than killing prisoners of war or making slaves of them, the practice in nations of Christian tradition was to restore prisoners in return for a ransom. It was a practice, according to Grotius, that did not conform to human rights but became indispensable nonetheless. He asserted that he observed the same practice among the ‘Mahometans’ (Mohammedans), the nations of Muslim faith. Ultimately, it became a widely accepted prac­ tice to release prisoners at the end of a war. The Grotius text is interest­ ing from more than one point of view: it recalls, in contrast, the forms of progress concerning the rights of prisoners of war accomplished since the seventeenth century; it also shows the concept of the prisoner’s extreme vulnerability – entirely subject in reality to the power of whoever arrests him. Finally, in the framework of a theorization of international law, it raises the question of a law on prisoners of war that was to become estab­ lished during the following centuries, and would pose the problem of modes of application and guarantees. Even when this law exists, how can its application be verified? When it comes to the question of the law covering prisoners of war as seen by the philosophers, it is useful to return to Montesquieu’s attitude: in a few lines he refutes the right to kill prisoners of war or reduce them

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to slavery, in his Esprit des lois (Book 15, Chapter 2, 1748). He observes – and his argument seems as straightforward as it is rational – that in war, the right to kill exists only in cases of necessity. When the enemy has surrendered, this need disappears. The only law that war imposes concerning captives is, from that moment, that of preventing them from causing harm, which implies neither killing them nor turning them into slaves. We find the same reservation in the projected work by JeanJacques Rousseau on the Principes du droit de la guerre (1755–1751), selec­ tions from which were republished in 2008 by Blaise Bachofen and Céline Spector. Rousseau inveighs against the position set out by Grotius, which he describes as ‘barbarous’. His reasoning consists in part of saying, like Montesquieu, that slavery is against nature and, on the other hand, of stressing that war occurs not between individuals but between states. Its aim is to neutralize and overcome a state, but certainly not to damage the rights of individuals as such. To my knowledge, the prisoner nonetheless remains a very minor figure at this period, including in Kant’s work, even though he poses the basis of what a human right should be. He categori­ cally opposes – here contradicting Grotius – the concept of a ‘law of war’, in favour of a ‘project for perpetual peace’ guaranteed by a society of nations. But if in fact there is war, Kant accepts the concept of Grotius of a right within war that stipulates that the conditions for a return to a future peace must be preserved, that it is forbidden to recruit murder­ ers or poisoners, or to encourage treason, etc. All this is prohibited, but we do not find explicitly, in his essay ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ (1795), this concept that consists of saying that prisoners must not be killed but must be well treated. This principle is also absent from Hegel’s philosophy of the law, even though this specifies that in cases of war, the way must always be left open for a return to peace. With Hegel, the figure of the prisoner is eclipsed by that of the hero. He sings the praises of the citizen soldier of courage, of the citizen’s capac­ ity to risk his life. It is entirely possible from this point of view that the status of the prisoner of war (who has allowed himself to be captured without fighting to the death) would be valued less highly than that of the hero, and treated with tactful silence. In this respect we may note that in the twentieth century the figure of the prisoner in times of war above all attracts interest when he escapes. I am thinking of Robert Bresson’s fine film of 1956, Un condamné à mort s’est échappé, in which the hero is also a resistance fighter and not a classic prisoner of war. In attempting to escape, the prisoner has a second chance to become a hero, to risk his life. In twentieth-century philosophic discourse, I am not aware of many texts on the figure of the prisoner of war: the significant figure that is identified (unless or until a more detailed inventory emerges) is that of

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the deportee, for example in the book by Giorgio Agamben, Ce qui reste d’Auschwitz (1999). In the twentieth century we observe growing strength in the law on prisoners of war, under the various international conventions. The first Geneva Convention was adopted in 1864, following the foundation of the Red Cross, but it concerned aid to the wounded on a battlefield and not the prisoners. The subsequent conventions of The Hague (1899, 1907) and then of Geneva again (1929 and 1949) established specific rights for the prisoner of war, such as the right to humane conditions of detention (sanitation and food, for example), to correspond with his family, to be properly cared for in case of illness, not to suffer bad treatment, torture, reprisals, etc. The prisoner of war can be employed for labour if his work is not unhealthy or dangerous, if he is paid and without direct relation to war activities. We are far from the concept of slavery. We should examine in detail the his­ tory of this prisoner’s law and the reasons for its establishment. Although it is noted that the judicial status of the prisoner of war has improved over time, the formal category of ‘prisoner of war’ is not always applied. In her text, Patrizia Dogliani explains that certain Italians cap­ tured in Austria in 1917 were considered by Italy as being ‘deserters’. These soldiers were not granted the status of prisoners of war and were not recognized as such in their own country. Similarly, Soviet prisoners captured by the Germans during the Second World War were seen as ‘traitors’ in the USSR; and the Germans treated resistance activists in the lands that they occupied as ‘terrorists’ – thus ensuring that they would not benefit from the conventions relating to prisoners of war. In general terms, the application or not of the category of prisoners of war can be used as a strategy in managing combatants who have surrendered. If we return to the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first cen­ tury, we have the example of the camp at Guantanamo and the category of ‘illegal combatant’ as a means of removing prisoners who were captured by the U.S. army in Afghanistan or Iraq from the Geneva Conventions. Guantanamo camp was selected because, being based in Cuba, it fur­ ther made it possible for the law in operation in the United States not to be applied to prisoners. The decision to close this camp was taken by Barack Obama in 2009, but this has still not been completely achieved. It seems that, in parallel with the constitution of the category of prisoner of war, subsidiary categories appeared – in particular, those of ‘terrorist’ or ‘enemy combatant’ – which could be used to evade the juridical status of the prisoner of war. With these new forms of conflict, the protection of prisoners comes up against two difficulties. Apart from the fact that they must form part of the judicial framework of international conventions, there are not always guarantees that, in reality, the law will be applied.

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Hervé Drévillon We have seen that the evolution of current forms of conflict has had an impact on how the prisoners are treated. But can we reverse the proposal? In the long history of wars, we can see that the issue of prisoners of war also had a regulatory function, because the guarantee of good treatment is the sine qua non condition of surrender. In modern times, ‘capitula­ tions’ have defined both the terms of surrender and the fate of the prison­ ers. Knowing that a minimum level of protection will be applied to the vanquished makes the surrender possible, and thus prevents the radicali­ zation process. Captivity in war itself contributed to conflict regulation, since it implemented a form of exchange. Prisoners then became the sub­ jects of negotiation, and were themselves the agents of a mediation. The abolition of legal forms of captivity is, of course, a consequence of the radicalization of conflicts, but it might also be considered as a cause.

Daniel Palmieri Conflicts have definitely become more radicalized, although war has never been ‘gentle’. This clearly raises the issue of whether existing law is still fit for purpose. In my opinion, humanitarian law has never been as useful as it is today; not necessarily as a legal instrument, because the fact that states or other entities sign treaties and say that they will respect them is no guar­ antee, but rather on account of the practical use that these same states or entities make of humanitarian law. At the end of the day, the players’ inter­ est is always to respect all or part of a treaty, even if they are motivated by national or international political concerns, rather than humanitarian ones. With respect to Guantanamo, the first thing the American government did, just as it did after 1945 or during the Vietnam war, was to no longer con­ sider the captives as subject to humanitarian law, which meant no longer considering them as combatants, but giving them a new status that did not exist in international humanitarian law. Nonetheless, the American government has treated these captives humanely, respecting at least the spirit, if not the letter, of humanitarian law.

Michel Goya If an operational point of view is taken, to quote Carl von Clausewitz, the greatest error in a strategy may be to be deceived as to the nature of a war.

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In the conflicts of the early twenty-first century we can see the damage that can emerge from this error. I take as example the case of Israel in its struggle against peripheral organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas, applying the schemes and principles that it operated against conventional Arab forces, and notably the idea of the disproportionate riposte. A very hard strike as dissuasion can be effective in confronting armoured divi­ sions and established armies that can be destroyed, utterly crushed: but when the same principle is applied in the face of much more fluid nonstate organizations embedded in the ordinary population, the consequent damage to this general population is very significant. The same principle can be seen to some extent in Iraq, with the Americans operating in a context of military and cultural psychology. There is the struggle against terrorism and Evil and, with the latter, there can be no negotiation, no haggling, it must be crushed. To this psycho­ logical context is added an American military culture, that of crushing the enemy. We may recall that in Article 11 of the credo (but not in the Code) of the U.S. army soldier it is stated: ‘I will destroy the enemies of the United States’. This is not ‘I will overcome’ but ‘I will destroy’. When guer­ rilla warfare emerged in the Sunni provinces from the summer of 2003, the reflex of the majority of the American military was to crush the rebels. The causes of this rebellion are not considered, or more precisely there is a faulty diagnosis in considering that it represented Saddam Hussein’s last loyalists. There was therefore a mighty struggle to destroy the rebel­ lion as fast as possible, without considering its deep motives and its links with the population. And when one wants to act quickly against a guer­ rilla force that is assessed, wrongly, as pyramidal in structure, the best source of information is interrogation. I will conclude by citing an anecdote that shows how, in this opera­ tional and psychological context, the tipping point into extortion comes very quickly. In Fiasco (2007) the journalist Thomas Ricks quotes the example of an intelligence officer in Baghdad who sent an email to every intelligence office in the various American brigades to ask if they had ideas on how to obtain information from the prisoners – and we should not forget that at the time interrogation sessions were restricted to a small number of specialists. The messages that he received in return – ‘We use snakes to frighten them’, ‘We use dogs’, ‘Electricity and water is not bad’ – showed him that many had already crossed a red line and fallen outside the law. But it was not until the moment when the Americans understood the damage caused to their image, and how important this was in a conflict that was not merely residual, that they modified their perception of the prisoners as well as the manner in which they should be treated.

