KAISER'S FIRST POWs

In 1915, the German government published a book in Berlin entitled '"1915". It was produced in an attempt to portray the Germans as a civilised people who were destined to win the war, but in the meantime they would treat their prisoners with care and compassion. The aim of this present book is to compare "1915" to the reality of captivity, as experienced by the prisoners themselves. The book was translated into English by the German publisher, and sections are reproduced here, word for word, with errors and spelling and grammar included to add to the authenticity. Personal accounts from former prisoners will describe the reality of falling into the hands of the German Army and life as a prisoner of the Kaiser. The book has useful and unacknowledged accounts by captured British soldiers, maps of the camps, and interesting information about troops being sent to various camps. Dozens of original photographs from "1915" tell the story as seen through German eyes and here are photographs of a group of French, British and Belgian prisoners of war at Döberitz camp, Russian prisoners of war, working parties on a farm, an electrified fence along the German-Dutch border which has claimed a victim, a Greek Ritual Service at Sprottau where close by was a lazarette of 40 barracks for tubercular prisoners, the interiors of a Russian church, a French church and a synagogue, a prisoners' orchestra at Danzit-Troyl camp. From the "1915" book: 'A number of prisoners of war, arriving from the East, proved to be infected with cholera, typhus, dysentery and above all the dangerous spotted typhus... therefore disinfecting apparatus were provided for every camp', with machines used to rid prisoners' clothing of lice, shown in a photograph in use at Sagan camp which had a capacity of 6,000 prisoners known in the Second World War as Stalag Luft III of the Great Escape fame. Packed with archive photos, many of great nostalgic value, others grim and showing a harsh reality, reproduced to the best possible quality. Plus maps. 191pp.