A Question of Retaliation? The Internment of British Civilians in Germany in November 1914

Abstract In early November 1914 the German military authorities ordered the internment of all British male civilians aged between 17 and 55 then still resident in Germany. Over four thousand British subjects were affected by this measure. This article examines the domestic political background to the decision in favour of internment, focusing on the role of public opinion and of competing voices within the German war leadership. It also looks at attempts to negotiate the release and exchange of civilian prisoners after 1914. Internment was supported by the military and by most sections of the middle-class press. While partly a reaction to similar measures against Germans in Britain, it also reflected the government's growing frustration at the failure to achieve victory in the opening months of the war. Acknowledgements Some of the research for this article was made possible by a grant from the British Academy. I would also like to thank Professor Panikos Panayi of DeMontfort University and Dr Matthew Seligmann of University College, Northampton, for their helpful and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. Notes Matthew Stibbe is Senior Lecturer in History at Sheffield Hallam University. Correspondence to: Matthew Stibbe, Department of History, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheffield S10 2BP. Tel. 0114 225 4345; m.stibbe@shu.ac.uk [1] The figure of 111,879 is cited in CitationDoegen, Kriegsgefangene Völker, 29. In Britain roughly 32,000 civilians were interned, and in France the figure was around 60,000. See CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 81; and CitationFarcy, Les camps de concentration, 129. [2] The figure of at least 400,000 civilian internees is given in Speed, Prisoners, Diplomats and the Great War, 141. There is now a growing literature on internment policies in general during the First World War, although relatively little has been said about Germany. For a useful overview, see CitationAudoin-Rouzeau and Becker, 14–18, retrouver la guerre, 85–100. For the internment of enemy aliens in Australia, the United States, Brazil and Canada respectively, see CitationFischer, Enemy Aliens; Nagler, Nationale Minoritäten im Krieg; CitationLuebke, Germans in Brazil; and CitationLuciuk, A Time for Atonement. On internment in France and Britain, see CitationFarcy, Les camps de concentration; and CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst. On internment in neutral Holland, see Citationde Roodt, Oorlogsgasten; and on internment in Russia, see the recent study by CitationLohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire. [3] Many accounts have been written about Ruhleben, mainly by former inmates. The most detailed work to date is CitationKetchum, Ruhleben, which also contains an extensive bibliography of other printed sources. See also the important essay by Christoph Jahr, ‘Zivilisten als Kriegsgefangene’. [4] Apart from Ruhleben, the following camps also had facilities for holding substantial numbers of civilians: Havelberg, Sennelager, Limburg, Holzminden and Rastatt. Smaller groups of civilian prisoners could be found in virtually all of the remaining 75 camps in Germany, where they were mixed together with military POWs. For further details see CitationDoegen, Kriegsgefangene Völker, 27. [5] CitationJahr, ‘Zivilisten als Kriegsgefangene’, 297–321. [6] Ibid., 302. [7] Figures in Garner, ‘Treatment of Enemy Aliens’, 29–30. Cf. Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 50. [8] CitationSpeed, Prisoners, Diplomats and the Great War, 152. [9] On anti-German riots in Britain, see CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 223–58; and on measures against German business interests see ibid., 132–49. [10] The figure of 5,300 is given in CitationGarner, ‘Treatment of Enemy Aliens’, 30. Cf. Foreign Office minute, 15 August 1914, in Public Record Office (PRO), FO 369/711. [11] CitationSpeed, Prisoners, Diplomats and the Great War, 148; CitationFarcy, Les camps de concentration, 129. [12] CitationHerbert, A History of Foreign Labor, 93. [13] CitationJahr, ‘Zivilisten als Kriegsgefangene’, 299. [14] For a succinct summary of the system of military government in Germany after the declaration of the state of siege, see CitationDeist, ‘Censorship and Propaganda in Germany’, 199–210. [15] On the Kaiser, see also CitationStibbe, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II’, 265–83. [16] Cf. CitationHerbert, A History