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Christophe Bouton I would like to go back to this point, which strikes me as being very much to the point: the way in which prisoners are treated can have repercus­ sions on the way in which a conflict develops. If the conditions of deten­ tion deteriorate, or if the status of prisoner of war is not applied, or it is applied in unpredictable ways – which can happen in certain conflicts as a result of national interests – this indicates that the prisoner may undergo a terrible fate in his detention: he may suffer torture, for example, or be used as a human shield, or be executed. He is in this state of absolute vul­ nerability against which there is no counterbalancing judicial protection. In such a situation it is easy to imagine the radicalization of the conflict, what Clausewitz describes as the ‘rise to the extreme’, a surge of violence further intensified by the combatant’s knowledge of the fate that awaits him – he will prefer to fight on, perhaps to even greater excess, to the bitter end. The concept that at a given moment it will be possible to cease fighting becomes far more difficult to envisage. There is the feeling that the means of channelling violence, which lie at the heart of Clausewitz’s reflections on war, can also in this case be partially set aside.

Hervé Drévillon Compliance with the status of prisoner of war in fact contributes to the resilience process. In fact prisoners have often played an important role in the process of reconciliation between former belligerents; the example of the American soldiers captured in Vietnam illustrates this well enough – so that one might wonder how to put an end to a war without prisoners.

Note This discussion originally took place in November 2011, and was then revised by the partici­ pants for publication.

Hervé Drévillon is Professor of Modern History at the Université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he is Director of the Institut des études sur la guerre et la paix after he had been Director of the section ‘Histoire de la défense et de l’armement’ of the Institut de recherche stratégique de l’École militaire (IRSEM). His research is focussed on the social and

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cultural history of the practices of war in a period that he defines as ‘the classic age of war’ (from the mid fifteenth century to the First World War). He is more specifically interested in the way in which war mobilizes indi­ viduals as men, subjects or citizens. His publications include L’Impôt du sang. Le métier des armes sous Louis XIV (Tallandier, 2005), Bataille. Scènes de guerre de la Table ronde aux Tranchées (Le Seuil, 2007) and more recently L’individu et la guerre du chevalier Bayard au Soldat inconnu (Belin, 2013). Christophe Bouton is a former pupil at the ENS-Ulm, Professor of Philosophy at the Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux-3 and junior member of the Institut universitaire de France since 2008 (project: ‘Le temps: approches philosophiques et scientifiques’). His research examines the history of German philosophy from Kant to Heidegger, the philoso­ phies and theories of history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the question of time in modern and contemporary philosophy. His principal publications are Temps et esprit dans la philosophie de Hegel. De Francfort à Iéna (Vrin, 2000); Le Procès de l’histoire. Fondements et postérité de l’idéalisme historique de Hegel (Vrin, 2004); Temps et liberté (Presses universi­ taires du Mirail-Toulouse, 2008); Penser l’histoire. De Karl Marx aux siècles des catastrophes (dir. with Bruce Bégout, Editions de l’éclat, 2011); and Faire l’histoire. De la Révolution française au Printemps arabe (Éditions du Cerf, 2013). Colonel Michel Goya’s military career has taken him to various theatres of operation in Europe (ex-Yugoslavia) and Africa. In parallel, as a histo­ rian, he sustained his doctorate in 2008. Charged with research with the Army Head of Staff and analysis of the conflicts in the Middle East at the Centre de doctrine d’emploi des forces, he is now Director of Research at the Institut de recherche stratégique de l’Ecole militaire (IRSEM) in charge of the ‘new conflicts’ section. Holder of the Chair of Land Action at the Centre de recherche des Ecoles de Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan and Associate Professor at the Ecole pratique des hautes études, he has published La Chair et l’acier: l’armée françaises et l’invention de la guerre moderne, 1914–1918 (Tallandier, 2004), Irak: les armées du chaos (Economica, 2008), Res militaris. De l’emploi des forces armées au XXIe siècle (Economica, 2011) and more recently L’invention de la guerre moderne : du pantalon rouge au char d’assaut, 1871–1918 (Tallandier, 2014). Daniel Palmieri, a historian by training, is responsible for histori­ cal research with the International Committee of the Red Cross. His researches are concerned with the history of the ICRC and humanitarian action, as well as the history of armed conflicts.

By Way of Conclusion

( Henry Rousso

Twenty years ago, captivity aroused little curiosity among historians and remained a somewhat peripheral topic in studies of contemporary con­ flicts, particularly those concerning the Second World War. We should, however, not forget the pioneering work of Yves Durand in respect of that war, or the work of François Cochet on French POWs.1 In terms of the Great War, historiography has been slower to develop and match the renewal of approaches to the conflict’s cultural and social history in the work of Giovanna Procacci (1993), Jean-Claude Farcy (1995), Annette Becker (1998) and Alon Rachamimov (2002). Similarly, the first compara­ tive studies that approach captivity as a phenomenon sui generis, running at a sharp tangent to the specific history of each conflict or each belligerent state, are themselves very recent.2 Perhaps this renewed interest marks the end of a form of ostracism, which persisted long after the world wars, ren­ dering the POW a more or less forgotten figure: overlooked as the bearer of an experience of war less valued than that of, for example, the armed combatants of 1914–1918 or Resistance activists between 1939 and 1945. In post-war European historiography, therefore, the activities of some 25,000– 35,000 Resistance members have occupied an incomparably greater space than the fate of millions of POWs, even though the subject was indeed broached in the 1950s and particularly in France.3 No doubt we see here the reflection of a general shift in opinion over the past decade towards a focus on victims in general and on victims of wars in particular. The present work, like the colloquium that preceded it in November 2011, places the question of POWs at the centre of an analysis of contem­ porary conflicts: in the generic exploration of the phenomenon of war, captivity is presented as essential rather than peripheral. Three partic­ ular points have attracted my attention among other possible readings

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and are discussed here. In the first place, captivity offers a good observa­ tion angle from which to define perceptions of time in the experience of war – in particular, phenomena of discrepancy, the loss of synchronicity between different ways of living or dying during a conflict. Next, it ena­ bles us to underline the extent to which, in the epoch under scrutiny, war remains a phenomenon governed by explicit or implicit norms and values, respected or flouted. Their significance can be measured precisely by the fate reserved for disarmed combatants or uniformed civilians – the objects of full attention under international law since the late nineteenth cen­ tury. Finally, because it constitutes an enduring point of contact between adversaries, captivity enables us to understand the essential nature of a conflict, specifically through the way in which an image of the enemy is constructed and deconstructed by those involved.

Another Temporality of War Stressing temporality means emphasizing the different perceptions of time that various participants can have within a single conflict, which everyone is assumed to experience simultaneously. The POW is a singu­ lar case: the perception he will have of the war both in the short term, in his daily life, and the long term, that of the historical moment he is pass­ ing through, most often displays a sharp difference from the perceptions of both a front-line combatant and a civilian at the rear or in occupied territory. The phenomenon has been studied in relation to French POWs, who had a fairly positive image of Pétain, not having experienced the occupation in France, and who had difficulty understanding why their fellow citizens were now booing the Marshal whom they had previously adulated. In this way, the study of POWs for their own sake enables us to take issue with the supposed singleness of the experience of war; to move away from forms of discourse most often stemming from the culture of war itself. By its very nature, such discourse, both in democratic regimes and in their authoritarian or totalitarian counterparts, tends to develop an artificial unity between all the elements of a wartime society, including prisoners, in order to declare a national unity essential to sustaining the mobilization of minds and bodies. The POW thus appears to be outside time, and particularly outside the ‘collective time’ of war, an idea that is certainly not new but that has con­ tributed to the fundamental shaping of this book. Time dragged for the officer Fernand Braudel in his lengthy imprisonment in a German Oflag (officers’ camp); during his captivity there he developed the concept of the longue durée, or long duration, and his wish to escape from the situation –

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that is, from the short term, which for him was synonymous with a time of despair. In general terms, cultural, intellectual and musical activities in POW camps are more than simple ‘leisure activities’: they provide a means to escape the time of war, which is temporarily suspended for prisoners – and on condition of not enduring maltreatment or the forced labour that could resemble slavery. This had an unexpected consequence: the fear of returning and resuming normal life, a more or less generalized situation in post-1945 Europe. Shaken by five years of violence and destruction, the continent was unrecognizable for the millions of men who had remained outside their communities of origin and experienced a completely differ­ ent historical time. The question of temporality equally points to the way in which we define the chronology of war, locating it in a modern historiography that pays considerable attention to the exits from wars. This concerns their short-term or medium-term social effects; the way in which they are remembered – here understood as a residual presence emerging from a supposedly concluded historical episode, but that still continues to live within the imagination of societies officially now at peace. What histo­ rian working today would claim without further analysis that the Second World War ‘ended’ in 1945, or indeed ‘began’ in 1939? The legal definition of entry into or exit from a war, while remaining a natural criterion of definition, cannot in itself account for the time as it was experienced by the participants. For German POWs – hence for a significant portion of German society – the Second World War came to a definitive end around 1949–1950. Until then, their large-scale presence in the countries ravaged by the Nazis, together with other elements – poverty, clearing ruins, clear­ ing mines (in which their participation was voluntary to a greater or lesser degree) – constituted the manifest sign that the pattern of war was not over despite the silence of the guns. This underlines the extent to which in modern wars (although this is also no doubt true of conflicts in a more dis­ tant past) the border between a state of war and a state of peace remains ill-defined, despite the shared understanding among contemporaries. In the same order of ideas, different sections of this book have shown the extent to which close analysis of certain phenomena of captivity allows us to grasp the blurring not only of temporalities experienced but also of social, national, ethnic and sexual frontiers. They arise from the intensi­ fying effect of the often random assignment to one camp or another and the intermingling of populations that have already been displaced and uprooted by mass mobilization. This is not a matter of anecdotal phenom­ ena; it constitutes a major fact of social and cultural history that affected millions of men and, indirectly, hundreds of thousands of women and children living without husbands or fathers. Manifest in most of the major

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twentieth-century conflicts, it has often been neglected in efforts to under­ stand the ensuing post-war periods. In this sense, this book explores the difference between wartime and post-war captivity, two situations that do not involve the same stakes. Clearly, both cases pose the question of direct contact between the home front and the enemy. The prisoner’s intrusion into the adversary’s social fabric, particularly when he is set to work, allows civilians without direct experience at the front or experience of battle to be in direct contact with an enemy who has often been propagandized into a fantasy figure. But a cap­ tivity that extends beyond the end of hostilities poses the question of the medium-term impact of social relations established between captives and the population that has sheltered and employed them. Did the presence of German POWs in France after 1945 strengthen Franco-German reconcili­ ation? Did the treatment reserved for colonial prisoners re­inforce racism or, despite everything, encourage a second look at the people involved? The subject is especially delicate because, in order to respond, we must take account of a large number of criteria relating to the enemy’s real or fantasized identity. In limited circumstances, the American population greeted German POWs transferred to the States with a calm and neutral view, seeing in them an example of warrior virility. But this attitude was no more than the positive equivalent of the image of the true enemy, the Japanese soldier, stigmatized and brutalized since 1941. The same process was at work in England with Italian prisoners, still seen more positively than the Nazi enemy. In addition, the study of war-related captivity shows the extent to which most twentieth-century conflicts – setting aside the case of Nazi policies – exacerbated not only prejudices and discrimina­ tion based on nationality (e.g., the ‘boche’, the ‘Jap’), an innate quality of interstate wars, but also differentiations and prejudices grounded in ‘race’; ultimately, the two sometimes end up merging into one.

Norms and Values War is a judicial matter governed by both oral and written norms, and by customs and conventions regarding the way in which hostilities should be declared, conducted and ended. The fate envisaged for prisoners was one of the first questions taken up by international law in attempts to regulate the violence of war and thus to confine it within certain limits. Reminding ourselves of this fact seems all the more important now that war itself is tending to become a judicial matter, whether through its consideration by national or international tribunals for crimes and misdeeds commit­ ted during a conflict (jus in bellum), or in terms of the question of the

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very legitimacy of conflicts (jus ad bellum) – or, as manifest in reparation demands addressed to a military institution, to take account of possible ‘unjustified’ injuries suffered by soldiers, including professionals, as was the case recently in France. Several of the contributions in this volume thus touch, directly or other­wise, on the different forms of status accorded to various prisoners: Spanish refugees, starting in 1939; national colonials; Soviet prisoners in neutral countries; Jewish POWs in Nazi hands between 1939 and 1945; internees during the French war in Algeria and French prisoners held in the same war by the Algerian FLN. Finally, there are the forms of status introduced by humanitarian organizations – above all the International Committee of the Red Cross – through their actions, thus contributing to the emergence of the ‘prisoner of war’ category itself at both normative and practical levels. Here we can even speak of a form of obsession with nomenclature aimed at differentiating between situations and hence types of intervention. In that respect, the colloquium confirmed once again the generic character of the Great War, as the first great conflict that, both legally and factually, would have to apply the pioneering international conventions agreed in Geneva and The Hague. A basic question emerges from this: to what extent were these ini­ tial foundational texts effective in a war that in any event represented a major rupture in the history of warfare? A certain paradox is at work here, involving a need on the one hand to account for the exceptional and unprecedented nature of a conflict that would break through all previ­ ously known thresholds of violence – but that witnessed, on the other hand, a more or less systematic regulation of the treatment of wounded soldiers and war prisoners through a new genre of international texts. In what ways did these first efforts at the legal regulation of war have a con­ crete impact in what was the most brutal and murderous conflict in the history of humanity? In this respect the present work makes a kind of cog­ nitive dissonance apparent: while contemporaries felt that the application of the new humanitarian law had been a failure – particularly in respect to treatment of war prisoners – in retrospect historians consider it to have been a success of a kind. This is evident, they suggest, in the fact that the belligerents were readier in their attempts to bypass the texts, especially concerning the use of violence against prisoners or setting them to work, than to denounce or ignore them. In addition, the question of the effective­ ness of these first conventions during the Great War is all the more thorny in that there is neither a calculating instrument nor precedents by which to evaluate what might have been ‘good’ policies. This was the first time the measures had been applied, in a war not resembling anything known thus far.

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In any event the debates unfolding in the 1920s would continue to focus more on outlawing war than on how to regulate it. This was a deeply rooted issue, emerging in the seventeenth century from Grotius’s first writings – and his critics who rejected any concept of any regulation what­ soever of a phenomenon considered inherently illegitimate. The pacifist orientation made a real assessment of the pre-1914 conventions difficult, despite the signature of a new convention in 1929. In this sense, the vari­ ous sections of this book show clearly that the problem remained unre­ solved almost until 1945. The very nature of the Second World War, in particular the inherent nature of the Nazi war, presented additional ele­ ments that delayed any application of humanitarian law; it could thus only really emerge after 1945. The principle of reciprocity, a form of dissuasion based on the threat that each belligerent can be used against the other’s captured soldiers, was rarely in force during this conflict until 1943; the Wehrmacht’s first serious reversals at this point meant that Nazi Germany began to be concerned about its own prisoners. This observation raises a more general question, steadily present throughout the book’s various chapters: why, to what extent, and in what way do POWs constitute a stake for belligerents in a given conflict – either their own prisoners or those of the enemy? The question may seem triv­ ial but its true importance can be seen throughout the twentieth century, as international conventions have sought to emphasize a differentiation, at a judicial level, between civilians and combatants, which has tended to become blurred on the ground. Civilians, including POWs – who are civilians in uniform – have become chosen targets in the same way as combatants. It is for this reason that concern for one’s own prisoners can raise military as well as political considerations for belligerents. The Vichy regime, for example, used the question of French prisoners as part of its collaboration with the Nazi occupier, under whose authority it held pro­ tective power for its own prisoners. This clear case of bypassing the con­ ventions gave the regime additional legitimacy with the capacity to assert a sovereignty that, together with its capacity to protect the French popu­ lace, had been diminished by the armistice. But the approach taken to the question of POWs can also be associated with a form of social control, sometimes far removed from military considerations – as in the example, doubtless unique in this category, of POWs from French colonial troops, who in 1943 were controlled on French territory by a French rather than a German administration. Another little-known case of failure to respect the conventions, or the difficulty in applying them, concerns captives in the colonial wars, their status here being much less clear-cut than in ‘classic’ conflicts. During the Algerian war, for example, France refused to allow the 1949 Geneva

By Way of Conclusion | 279

Convention on POWs to be applied as part of what it did not view as a ‘war’ but as an ‘operation to maintain order’. At the same time, however, it found itself facing the reality of abuses inflicted on its own soldiers by an adversary that, at least at the beginning, had little interest in taking prisoners or concerning itself with its own captive combatants: in a revo­ lutionary war, with its strong ideological component and a predominant role for the concept of the ‘martyr’, a dead solder can be more ‘useful’ than a prisoner. This resulted in a partial recognition on the French side of the role that the ICRC could play in the framework of the principle of reciproc­ ity. On the Algerian side, apart from initiatives on the ground, it was only with the unilateral proclamation of the Algerian republic’s provisional government, and therefore as a deliberate sign of state sovereignty, that application of the conventions appeared on the agenda. For prisoners on both sides, this lessened the violence being inflicted on them as a result of the conflict’s insurrectional aspect. In this respect, the POW camp, as the locus for regulation of the flood of disarmed but not demobilized soldiers, is almost always the setting for oppression. Does it represent the same element in war that the prison represents in civil society? Is it a form of ‘otherness’ in the sense of hetero­ topia proposed by Michel Foucault? The comparison, suggested at several points, seems risky because the situations are different: the logic of taking POWs is to reduce the enemy’s fighting power, or even to eliminate it for ethnic or political motives, as was the case for Soviet POWs in German hands – not to consolidate the continuity of a social order. Nevertheless, several authors have shown that this Foucaultian dimension was not always absent from colonial conflicts. The experience of the two world wars also shows that the POW camp constituted a new temporary home, a new ‘family’; a place where individu­ als recreated a sociability grounded simultaneously in both the temporary and the enduring – this being a major difference to a prison. In many respects the lives of POWs are certainly identified by exception: they are outside time and, in a certain way, outside war, or at least removed from the front. But at the same time, it can be seen that they aspire to a form of normality; living in a fiction by acting ‘as if’ their normal life were con­ ceivable at the price of some adjustments. In his Oflag, Fernand Braudel ordered and received the complete collection of the Annales to prepare his thesis on the Mediterranean, and in conditions akin to those at his university. The same thing can be observed in POWs dressing as women, especially on festive occasions. As Iris Rachamimov emphasizes in her text, this can certainly act as a catalyst, stirring reflection on gender and sexual transgression in a broad sense. And yet, in the prisoner’s situation we can see here, to the contrary, a form of paradoxical aspiration to nor­

280 | Henry Rousso

mality, ‘as if’ the captives were presenting a performance of having ‘forgot­ ten’ for a moment that they were moving in a masculine society without women (except in workplaces). This was the basic difference compared to similar transformations in carnivals, where the point is to reverse the established order for a moment. In the prisoners’ case, the point was rather to regain it, for the true transgression was the universe of the camp itself; its massive, durable, repressive, often violent dimension, shattering the daily life of dozens of millions of men and their loved ones throughout the twentieth century.