of Foreign Labor, 89–90. [17] Minister of Interior of the Grand Duchy of Baden to the acting commander of the 14th army corps, 19 August 1914, Generallandesarchiv (GLA) Karlsruhe, Bestand 456/F8, No.269. [18] Police President of the city of Hanover to the Governor of the Province of Hanover, 21 August 1914, Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (NHStA) Hanover, Hann.122a, No.7010, Bl.31. [19] Prussian Minister of Interior to all provincial governors, 20 August 1914, ibid., Bl.37–8. Cf Jahr, ‘Zivilisten als Kriegsgefangene’, 299. [20] Supreme Commander in the Marches, 10 August 1914, ibid., Bl.44. [21] CitationKetchum, Ruhleben, 6. [22] Cf. Auszug aus dem Protokolle des Senats, 14 October 1914, Staatsarchiv (StA) Hamburg, Senatskriegsakten 111–2, Lz38. Conditions on the hulks in Hamburg are also described in the personal account of John Green, Skipper of the Grimsby trawler ‘St Cuthbert’, which was captured on 25 August 1914, Grimsby Central Library (GCL), Ruhleben Collection, File 3. [23] Manager of Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd., Hamburg, to W. Smart Esq., Manager of Standard Bank of South Africa, London, 26 October 1914, ibid., Lz1. [24] Charnley's diary is in the Liddle Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, RUH 09. For the football match, see the entry for 11 September 1914. [25] E.L. Wright, letter to his mother, 14 August 1914, Imperial War Museum, London, Department of Documents, 94/11/1. [26] See, for example, the memoirs of Sir John Balfour, resident in Freiburg and Baden Baden in August 1914, Liddle Collection, RUH 02. Balfour was the nephew of the Conservative statesman Arthur James Balfour. [27] See, for example, Minister of Interior of the Grand Duchy of Baden to district officials, 23 September 1914, and Police President of Karlsruhe to the acting commander of the 14th army corps, 30 September 1914, both GLA Karlsruhe, Bestand 456/F8, No.269. [28] See Police President of Stuttgart to the Württemberg War Ministry, 3 September 1914, and Württemberg War Ministry to the acting commander of the 13th army corps, 4 September 1914, both Hauptstaatsarchiv (HStA) Stuttgart, M77/1, No.840, Bl.8–9. [29] CitationJahr, ‘Zivilisten als Kriegsgefangene’, 299–301. Cf. Liddle Collection, RUH 17, transcript of interview between Peter Liddle and internee J.R. Dawson from Ripon, Yorkshire, held in a Munich police station from 5 August 1914. [30] See the correspondence in NHStA Hanover, Hann.122a, No.7010, Bl.17ff. Also the transcript recollections of Edward Morris Falk, one of the internees arrested at Bentheim, Liddle Collection, RUH 22. [31] See the account by Seaman William Connelly from New Clee in Grimsby, as told in The Seaman, 14 January 1916, GCL, Ruhleben Collection, File 3. [32] CitationGerard, My Four Years in Germany, 119. [33] Acting commander of the 10th army corps to the Governor of the province of Hanover, 17 June 1915, passing on request from the Prussian Ministry of War, 4 June 1915, NHStA Hanover, Hann.122a, No.7010, Bl.328. [34] Police Chief of Göttingen to the Governor of Hildesheim, 21 October 1914, ibid., No.7011, Bl.56. [35] Ball to Grey, 1 October 1914, in PRO, FO 369/713. [36] Foreign Office to Ball, 9 October 1914, ibid. [37] The text of these agreements, and similar agreements between the French and German governments, can be found in HStA Stuttgart, M77/1, No.840. [38] Reich Chancellor (Reich Office of Interior) to the Baden Ministry of Interior, 1 September 1914, GLA Karlsruhe, Bestand 456/F8, No.269: ‘On the basis of discussions with the relevant Prussian ministries, the deputy general staff and the admiralty, I have the honour to report the following: as soon as the railways are given the go ahead to resume normal passenger traffic, the subjects of enemy states who are currently in Germany will be given permission to leave the territory of the Reich, provided that Germans living abroad are also allowed to return to their homeland’. [39] CitationCohen, The Ruhleben Prison Camp, 21–22. [40] ‘Unsere lieben Engländer: Sollen wir Vergeltungsmaβregeln ergreifen?’, Kölnische Zeitung, 23 October 1914. [41] Advert in the Hamburger Nachrichten, 28 October 1914. [42] Arnold Cohen to the Generalkommando, Altona, 22 October 1914, StA Hamburg, Senatskriegsakten 111–2, Le. [43] Acting commander of the 9th army corps to the Hamburg Senate, 24 October 1914, ibid. [44] Acting commander of the 9th army corps to the Auswärtiges Amt, 27 October 1914, ibid. [45] Auszug aus dem Protokolle des Senats, 28 October 1914, ibid., Lz1. [46] See