Captivity and the Definition of Conflicts ‘Tell me how you treat your prisoners and I’ll tell you what war you’re fighting’. This, implicitly, is one of the recurring themes in this book, where previous historians tended to focus more closely on the opposite approach, with captivity often seen, in effect, as a consequence of the way in which a war is conducted. This issue in any case raises another and more fundamental question: in an armed conflict, why are prisoners taken or not taken? The answer is more complex than might seem to be the case; and above all it can vary in time and space in the course of the same conflict. The massive nature of war-related captivity – a result of the nature of interstate wars since 1914 – has created the very process of captivity as it has unfolded in the twentieth century, and reconfigured it. This is also because modern societies evolve within a universe of norms and values. Even the worst dictators are sometimes obliged to respect (or at least appear to respect) the notion that the killing of large numbers of disarmed combatants has been considered both a punishable war crime and, even more so, a major risk by virtue of the principle of reciprocity – itself a result of a massification of wars that has shown its full range from 1914 onwards. Nevertheless, as we have seen, the principle of reciprocity has a low level of marketability in a war of extermination of a racial nature such as that conducted by the Nazis – who initially were able to go ahead with the extermination of Soviet prisoners without any risk of reprisals. Prisoners are therefore guarded and interned, initially to prevent the enemy’s combat strength from being replenished, to sap morale on the home front, and, conversely, to sharpen the combativeness of one’s own troops. This captivity can sometimes incite forms of treason or changes of allegiance, especially in conflicts with a strong ideological dimension. The POW can also be an important source of labour and exchange currency, both during a conflict and within the perspective of future negotiations designed to

By Way of Conclusion | 281

end it. Finally, in its modalities if not its intentions, captivity reveals feel­ ings of hatred and resentment towards the enemy. In this respect, these pages have shown how the very evolution of war and the proliferation of asymmetric conflicts, where the principle of reciprocity plays little or no role, have altered the concept of captivity itself. Prisoner exchange can, for example, present orders of magnitude that are themselves totally asym­ metric. This can be observed in exchanges of a single captive on one side in return for several hundred or more on the other, as seen in episodes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In my view, this evolution shows that the value attributed to the life of a combatant, particularly in Western countries, has been considerably re-evaluated upwards, while at the same time war itself as a way of resolving differences has conversely been deval­ ued – hence the price that states now pay for the lives of a few prisoners or hostages, in for instance Iraq or Afghanistan. Their abandonment in the name of a necessary sacrifice in wartime has become inconceivable, even though the concept was still prevalent only a few decades ago. Within the framework of this evolution, the dissolution of the border between civilian and combatant that characterizes war in the first half of the twentieth century is currently being extended in the dissolution of the border between a conflict and a crime. It is for this reason that one participant – evoking the case of detainees at Guantanamo located out­ side any international statutes or even domestic law and who have finally been released by the American army, and are thus potentially capable of returning to terrorist activities – could describe them as ‘recidivists’. Such language stems from criminal law, not from a military tradition in which a freed or escaped POW’s resumption of combat reflects an urgent duty. Here we see clearly the extent to which the values that conditioned warfare in the past have changed, and how the status and fate of POWs vividly embodies this process.

Notes 1. Among the many works of Yves Durand, see La Captivité, Histoire de prisonniers de guerre français 1939–1945 (1980). See also François Cochet, Les exclus de la victoire. Histoire des prisonniers de guerre, déportés et STO (1945–1985) (1992). 2. See Moore and Hately-Broad (2005), proceedings of an international colloquium held in July 2002, organized in Hamburg by the International Committee for the History of the Second World War. 3. On the weight of the different categories of protagonists in post-war Europe, see the pioneering work of Pieter Lagrou (2003). On the history of POWS in the historiography of the 1950s, see the special issue edited by Fernand Braudel of the Revue d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, no. 25, Jan. 1957.

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Henry Rousso is a senior research fellow at the CNRS (Institut d’histoire du temps présent). He first worked on the history of the Second World War and post-war period. His early writings focused on political and eco­ nomic history of the Vichy regime. Then he turned to a history of memory of the war and spent much of his thinking to the history of collective memory and uses of the past. His books include: The Vichy Syndrome. History and Memory in France since 1944 (Harvard University Press, 1991); (with Eric Conan) Vichy, An Ever-Present Past (Dartmouth College Press, 1998); The Haunting Past. History, Memory and Justice in France (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002); and The Latest Catastrophe: History, the Present, the Contemporary (translated by Jane Marie Todd. University of Chicago Press, 2016). He is currently working in a multidisciplinary and compara­ tive perspective on the relationship between history, memory and justice, and more generally on the epistemology of contemporary history. His last book, Face au passé : Essais sur la mémoire contemporaine (Belin, 2016), deals with the issue, how memory of the past can prevent the resumption of mass violence.

Bibliography

( Bibliographic Contents: I. GENERAL REFERENCE

284

II. CAPTIVITY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

296

III. CAPTIVITY AND CAMP

299

IV. CAPTIVITY AND SOCIETY

307

V. CAPTIVITY AND COLONIAL ISSUES

311

VI. CAPTIVITY AND NEW WARS

314

–Sources –Works of Reference –Internet Sources –References over Several Periods –Pre-First World War Conflicts –First World War and Interwar Conflicts –Second World War –Post-Second World War Conflicts –References over Several Periods –First World War –Second World War –References over Several Periods –First World War –Spanish War –Second World War –References over Several Periods –First World War –Spanish War –Second World War

–References over Several Periods –Colonial Conflicts and Pre-Liberation Wars –Liberation Wars

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Works of Reference Arendt, H. 1951. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co. Arnold, F. 1998. Freundschaft in Jahren der Feindschaft. Munich: Hanser. Bourdeau, L. 1888. L’Histoire et les historiens. Essai critique sur l’histoire considérée comme science positive. Paris: Alcan.

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Second World War Battel, F. 2000. ‘Wo es hell ist, dort ist die Schweiz’. Flüchtlinge und Fluchthilfe an der Schaffhauser Grenze zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Zürich: Chronos. Biess, F. 2006. Homecomings, Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Billinger, R.D. Jr. 2008. Nazi POWs in the Tar Heel State. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Blank, R. et al. (ed.). 2008. ‘German Wartime Society 1939–1945: Politicization, Disintegration, and the Struggle for Survival’, in German Wartime Society 1939–1945, vol. IX/1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bories-Sawala, H. 2008. ‘Les prisonniers français dans l’industrie de guerre allemande: une composante parmi la main-d’oeuvre forcée, composite et hié­ rarchisée’, in Catherine, J.-C. (ed.), La captivité des prisonniers de guerrre. Histoire, art et mémoire (1939–1945). Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, pp. 95–104. Buwert, W. (ed.). 1998. Gefangene und Heimkehrer in Frankfurt (Oder). Potsdam: Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung. Byrd, M.H. 1977. ‘Captured by the Americans’, American History Illustrated 11(10): 24–35. Cochet, F. 1992. Les exclus de la victoire. Histoire des prisonniers de guerre, déportés et STO (1945–1985). Paris: SPM. Cohen, R. 2005. Soldiers and Slaves. American POWs Trapped by the Nazis’ Final Gamble. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

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Index

( Index of Individuals Abbas, Ferhat, 232, 238 Abd el-Kader, 190–2 Agamben, Giorgio, 33 and state of exception, 177 and reformulation of Foucault, 177 as deportee, 167 Alexander, General Harold, 70 Allard, General, 234 Amirouche, Colonel, 234–6 Arendt, Hannah and ‘objective enemy’, 180 Ball, Fritz, 119, 120, 125n7 Bentami, Djilali, 232 Benzine, Abdelhamid, 196 Bergmann, Walter, 121–2 Bin Laden, Osama, 250 Bloch, Marc, 106, 110, 114n26 Blum, Léon, 106 Bormann, Martin, 56 Boxwell, David A, 87 Braudel, Fernand, 5, 6, 81, 104–12, 240, 289 and the ‘longue durée’, 274, 110–12 Brinon, Fernand de, 217, 218 Brunschwig, Henri, 46, 106 Bugeaud, Marshal, 190, 191, 192 Castera, Michel, 236 Clausewitz, Carl von, 268, 270 Cloots, Anarcharsis, 179 Cohen-Portheim, Paul, 84–5, 92–3

De Gaulle, Charles, 165, 184, 201, 233, 236, 237 Debré, Michel, 236–7 Dominique, Angeline, 196 Draber, Nicolo, 122, 125nn24–25 Dubos, Olivier, 236 Dunant, Henri, 31 Durand, General, 47, 196, 250 Elias, Norbert, 177 Febvre, Lucien, 104, 108, 110, 113n6 Foss, Violet and Mary, 148 Foucault, Michel, 179 and biopolitics, 177 and heterophobia, 178 Frank, Hans, 92 Friedman, Gerald, 120, 124nn11–12 Fuks, Simon, Rabbi, 46 Gàl, Hans, 81, 115–123, 125n7 and Edinburgh, 116–7 Giraud, General, 208 Grable, Betty, 98 Grotius, Hugo, 264–6, 278 Guggenheim, Ernest, 46 Gusdorf, Georges, 107 Hayworth, Rita, 98 Helfgott, Hermann, Rabbi, 49, 51 Himmler, Heinrich, 50 Hirschfeld, Magnus, 90

318 | Index

Hitler, Adolf, 10n5, 28, 51, 56, 119, 213 Humbert, Agnès, 21 Hyvernaud, Georges, 79, 80 Hussein, Saddam, 269 Ketchum, Davidson, 91 Krim, Belkacem, 229 Kuncz, Aladár, 81, 85 Lalla, Aïcha, 235 Lamarr, Hedy, 98 Lanfroy, Maurice, 237 Laschitz, Emmerich, 88, 89, 90 Le Gall, Clotaire, 236 Levinas, Emmanuel, 46, 81 Mehri, Abdelhamid, 233 Mira, Abderrahmane, 235 Mongrédien, Georges, 1, 9 Montesquieu, 265 Mussolini, Benito, 77, 143 Noguès, Mme, 205 Paine, Thomas, 179 Paunzen, Arthur, 120 Perret, Jacques, 82 Pétain, Philippe, Marshal, 184, 199, 205 Pirenne, Henri, 22, 103 Recham, Belchacem, 201 Rommel, Erwin, 82, 97

Rothschild, Alain de, 46 Rousseau, Jacques, 266 Rundstedt, Gerd von, 219 Salan, General, 194, 195 Sandherr, Jean, 179 Sauckel, Fritz, 218 Scapini, Georges, 184, 208, 215, 218 Schmitt, Carl and the state of war, 178 and the definition of politics, 178 Sédar Senghor, Léopold, 206, 208, 227 Sheridan, Ann, 98 Si M’hamed, 235 Si Salah, 236 Simmel, Georg, 177 Soult, Marshal, 191 Stalin, 52, 106 Stone, General, 262 Thiers, Adolphe, 193 Thiesing, Rupert, 38 Tovey, Donald, 115 Vischer, A.L, 88 Weber, Max, 240 Wilde, Oscar, 88 Williams, Esther, 99 Weygand, Mme, 205 Zenawi, Meles, 245

Index of Institutions, Organizations and Associative Groups ACOE – Archives du Conseil oe­ cuménique des Eglises/Archives of the Oecumenical Churches Council, 63 AD – Archives départementales/ Departmental Archives, 169, 174nn1–4, 174nn7–12, 175nn22,28,30), 214, 212 Afrika Korps, 97 AGPG – Aumônerie générale des pri­ sonniers de guerre/French Gener­ al Charitable Care for Prisoners of War, 63–4

AICRC – Archives of the Inter­national Committee of the Red Cross, 10n11, 64, 174n6, 174n13, 238 ALN – Armée de libération nationale algérienne/Algerian National Lib­ eration Army, 184, 228, 229, 230, 233–5 Al-Qaeda, 7, 250 Amitiés Africaines, 200, 201, 204, 223 AN – Archives Nationales/National Archives of France, 10n11, 174n5, 225

Index | 319

ANAPI – Association nationale des anciens prisonniers et internés d’Indochine/National Association for Former Prisoners and Intern­ ees in Indochina, 186 ANOM – Archives nationales d’ou­ tre-mer/National Overseas Ar­ chives, 203 BARch – Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archives, 43, 53, 63, 72, 94 BAVCC – Bureau des archives des vic­ times des conflits contemporains/ Archives Centre for the Victims of Contemporary Conflicts, 212 BBC – British Broadcasting Corpora­ tion, 141, 117, 151 BDIC – Bibliothèque de documenta­ tion internationale contempo­ raine/Library of Contemporary International Documentation, 284, 306 CCAPG – Comité central d’assistance aux prisonniers de guerre/Central committee for aid to Prisoners of War, 200, 205, 206, 210, 211 CCE – Comité de coordination et d’ex­ écution/Committee for Coordina­ tion and Action, 229, 232–3, 235 CIMIC – Civil-Military Cooperation, 245 CMI – Centre militaire d’internés/ Military Centre for Internees, 194–96, 233, 237, 238 CMO – Civil-Military Operations, 245–6 CNAEF – Centre national des archives de l’Eglise de France/National Archives Centre for the Churches of France, 63, 64 CNRS – Centre national de la recherche scientifique/National Centre for Scientific Research, 10n3, 223, 282 Commonwealth/the British Common­ wealth, 27, 47 CPOW – Colonial Prisoners of War, 8, 199–202, 204–5, 206, 207–212, 214, 217, 228 and Vichy, 210

DEFs – Disarmed Enemy Forces, 76, 59, 67 DGPG – Direction générale des pri­ sonniers de guerre/Central office for prisoners of war, 175nn15–16, 175n18 DIH – Droit international humani­ taire/International Humanitarian Law (IHL), 7, 36, 245, 244, 245, 249, 250, 257, 258, 259, 261, 268 DOD – US Department of Defence, 245 DSPG – Direction des services des prisonniers de guerre/Central Services Office for Prisoners of War, 200, 203–4, 210 EJPD – Eidgenössisches Kriegskom­ missariat für Internierung und Hospitalisierung/Confederal Commission for Internment and Hospitalization, 161 EUFOR – European Union Force in Chad, 246 FARC – Forces armées révolutionnaires de Colombie/Revolution­ary Armed Forces of Colombia, 184, 197 and combatant status, 259 FLN – Front de libération nationale/ National Liberation Front, 8, 184, 243, 265, 267, 277 and Algeria, 228–238 and humanitarian aid, 230 Foreign Legion, 231, 234 FRC – French Red Cross, 186, 201, 203 FREEE – Fils et filles de républicains espagnols et enfants de l’exode/ Sons and Daughters of Spanish Republicans and Children of the Exodus, 133 GARAE – Groupe audois de recherche et d’animation ethnologique/ Aude Group for Research and Ethnological Animation, 135 GPRA – Gouvernement provisoire de la République algérienne/Provi­ sional Government of the Repub­ lic of Algeria, 229, 232–7 GWOT – (U.S.) Great War on Terror­ ism, 244–5

320 | Index

Hamas, 269 Hezbollah, 269 Home Defence Security Executive, 143

OPG – Officier Prisonnier de Guerre/ Officer Prisoner of War, 2 Oslo Guidelines, 246

ICRC – International Committee of the Red Cross, see Index of Themes, Red Cross IHL – International Humanitarian Law, 244, 245, 249 IHTP – Institut d’histoire du temps présent/Institute for the history of modern times, 2, 10n3, 10n6, 10n12 ILA – International Law Association, 40

PAV – People’s Army of Vietnam, 185, 196 PCA – Parti communiste algérien/Al­ gerian Communist Party, 167, 170, 194, 196 PG – Prisonnier de guerre, Prisoner of War, see Index of Themes, Prison­ ers of War PMSC – Private Military and Security Companies, 248–9 POW – Prisoner of War, 4, 5, 6, 163, 166, 168, 171–3, 174n2, 174n 4, 174n10, 174n12 Prisoners of War Assistance Society, 148 PRO – Public Record Office, British, 63 PRTs – Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 248 PWE – Prisoner of War Enclosures, 67, 68

JO – Journal officiel, 295 Luftwaffe/the German Air Force, 146 MAE – Ministère des Affaires étrangères/Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 213–19, 221–2, 224–5 MBF – Militärbefehlshaber in Frank­ reich/German Military Com­ mander in France, 213, 215, 216, 218, 217, 219, 221–4 MCDA – British Military and Civil Defence Assets, 246, 253 MI5 – Military Intelligence, Section 5, 119 MOI – Main-d’oeuvre indigène/Indig­ enous Worker Programme, 216, 217

RAF – Royal Air Force, 154 Red Army, 70, 153, 154, 158, 215 Red Crescent, 22, 232–4 RG – Record Group, 102 SEP – Surrendered Enemy Personnel, 76 SHD – Service historique de la Défense/Archives of the Depart­ ment of the History of Defence, 174n14, 175n14, 175n25, 185, 187–8, 197–8, 210–12, 225–6, 238 STO – Service du travail obligatoire/ Forced labour service, 60, 215

NARA – National Archives and Re­ cords Administration (Washing­ ton D.C.), 102 NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ ization, 246–8 NGO – Non-governmental organiza­ tion, 245–51 and value in armed conflicts, 246–8 and crisis management, 249 NSDAP/The Nazi Party, 56, 275, 276

TNA – The National Archives, London, 43, 63, 151, 284 TPLF – Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front, 245

OKW – Oberkommando der Wehr­ macht/Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, 56, 61, 62, 202, 219, 221, 222 ONLF – National Liberation Front of the Ogaden, 245

United Nations, 74, 237, 246, 248 United Nations Security Council, 75 United Press, 98 USSR – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 40–1, 45, 154–5, 157, 159, 267

Index | 321

Vichy Government, 46, 105, 183–4, 199–210, 213–4, 216, 218, 223–5, 242–3, 278 Viêt Minh, 185, 228–9 Wehrmacht – the German Army (1935–1945), 51, 171, 278

Wissenschaftliche Kommission für deutsche Kriegsgefangenen­ geschichte/Commission for the history of German prisoners of war, 65 YMCA – Young Men’s Christian Asso­ ciation, 66, 67, 202

Index of Places Aargau, canton, 156 Abu Ghraib, 248, 261–2 and form of captivity, 258 Achinsk Camp, 88 Alva, 101 Afghanistan, 19, 161n12, 243–4, 247–50, 267 Africa, 5, 55, 95, 97, 143, 243, 248 Africa, North, 95, 96, 101, 142, 143, 186, 201, 209 Africa, South, 77,189 Agde, 129 Algeria, 3, 7, 8, 184, 190–7, 277, 228–37 Alps, Bavarian, 98 Alsace, 37, 70 Andelfingen Camp (Zurich), 156, 159 Antilles, 192, 223 Ardennes, 204, 219 Argelès-sur-Mer, 127, 133 Asia, British, 138 Asia, South East, 16, 152, 139 Atlantic Ocean, 96 Aube, 10n2 Aude, 129 Austria, 68, 70, 115, 118, 267 Austria-Hungary, 36 Bad Orb (Stalag IX B), 49 Balkans, The, 215, 244, 248 Barcarès Camp, 129 Bas-Rhin, 165, 174 Belfort, 171 Bellaria Camp 5d, 67, 71 Belgium, 16, 34, 67 Berga-an-der-Elster, 49, 50 Berlin, 93, 175n25, 122 Boghari, 195, 196 Bouches-du-Rhône, 166, 174 Bram Camp, 129 Brandenburg, 56