the reports in The Times, 31 October and 3 November 1914. Also Acting commander of the 9th army corps to the Hamburg Senate, 5 November 1914, StA Hamburg, Senatskriegsakten 111–2, Lz17. The order closing the churches was nonetheless rescinded by the Reich Chancellor ‘for political reasons’, presumably because it violated international conventions. See Reich Chancellor (Reich Office of Interior) to the Deputy War Minister, 8 November 1914, ibid. [47] ‘Verzeichnis der in Deutschland befindlichen englischen Staatsangehörigen, Bundesstaat Hamburg’, 2 November 1914, ibid., Lz1. The figure of 1,065 seamen can be found in a report to the Hamburg Senate on 14 October 1914, ibid., Lz38. [48] Exact figures are not available for any of these cities. However, when internment was finally introduced, the Social Democrat newspaper Vorwärts reported the arrest of around 1,500 British subjects in Hamburg, 800 in Berlin, 600 in Frankfurt-am-Main, 140 in Munich and 100 in Dresden. See ‘Weitere Vergeltungsmaβnahmen gegen Ausländer’, Vorwärts, 8 November 1914. [49] CitationEvans, Death in Hamburg, viii. [50] Cf. CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, passim. [51] See, for example, the article ‘Unangebrachte Groβmut’, Karlsruher Tageblatt, 10 October 1914. [52] The Times, 13 October 1914 (‘German Reinforcements: A Renewed Offensive?’, by our military correspondent). Cf. Station commander at Mannheim to the Line Commander at Karlsruhe, 23 October 1914, GLA Karlsruhe, Bestand 456/F8, No.269. [53] Acting commander of the 14th army corps to the deputy general staff in Berlin, 30 October 1914, ibid. [54] ‘Vergeltung gegen die Engländer’, Deutsche Tageszeitung, 27 October 1914. [55] ‘Gegenmaβregeln zum Schutz der Deutschen in Feindesland’, Neue Preuβische (Kreuz-) Zeitung, 29 October 1914. [56] ‘Ende der Deutschen-Verhaftungen in England’, Vorwärts, 27 October 1914. Vorwärts’ information was indeed accurate – on 22 October 1914 the War Office in London had asked for a temporary halt to arrests because it had run out of space to house internees. In spite of continued changes in course, general internment did not become the official policy until May 1915. See CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 73. [57] CitationJahr, ‘Zivilisten als Kriegsgefangene’, 302. [58] For evidence that anti-English feeling was not as strong in rural areas and in small and middle-sized towns, see also CitationZiemann, Front und Heimat, 49; and CitationGeinitz, Kriegsfurcht und Kampfbereitschaft, 109–10. [59] CitationJones, ‘Encountering the “Enemy”’. I would like to thank Heather Jones for granting me permission to cite this paper. [60] On food shortages and the effect on public opinion from October 1914, see CitationDavis, Home Fires Burning, esp. 34 ff. [61] See for example the government's official statement on internment, published in Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 November 1914. On the importance of the Burgfrieden to the government's domestic strategy, see also CitationDeist, ‘Censorship and Propaganda’, 200. The argument that enthusiasm for the war was beginning to ebb by the end of 1914 can also be found in CitationZiemann, Front und Heimat, 54; and CitationGeinitz, Kriegsfurcht und Kriegsbereitschaft, 416–17. [62] Cf. CitationStibbe, German Anglophobia and the Great War, 26. [63] Prussian Minister of Interior to all provincial governors, 5 November 1914, NHStA Hanover, Hann.122a, No.711, Bl.81. [64] CitationJahr, ‘Zivilisten als Kriegsgefangene’, 303. [65] See, for example, Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 November 1914. Also Prussian Ministry of War to the Prussian Ministry of Interior, 20 December 1914, NHStA Hanover, Hann.122a, No.7011, Bl.102. [66] ‘Im Engländerlager zu Ruhleben: Unterkunftsstätten und Beköstigung’, Berliner Tageblatt, 7 November 1914; ‘Das Schicksal der Zivilgefangenen’, Vorwärts, 7 November 1914. [67] CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 74. [68] The interventions of the Vatican and the ICRC are now well documented in CitationBecker, Oubliés de la grande guerre. On the US embassy in Berlin between 1914 and 1917, see CitationGerard, My Four Years in Germany, esp. 105–37, and various material of interest in the papers of Joseph C. Grew and Ellis Loring Dresel in the Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA. For evidence of the widespread use of reprisals against French and Belgian civilians in the occupied territories, including the setting up of forced labour camps whose existence was not officially known or