Brazil, 259 Breckenridge Camp, 99 Brussels, 10n11 Campania, 68 Canada, 121, 150, 180, 248 Carburton Camp, 150 Changi Camp, 138, 140n2 Chad, 246–7 Chatham, 149 Chechnya, 246–7 Cher, 221 China, 229 Colombia, 248, 259 Colorado, 99 Corsica, 192 Croft Camp, 96 Cuba, 189, 267 Dabbab, 252 Darfur, 247–8, 251 Democratic Republic of the Congo, 246–7 Devon, 147 Dien Bien Phu, 186 Douglas Central Camp, 120 Edinburgh, 115–117 Elne (Eastern Pyrenees), 128 Emilia, 28, 69 Epinal (Stalag 315), 59 Ethiopia, 245 Eure-et-Loir, 58, 165, 174n7, 203 Europe, Eastern, 32, 215 Europe, Western, 4, 9, 19, 32–3, 67, 219 Eversheide (Camp Oflag VIC), 45, 49, 63 Evian, 237 Feltham Camp, London, 37

322 | Index

Finland, 37 Fort Custer Camp, 99 France, 3, 8, 9, 10n2, 10n5, 147, 163–8, 171–3, 174n5, 175n23, 175n26, 175n29, 180, 183, 184, 189, 192, 228–9, 231–6 and billetting. 138 and historiography, 293 Friedrichsfelde Camp, 82 Frontstalag 221 (Rennes), 59 Germany, 3, 5, 10, 11, 33–5, 37–8, 41, 46–7, 65, 76, 90, 105, 112, 145, 147, 166, 171, 173, 175n26, 201, 204, 209 Gironde, 130, 165, 174n2, 175n30, 208 and colonial prisoners, 206 and homosexuality, 90 and propaganda, 56 and religious practice, 55, 58–9, 62, 64 Great Britain, 35, 59, 115, 118, 139, 149, see also United Kingdom Guantanamo, 19, 242–3, 250–1, 258, 267, 281 and humanitarian law, 261–7 and legal terminology, 261 Gurs Camp, 130, 134 Hammam Bou Hadjar, 195–6 Haute-Saône, 220 Haute-Vienne, 166, 174n12 Haut-Rhin, 170, 175n22 Hérault, 129 Holzminden Camp, 22 Hong Kong, 85, 99, 138 Hood Camp, Texas, 99 Hungary, 147 Huntingdonshire, 143 Huyton Camp, 115, 120 Ille-et-Vilaine, 59 Indochina, 3, 184, 186, 199 Iraq, 19, 245–8, 253–63, 269 Ireland, 19, 37 Israel, 269, 281 Italy, 4, 65–70, 76, 77, 145, 147, 149, 267 and changes in prisoner status, 76–77 Japan, 16, 38, 41, 77, 138–9, 180 Jura, 224

Kabylia, 229, 234–5 Kempton Park Racecourse Camp, 146 Kentucky, 99 Kenya, 13, 15, 19, 252 Khabarovsk, 92 Lamoricière Camp, 195 Lamsdorf (Oflag VIII G), 103 Landes, 191 Langdon Hills Camp, 150 Latin America, 259 Le Chaluet Camp (Bern), 156 Leicestershire, 148 Libya, 148, 233 Loiret, 58 Lübeck, 14, 48, 105, 107 Lübeck (Oflag X C), 106, 108 Maghreb, 57, 250 Mainz (Oflag XII B), 105, 106, 109 Malaya, 138 Man, Isle of, 85, 90, 120, 125n7 Melun, 236 Mers el-Kebir, 191 Merseyside, 115 Mexico, 259 Michigan, 99 Miramare di Rimini, 69 Morocco, 231–5, 237 Namibia, 189 Nièvre, 221 Nord, 174n10 Normandy, 61, 145 North Midlands Region (UK), 144 Obole, 245 Oflag (officer) camps Oflag VI C (Eversheide, Lower Saxony), 45, 49, 63 Oflag VIII G (Lamsdorf), 103 Oflag X C (Lübeck), 105–6 Oflag XIIB (Mainz), 105–6, 108 Oflag VIC (Osnabruck), 49, 63 Oklahoma, 100 Oran, 191, 195, 231–2 Orleans, 57 Pakistan, 246, 250 Paris, 1, 2, 10n1, 10n11, 11, 104, 130, 165, 169, 174nn5–6, 175, 176, 236–7

Index | 323

Perth, 148 Poland, 42, 103 Pyrénées-Atlantiques, 130 Rabat, 234 Rennes, 59 Retirada, La, 127–8, 130–31 Rhineland, 105, 107, 206 Rimini, 4, 28, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72 Rivesaltes Camp, 128, 134 Romagna, 28, 65, 70, 72, 76 Romania, 32, 69 Ruhleben (Berlin camp), 91, 92 Russia, 92 and camp theatre, 87 and prisoners’ labour, 32 and Switzerland, 154–5 and the USSR, 40 see also USSR Rwanda, 246 Sahel, 250 Saint-Cyprien, 128, 134 Sainte-Marguerite (Island of), 192 Sakiet Sidi Youssef, 234 Savoie, 1, 2, 10n11, 11, 165, 168, 169, 174nn3–4, 174n6, 175n28, 201 Saxony, 10n2 Saxony Lower, 45, 59 Schleswig-Holstein, 48, 106, 107 Scotland, 147 Serbia, 32, 47, 254 Singapore, 138, 140nn2–3 Somalia, 247 South Carolina, 96 Spain, 127, 132 Sri Lanka, 251 Stalag camps, see also under placename Stalag 111B (Brandenburg), 56 Stalag IIIC (Western Poland), 60 Stalag IX B (Hesse), 59 Stalag X B (Lower Saxony), 59 Stalag XIB (Lower Saxony), 61 Stalag 315 Epinal (Vosges), 59

Sudan, 247 Switzerland, 6, 139, 153, 154, 155, 158, 160n12 Syria, 247, 258 Tarn-et-Garonne, 129 Texas, 98, 99 Thuringia, 49, 50, 56, 69, 70, 103 Stalag IVC, 55–7 Timor, 253 Tunis, 231, 233–7 Tunisia, 5, 95, 220, 231, 233–7 Turkey, 32, 155 United Kingdom, 77, 84, 142, 146, 150 and aid, 148 and Axis prisoners, 141 and German prisoners, 32 and Jewish soldiers, 47 United States, 5, 77, 146, 150 and the GWOT, 244–5 and German prisoners in the US, 95 and humanitarian law, 268 and Japanese immigrants,16 and Jewish prisoners, 47 and the Patriot Act, 258 and prisoner treatment, 269 and surrendered/ disarmed enemy prisoners, 58, 77 USSR, 159, 267, see also Russia Valais, 160 Vichy, see Index of Themes – Vichy Government Vendée, 85 Vietnam, 13, 184–7 Vosges, see Epinal Walderslade (Chatham), 149 Wisconsin, 96 Yacouren, 235 Yugoslavia, 47, 52, 68 Zurich, 156, 159

324 | Index

Index of Themes Important Dates 11 September 2001 1914–1918: First World War/Great War 1936–1939: Spanish Civil War 1939–1945: Second World War 1946–1954: War of Indochina 1954–1962: Algerian War of Independence abduction, 19, 230, 247, 249 actors, 4, 6, 25, 50, 74, 156, 168, 173, 179, 245 Afghanistan, War of, 19, 243, 247–9, 252–3, 267, 281 Agriculture, Ministry of, 143 aid, 8, 59, 67, 200, 203, 207–8, 223–4, 207, 221, 223, 246 charitable, 120, 129, 138, 242, 245 organisations, 129, 148, 157, 186, 201, 205, 267 political applications, 200 religious, 56, 58, 120 see also Law, Quaker, Humanitarian activity Algerian War of Independence, 7, 8, 191–3, 196, 228–38, 241–2, 278 nineteenth-century war, 189–96 Evian Accords, 277 allegiance, 289 of CPOWs, 214 American Way of Life, 98–99 anti-Semitism, 28, 47, 50, 118–9 archive/s, 1, 2, 9, 10n11, 11, 66, 70, 173, 174, 175, 185, 229 armed forces, 47, 56¸ 61, 68, 142, 154, 185, 247, 258 armistice, 10n5, 39, 61, 65, 105, 199, 201, 214, 218, 219, 221, 222, 278 arrest, 19, 118, 123, 153, 156, 173, 180, 190, 208, 233, 260, 265 art, 128, 130, 133 artistic creation, 81–2, 128–130, 133–4, 244, 201 asymmetry, 9 asymmetric war, 3, 228, 244, 257 dissymmetric war, 257 atrocities, 147 in 1914 invasion, 34 Axis, 141, 147, 151 barbed wire, 5, 6, 134, 137

behaviour, 6, 30, 38, 56, 90, 97, 142, 144–5, 147, 160, 164, 167, 184 Berlin Wall, 244 biopolitics, 178 Balkans, 215, 244, 248 blockade, 35, 245 Boer War, 20, 78 bombardment/bomb, 18, 41, 72, 146–7, 150, 234 cadres, French, 213–225 and collaboration, 215–218 recruitment, 219–22 campaign (military), 19, 46, 101, 190 camps, 20–1, 52, 99, 137 activities, 16, 80–82, 85 as social and spatial form, 177–8 civilian, 189–190 concentration, 11, 17, 133, 165, 176, 178 conditions, 59, 68, 158–60 co-operators, 145 displaced persons, 149, 251 extermination, 280 family life, 90–1 friend and foe, 178 German, 145, 146–151 internment, 7, 119–20, 133, 137, 164 Italian, 141, 142–6, 148 leisure, 202–3 newspapers, 71, 86 prisoners of war, 4, 59, 168, 169, 170, 171, 189 capitulation, 4, 59, 67, 268 captivity/capture, 1–9, 10n2, 61, 65, 67, 81, 84–5, 95–7, 103–7, 110, 164, 168– 9, 171–2, 185–6, 241, 249, 280–1 cost, 58–60 exemptions, 193 and indigenous prisoners, 183 perceptions, 81, 87 as subject of study, 273 in the UK, 144 ‘voluntary’, 153 in war/peace, 276 see also prisoners of war, treatment care, 131, 26–7, 223 chaplains, 56–8, 61–2, 49 charitable organizations, see Aid christmas, 149