acknowledged, see CitationBecker, Oubliés de la grande guerre, 27–88; and CitationMcPhail, The Long Silence, 158–85. [69] Gerard to Schwerin, 18 March and 17 April 1915. Copies of both letters forwarded by the US embassy in London to the British government on 18 May 1915. See PRO, FO 383/42. [70] Treutler to Auswärtiges Amt, 12 June 1915, Bundesarchiv (BA) Berlin, R901/83952. See also the Auswärtiges Amt's reply, 2 August 1915, ibid., which was exactly as Treutler had predicted. [71] These improvements were confirmed by a second visit by US embassy officials to Ruhleben in June 1915. For further details, see CitationNote from the US ambassador. [72] CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 81. [73] See, for example, Cohn's interventions in the Reichstag on 7 April, 6 June and 2 November 1916 in, respectively, CitationVerhandlungen des Reichstags, Vol.307, 909–16 and 1564–67, and Vol.308, 1998–2000. [74] Grew to House, 23 March 1916, in Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA, Grew Papers (MS Am 1687), Vol.8. Cited by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. [75] CitationTaylor, Report. While Taylor's report does make for alarming reading, it should be pointed out that he was referring only to the food supplied by the German military authorities, which he estimated to be half the daily ration given to soldiers serving in the German army. Under Chapter IV, Article 7 of the Hague convention of 1907, prisoners of war were supposed to be provided with the same quantities of food and clothing as the troops of the government who captured them, so Taylor was right to be critical. Nonetheless, the Ruhleben prisoners were also in receipt of fairly regular food parcels and gifts of clothes and books sent by the Red Cross and other voluntary aid organisations in Britain, so they were far from being under-nourished or under-clad in practice. [76] Cf. Prussian Ministry of War to Auswärtiges Amt, 25 August 1916, BA Berlin, R901/83953. Also Davis, Home Fires Burning, 187 and 288, n.165. [77] CitationGarner, ‘Treatment of Enemy Aliens’, 37. [78] CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 131. [79] CitationBury, My Visit to Ruhleben. [80] See, for example, the very detailed accusations in CitationMüller-Meiningen, Der Weltkrieg und das Völkerrecht. [81] Dr Ströhmer to Dr Lang, 4 August 1916, copy in BA Berlin, R901/83953. [82] CitationPanayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, 87–89. [83] ‘L'Allemagne ratifie l'accord du 14 juillet sur les prisonniers’, Journal de Genève, 5 November 1918. [84] Cf. Davis, Home Fires Burning, 119, who makes the same point with regard to the government's policy on the food question. [85] The above figures cited in the CitationICRC, Rapport, 24–25. Cf. CitationGarner, ‘Treatment of Enemy Aliens’, 52. [86] Grey to Page, 9 November 1914, PRO, FO 369/714. [87] At the end of the war, several thousand Italian migrant workers were awaiting repatriation from Germany and German-occupied Belgium, but none were actually interned and only a few were in police custody charged with criminal offences of various kinds. See CitationHerbert, A History of Foreign Labor, 107–08; and HStA Stuttgart, M77/1, Nos.856, 880 and 881. The number of Americans in Germany had already been reduced to 1,200 by the outbreak of war in April 1917, and had fallen further to only 700 by September 1917. Except in a handful of cases, the German authorities took no steps to arrest American citizens or prevent them from leaving for Switzerland, while in the US only roughly 8,500 out of some two million ‘enemy aliens’ (i.e. non-naturalised subjects of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires) were interned. See Garner, ‘Treatment of Enemy Aliens’, 30, n.13; and CitationNagler, Nationale Minoritäten im Krieg, 62, 427. [88] Chief of the deputy general staff to the Prussian Minister of Interior, 23 September 1914, and Chief of the deputy general staff to the acting commander of the 10th army corps, 4 October 1914, NHStA Hanover, Hann.122a, no.7011, Bl.224 and 437. [89] On this theme see also CitationStibbe, German Anglophobia, passim; and CitationScheck, ‘Der Kampf des Tirpitz Kreises’, 66–91. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMatthew Stibbe Matthew Stibbe is Senior Lecturer in History at Sheffield Hallam University. Correspondence to: Matthew Stibbe, Department of History, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheffield S10 2BP. Tel. 0114 225 4345; m.stibbe@shu.ac.uk

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