Index | 325

churches Catholic, 148 Evangelical, 148 citizen, citizenship, 14, 77, 137, 139, 154– 5, 164, 172–3, 179, 180, 203, 207, 213 Civil Military Cooperation, 245, 246 civil war, 258 civilians, 131, 163, 168, 169, 278 clothing, 35, 54, 120, 129, 157, 192, 200, 208, 221 CMI, see Military Centre for Internees collaboration, 8, 173, 214–5, 224, 242 and French cadres, 214–5 and morale, 225 collective experience, 2, 124 colonialism, 7, 214, 205, 242 colony, colonies, 16, 203, 206, 208–9, 214, 217, 222, 242 French, 190, 199–201 commando, 138, 213, 221, 223 commemoration, 128, 131 composer, 82, 115, 121 comrade/comradeship, 47, 49, 132, 124, 159, 165, 219, 221, 223 conflicts armed, 248, 258 international, 258, 260 intrastate, 244 conscription, 25 contact, 5–7, 58, 72, 90, 138, 143–157, 163–9, 173, 205 conventions, 14, 31–5, 37–8, 40–42, 62, 75, 233 and prisoners’ rights, 267, 277 Geneva, 7, 14, 23, 27, 31, 39, 40, 42, 51, 54, 75, 147, 267, 278 The Hague, 15, 18, 25, 33, 36–7, 39, 154 and status of prisoners, 258–9 corps, 32, 39, 96, 101, 122, 214, 262 correspondence, 165, 167, 175n25 letters, 2, 52, 56, 81, 91, 108–9, 130, 143, 157, 172, 206, 223, 232 postcards, 108 parcels, 203, 206–7 counter-insurgency, 262 counter-insurrection strategy, 243 crisis management, 249 cultural demobilization, 2, 164, 168, 169 culture, 6, 9, 21, 82, 130, 133, 172, 179, 249, 269

daily life, 2, 62, 108, 129, 157, 169, 191, 263, 274, 280 defeat, 2–4, 7, 8, 23, 34, 61, 67, 80, 164, 167, 172, 200, 209, 262 defectors, 154, 160 denaturalization, 180 denazification, 57, 67, 76, 148, 150, 180 deportation, 16, 48, 70, 76, 208 deportees, 22, 172, 267 deserters, 71, 185–6, 231, 267 desire, 76, 90, 96–8, 100, 205 detainees, 61, 164, 181, 194, 195 156 see also internees detaining power, 14, 21, 26, 59, 87, 213 detention, 16, 18–20, 58, 61, 65, 107, 189–93, 270 cost, 54 in Switzerland, 153 humane conditions, 267–8 illegal migrants, 178 legal status, 75–7 living conditions, 231, 242 psychological problems, 251–2 Disarmed Enemy Prisoners/Forces, 56, 59, 67, 76 discipline, 23, 33, 49, 71, 74, 95–8, 101, 127, 129, 145, 158, 167, 175n18, 177, 179, 200 dissymmetric, see asymmetric doctor (medical), 9, 34, 49, 88, 16–6, 241, 165, 250–1 drawing, 82, 128, 202 drug trafficking, 260 Durand Line, 250 empire, 37, 77, 142, 147, 183, 192, 199, 200, 202–3, 205, 209, 216, 225, 242 employment, see labour enemy, 3, 6–9, 34, 55, 76, 95–102, 118, 164–5, 169, 172, 173, 180–1, 228–238, 241, 266–7 and CPOWs, 207, 213–4 enemy alien, 37, 70, 77, 81, 118–9, 138, 180, 187 enemy civilians, 41 enemy nation, 77, 84, 229, 137, 155 in Rimini Enclave, 69 internal enemy, 172 Surrendered or Disarmed Enemy Personnel, 59, 67, 76 treatment, 36, 38, 55, 76–7

326 | Index

escape, escaper, 7–9, 61, 112, 146, 154, 167, 173, 191, 207–10, 213, 216, 220, 243, 266, 281 ethic, 247, 251, 265 evidence, 9, 32, 60, 77, 80, 82, 107, 139, 156 exchange of prisoners, 15–16, 34, 32, 48, 124, 155, 191, 218, 233, 237, 265, 267, 280–1 exit from war, 2, 22, 173 exodus, 128, 132–3 families, 46–7, 52, 69, 72, 80, 91, 144–6, 148, 150, 201, 205, 207, 209, 217, 231, 236, 238 farm/farmer, 6, 22, 138, 139, 142–5, 147, 156, 170, 173, 208, 215, 224, 251 female impersonators, 89, 99, 101 festivals, 100, 115 fifth column, 118 film/s, 10n11, 157, 266, 70, 99, 157 First World War/ Great War, 3–5, 18, 28, 30, 31–40, 42, 54, 75, 85, 87, 90, 93, 95, 160, 178, 180, 189–190, 193, 205, 272, 272 food, 8, 59, 67, 79, 91, 97–8, 107, 118, 119, 129, 138, 157, 166, 169, 185, 191, 192, 203–4, 207, 220, 235, 267 and CPOWs, 2001, 204, 236 food rations, see meals forced labour see labour fraternization/fraternizing, 92, 138–9, 144–5, 148–9, 167 French Red Cross, see Red Cross front, 5, 9 eastern, 28, 32, 26, 41, 47, 51, 55, 61, 214 western, 18, 32, 36, 55, 61, 75 friend and foe, see Camps frontstalag, 8, 57, 59–60, 199, 201, 210, 216, 221, 225 204–5, 219 and colonial prisoners, 216 Gaullism, 105 genocide, 14, 83, 186 gender, 21–2, 91, 96, 100–1, 205, 219, 279 godmothers, 205–7, 209 government, 6, 8, 214–7, 223, 225 guard/warder, 5–6, 8, 97, 146, 158, 167, 170, 214–16, 219–220, 223, 242 guerilla, 8, 19, 228–38, 243, 250, 259, 269

gulag, 18, 85, 155 Gustav Line, 68 heimat, 89, 101 ‘Heimreise’, 85 holocaust, 75, 106 historiography of war studies, 275–6 home country, 7, 14, 209, 149 homosexuality/homosexual, 71, 90, 101 home, 5, 80, 90–2, 139, 149 Home Intelligence Reports, 143 hostages, 13, 18, 23, 190–1, 249, 258, 281 humanitarian activity, 3, 4, 7–9, 15, 28, 31, 120, 166, 186, 230, 232, 241, 244, 246–251, 255, 258–268, 277, see also aid ICRC, see Red Cross ideology, 21, 26, 21, 55–6, 58, 67, 71, 150, 184 Maoist, 87 Indochina, war of, 185–7, 228–9 individuals, 18–19, 22, 32, 46, 111–12, 119, 138, 148, 154–6, 158, 168, 189, 200, 203, 209, 230, 242, 247, 258, 261–2, 266, 271 information, 65, 122, 138, 146, 194, 208, 230–1, 235, 248, 251, 262, 269 Ministry of, 141 interdisciplinarity, 181 international regime, 50, 51 internees, 5, 6, 7, 61, 139, 154, 156–8, 163, 164 Azerbaijani, 155 Baltic, 155 Russian, 154 Swiss, 155 Serbian, 158 in Algeria, 195 internment, 5, 6, 7, 20, 95, 118–9, 128, 130, 132, 137, 158–9, 163, 164, 178, 180, 233, 242 in Algeria, 189–97 reception centres, 194 military centres, 194 ‘undesirables’, 193 interrogation, 138, 178, 195, 222, 243, 248, 261 invasion, 16, 19, 33–4, 118–9, 201, 248 Iraq war, 19, 242, 245, 246–8, 253, 257–8, 262–3

Index | 327

Japan, Japanese, 16, 18, 37, 40–1, 77, 138–9, 147, 280, 276 Jewish Legion, 70 Jews, 4, 18, 28, 45–52, 80, 83, 119, 133 jihad/jihadists, 251, 263 journal/diary, 2, 10n6, 71, 73, 86, 92, 104, 107, 128, 163 journalists, 96–7, 129, 171, 227, 249 kommando, see commando Koran, 57, 262 labour, 23, 26, 36, 39, 49, 50, 58, 60, 72, 75–6, 109, 138, 143, 144–6 colonial prisoners, 217 exemptions, 87 forced labour/ Service du travail obligatoire (STO), 4, 18, 21, 45–7, 60, 150, 153, 164, 165–168, 170, 173, 213–234 work projects, 138 Land Girls, 144 Law/s, 27–8, 31–4, 36–8, 41–2, 110–11, 179, 61, 75, 193 emergency, 193 international humanitarian, 3, 4, 7, 8–9, 30–1, 33–4, 55, 61, 230–1, 243–4, 246–50, 258, 268 situations of violence, 260–1 in War, 31, 38, 40, 47, 61, 190 of War, 25, 30–1, 33–4, 37–9, 42, 74–5, 191, 193, 233, 237, 260, 264 leisure, 72, 148, 156, 202, 275 in Switzerland, 202 Spanish refugees, 128–131 letters, see correspondence liberation, 70, 155, 168, 170–171, 225, 229–35 and artists, 124 Lieber Code, 19, 31 liminality, 84–94 living conditions, 22, 60, 68, 77, 96, 97, 118–19, 129, 130–133, 158–9, 231 loyalty, and citizenship, 179 Luftwaffe, 146 Maoist influence, 187 maquis, maquisards, 71, 184, 194 Mass Observation, 141, 143 meals/food rations, 8, 35–6, 59, 66–7, 97, 119, 157, 166, 169, 170, 201, 204, 210, 220–1

medical care, 14, 120, 124, 147 in Guantanamo, 250–51 memory, 134 collective, 185 migration, 17, 146, 162 Military Centres for Internees, 194–195, 233, 237 military history, 3, 25 Ministry of Agriculture, 143 Ministry of Information, 141 morale, 60, 96–7, 201, 221–2, 225, 281 morals, 22, 264 music/musicians, 6, 81–2, 99, 115, 117–9, 121–4, 129–30, 200, 202, 275 musical instruments, 99, 200, 202 Muslims, 19, 37, 57, 206, 245, 265 nationality of prisoners of war Algerian, 190, 194 Allied, 138 American, 4, 46, 49 Axis, 141, 150 British, 4, 32, 48, 55, 59, 60, 135, 145 Cambodian, 186 Chinese, 187 colonial/native, 7, 8, 55, 199–214, 219–223, 276 French, 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 167 German, 5, 6, 11, 18, 32, 41, 57, 65–73, 85–6, 95–7, 139, 146–8, 163–174, 175n26, 175n29, 276 Indochinese, 216 Italian, 6, 68, 142, 144–5 Jewish, 27, 45–8, 50–2, 55, 277 Laotian, 186 Muslim, 27, 37 North African, 201, 203, 205, 216, 218, 223 Polish, 27, 46, 52, 70 Russian/Soviet, 7, 15, 32, 41, 47–8, 153–6, 215, 277 West African, 222 Yugoslav, 27, 47 see also captivity/capture native populations and charitable aid, 200, 202–05, 242 and Algeria, 191–2 and Vietnam, 186 newspapers Bournemouth Evening Echo, 150 Daily Express, 144 norms, 3, 7, 9, 36, 87, 164, 168, 172, 276 and conventions, 30, 32–3

328 | Index

Occupation of France, 11, 80, 81, 164–5, 172, 215, 172, 210 Pacific, war of, 138 painters, see art painting, see drawing paternalism, 205, 210 Patriot Act, 258 peace, 3, 23, 170, 266, 275 and German POWs in the UK, 147 see also prisoners of war, treatment peace conferences The First Hague Peace Conference, 25 see also Conventions Pearl Harbor, 77, 180 perceptions, 4, 6, 141, 142, 150, 165, 248, 274 of the enemy, 241–3 of time, 81, 84–5, 87, 103–112 see also Braudel, Fernand; CohenPortheim, Paul in Index of Persons photography/photographs, 1, 81, 99, 130 physical exercise, 98 Pioneer Corps, 146 Plennytheatre, see theatre police, 69, 77, 122, 141, 146, 174n3, 189, 259, 261, 263 population, 5, 6–8, 16, 21, 49, 57, 70, 71, 130, 137–9, 144, 148–9, 157–159, 165–6, 174n3, 175n19, 177–8, 81, 89, 201, 203, 242, 245, 247, 251–3, 263, 269, 276 portraits, 133 postcards, see correspondence post-traumatic stress, 251 present time, 111–2 press, 98, 100, 111, 118–9, 130, 141, 144, 147, 149, 159, 173, 236, 243 prison/s, 4; see also Abu Ghraib, Guan­ tanamo in Index of Places prisoners of war, 1–9, 10n7, 13–18, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27–8, 49, 51, 66, 69–70, 74–6, 80, 95, 142–8, 167, 170, 174n10, 180–7, 203–6, 213–219, 273–6, 281 civilian, 23, 80, 115, 231 colonial, 224–5 death rates, 32 definition, 178 employment, 142 enclosures, 67–8 military, 1–7, 9–10, 66–8 and Soviet Russia, 23

treatment, 35, 39, 101, 103–7, 139, 148–9, 270–1 see also camps; nationality; status propaganda, 27, 34, 54, 57, 183, 192, 203–4, 207–9, 197, 211, 214, 231, 242, 265 and aid, 201 pro-Islam, 212, 218 protection, 4, 14, 32, 38, 41, 47, 154, 191, 158, 259, 261, 264, 268, 270 civilian, 16 and the individual, 74 protective power, 48, 154, 278 Protocols (International Law), 14, 77, 258 public opinion, 34, 41, 143, 147, 149 psychosis, see barbed wire Quakers, 120, 129, 148 rations, see meals rebels, 163, 194, 269 reciprocity, 14, 18, 28, 32, 38, 40, 50, 57–8, 232, 278, 279, 280 reconstruction, 5, 26, 67, 72, 164–8, 173, 244–5, 248, 252, 277 Red Army, 70, 133, 154, 215 Red Cross (ICRC), 14, 22, 31, 34, 59, 40, 48, 62, 76, 165, 168, 107, 186, 195, 201, 205, 208–9, 231–4, 236–7, 257, 267, 277, 279 Red Crescent, 22, 232–4 French Red Cross (IFRC), 186, 195, 200–04 humanitarian initiative, 260 stabilization agreement, 37 and Stockholm Agreements, 37 in Algeria, 278–9 refugees, 9, 65, 116, 118–9, 127–8, 134, 154, 156, 189, 250 Spanish, 277 regulation, 4, 20, 27, 32, 48, 63, 50, 55, 62, 156, 164, 169, 191, 196, 215, 249, 268, 277, 279 release, 233 relief, 28, 205, 196 religion, 4, 14, 20, 26, 47, 57, 62, 184, 265 religious practice, 14, 20, 27, 49, 55, 57–61, 148 repatriation, 2, 11, 15, 50, 67, 70, 155, 160n12, 175, 209 of German prisoners, 35

Index | 329

reprisals, 22, 38, 42, 48, 50, 54, 61, 230, 247, 267 280 against POWs, 35–6 research, 13, 25, 27, 65–6, 105, 107, 127, 131–2, 137, 154, 181, 231 resistance, 14, 19, 20–1, 70–1, 163, 168, 172, 174n5, 196, 203, 223, 251, 266 resisters, 18, 71, 245 rules, 15, 25–6 48, 50, 54, 75–6, 78, 120, 148–9, 156, 174n4, 222, 228–9 rumours, 96 Russians, 37, 41, 154–60, 161n12 Scapini Mission, 104, 184, 208, 215, 218, 220–3 Second World War, 2–7, 10, 11, 13, 16, 18–19, 21–2, 25, 33, 38, 41–2, 45, 53, 54, 55, 67, 76, 80, 81, 101, 128, 133, 138–9, 140, 141, 150, 151, 157, 178, 183, 227, 241, 267, 272, 275, 278 security, 15–16, 27, 58, 61, 119, 137, 142, 148, 174n14, 175n20, 194, 245–8, 261 Service du travail obligatoire (STO), see labour sexuality, 92–3, 97–8 sexual relations, 22, 97–8, 205–6, 221 Italian prisoners, 144–5 shackling crisis, 143 Shoah, The, 11 slavery. 226–7, 275 snipers, 19 sociology, social services, 177 and Iraq, 263 soldiers, 3–5, 8, 9, 10n5, 14–15, 18–19, 28, 163–4, 167, 213, 216, 277–9 and CPOWs, 205 Jewish, 46–8 German, 50–1, 96, 98 in Italy, 66–7, 70–2, 76, 145 in Vietnam, 185 in Algeria, 191, 223, 229, 231, 234, 237 in French colonies, 199 and Vichy, 218, 223, 229, 231, 234, 237 wounded enemy, 34 Songs/singing, 88, 96, 146 Soviet Russians, 7 Spanish Civil War, 19, 131 Spanish Republicans, 127–8, 130, 132–4 Soummam Congress, 229, 230 Stalags, see Index of Places

Status as prisoner of war, 7, 14, 16, 59, 61, 165, 264 legal, 262, 257–8 Surge, The, 145, 168, 262, 268 surrender, 67–8, 268 surveillance, 4, 68, 167, 191 supervisor, 156 terrorism, 8, 243–4, 250–1, 260, 269 theatre, 22, 71, 87–90, 100, 199, 130, 159 Plennytheatre, 87–9 thresholds, 92, 227 training, 72, 195 transformation, 18, 20, 24, 173, 216, 280 transport, 39, 47, 68, 72, 132, 144–5, 147 traumatism, 88 treatment, 3, 4, 7, 14–18,31–39, 45–53, 48, 57–60, 62, 67–8, 75–6, 97, 164, 166, 174n12, 267–8, 276, 278, 172, 216–7 and Algeria, 190, 196 in Great Britain, 145–151, 164, 166, 174n12 and Japan, 138 in Vietnam, 186, 250, 258–9, 262 unions, 168, 173 university, Alma Mater Bellariensis, Bellaria, 71 university centre, Lübeck, 106  Vichy Government, 46, 183–4, 189, 199– 200, 204, 209–10, 213, 218, 222 and German propaganda, 224–5 Vietnam War, 241, 260, 268 Violence, 3, 4, 14, 34, 131, 147, 167, 170–1 in Algeria, 190, 244, 270, 282 in Ethiopia, 245 in intrastate conflict, 244 and the ICRC, 259, 260 and rehabilitation, 263 see also Security virility, 82, 89, 95, 276 volunteer/s, 214, 219, 222, 230 war anti–terrorist, 184, 245, 251, 259, 261–2, 269 civil, 19, 23, 31, 172, 257–60 cold, 5, 9, 68, 244 decolonization, 3, 15, 19, 23, 184–5, 238 total, 30, 41, 43, 74

330 | Index

war crimes, 35, 70, 147, 230 war economy, 14, 142 war internment, 178, 180 War Office, 145, 149 women, 15, 47, 72, 76, 82, 85, 91, 97–100, 128, 131, 190, 192, 200, 205–8, 222–3, 225, 231, 242, 275, 279–80 Women’s Land Army, 144 work units, 72

workforce, 15, 18, 22, 28, 65, 164–70, 173 contract, 146, 168 detachments, 57, 213, 220–4 see also labour wounded, 16, 27, 31, 34, 145, 147, 267, 277 xenophobia, 118