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German Prisoners of War in Canada, 1940–1946: an Autobiography-Based Essay

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German Prisoners of War in Canada, 1940–1946: an Autobiography-Based Essay Canadian Military History Volume 27 Issue 2 Article 19 2018 German Prisoners of War in Canada, 1940–1946: An Autobiography-Based Essay Franz-Karl Stanzel Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Stanzel, Franz-Karl "German Prisoners of War in Canada, 1940–1946: An Autobiography-Based Essay." Canadian Military History 27, 2 (2018) This Feature is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Stanzel: German Prisoners of War in Canada German Prisoners of War in Canada, 1940–1946 An Autobiography-Based Essay FRANZ-KARL STANZEL “What is a prisoner of war? He is a man who has tried to kill you and, having failed to kill you, asks you not to kill him.” —Winston Churchill Abstract : The four years I spent in British and Canadian POW Camps offered ample time to study English Literature. This experience in particular had a decisive effect on my later career as university teacher of English literature. It also helped me to become one of the first Anglicists at German and Austrian universities, who included Canadian literature in his syllabus and a founder member of the German Association for Canadian Studies. In this essay based on my war-autobiography, I describe the experience of German POWs in Canada. I was captured in 1942 when serving as third officer of the watch on board U-331 after my vessel was sunk in the Mediterranean by a torpedo fired from a RAF Albacore. I also deal with the so-called Laconia affair and the ambiguity of Admiral Dönitz’s orders issued to U-boat captains concerning the treatment of survivors of sunken ships. INSTON CHURCHILL’S definition of a prisoner of war echoes a Wcertain astonishment that some laws of humanity as embedded in the Geneva Convention of 1929 relative to land warfare still held validity in this war—a war which, in part, threatened to escalate into totalitarian warfare. Building on the Hague Convention of 1907, the Geneva Convention of 1929 constituted the most recent and © Canadian Military History 2018 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 27 [2018], Iss. 2, Art. 19 2 German Prisoners of War in Canada internationally ratified treaty for the humanisation of warfare, that was in force at the time of the Second World War. The principal rule of these conventions was for a soldier to refrain from exacting revenge on his enemy, whose intention was to kill him before having been forced to surrender. This idea is deeply rooted in Western philosophy and can be traced back to Hugo Grotius’ De jure belli ac pacis, 1625. The German Reich as well as the Western powers involved in the war, had all signed the convention and respected it, not, however, the Soviet Union. In how far this caused or provided an excuse for the German and Soviet armed forces not to grant their prisoners appropriate protection on the Eastern Front lies outside the scope of this essay. However, it provides the historic and situational background for the specific subject of this paper: the special status of Canada as a captor state for German prisoners of war (POWs). Under the government of Mackenzie King, Canada only agreed to receive POWs from Britain after some hesitation and increasing pressure from Westminster. Initially, the number of prisoners transferred to Canada was supposed to remain small. However, by the end of the war their numbers had reached around 36,000. What was significant about Canadian POW camps for German soldiers was their commitment to strictly adhere to the Geneva Convention. This might have been the result of the liberal mindset of the country’s large migrant population. In addition there were two specific sets of circumstances that influenced Canada’s attitude in this respect: unlike Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, none of the Canadian provinces were directly or indirectly affected by the devastation of modern warfare on land and in the air. Secondly, the country’s geographical expanse and agricultural richness enabled Canada to not only safely house but adequately provision POWs, even though towards the end of the war their number had substantially increased. In the early 1940s, the British government increasingly pushed for German prisoners of war and civilian internees to be removed from the British Isles. The decision was triggered by mounting fears of a possibly imminent German invasion of the British Isles. In addition, highly worrying news came out of occupied Denmark and Norway. According to reports from Norway, the Quisling regime had collaborated with the German Wehrmacht on multiple occasions. This caused concern in Britain that German soldiers in British POW camps could potentially be supplied with arms via air drops and https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/19 2 Stanzel: German Prisoners of War in Canada STANZEL 3 Showing other ranks, survivors of U-331 being escorted by British Marines in Algiers harbour. Notice that one man walks barefoot, another wears too small shoes, obviously given to him on board the destroyer H.M.S. Wilton, that had taken them to Algiers, after a Walrus flying boat had picked them up at sea. This photo appeared in a London Daily only a week after it had been taken on Nov.18, 1942. [Author’s photo] form a kind of fifth column behind the invasion front. Thus, in early summer 1940, Britain began its pre-emptive and hasty evacuation of German prisoners of war and civilian internees. The initial lack of distinguishing between the two quite different categories, regarding their treatment, soon led to serious consequences. Simply being German was enough to be deemed a possible threat to the state. In the early stage of deportation, German internees, many of whom were refugees or Jews fleeing Nazi Germany,were put on board ships together with POWs. Such was the case, for example, on the transport ship SS Arandora Star, which was torpedoed and sunk off the north-west coast of Ireland on 2 July 1940. U-boat commander Günther Prien had mistaken it for a troop ship due to its grey camouflage coating. The SS Arandora Star carried almost 1,200 German and Italian civilian internees and only 86 prisoners of war. More than 800 passengers died. The ship was bound for St. John’s, Newfoundland. At the time the island was still a British Crown colony. As such it was then still more strongly tied to Westminster in matters of foreign policy than the Dominion government of Ottawa, which at that time Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018 3 Canadian Military History, Vol. 27 [2018], Iss. 2, Art. 19 4 German Prisoners of War in Canada Survivors of submarines sunk by Allied Forces. [Author’s photo] still hesitated to accept larger numbers of internees or prisoners from the UK. Ultimately, Canada gave in to Westminster’s more and more urgent requests and started to convert boarding schools, hospitals, and similarly spacious buildings into POW camps. Towards the end of the war there were 26 Canadian camps accommodating around 36,000 people, the majority of which were located in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. In contrast to POW camps in Germany, where British Navy, Army, Airforce POWs were kept at separate camps, Canadian camps housed prisoners from all three branches of the German armed forces, Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. However, officers and other ranks were always kept in separate camps in full accordance with the Geneva Convention. Only for the purpose of kitchen duties and camp maintenance were orderlies assigned to officers’ barracks. In the first year of the war prisoners in Canada were mainly the survivors of U-boats sunk and pilots shot down over Britain. The first larger contingent of captured army soldiers arrived after the defeat of Rommel’s Afrikakorps in 1943. Camp guards were recruited from the Veterans Guard of Canada who had served during the First World War. POW camps were secured by a double perimeter barbed wire fence, the top and bottom of the fences being reinforced with razor https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/19 4 Stanzel: German Prisoners of War in Canada STANZEL 5 wire. Guard towers were placed at hailing distance from each other. Escape attempts were almost exclusively made through digging a tunnel underneath the perimeter fence. One of the very few successful attempts across the perimeter fence was achieved by two officers from the Bowmanville POW camp in Ontario. Their elaborately planned spectacular escape became legendary. Disguised as Canadian camp workers, equipped with a ladder and all the necessary tools, they pretended to mend the fence and thus eventually managed to climb both the fences under the watchful eyes of the guards in the towers. They got as far as the US border. There they were picked up by a US police patrol. They had no other choice than to admit their true “homeland.” Though this escape- adventure of stage-comedy quality was thwarted, it ended with a satirical epilogue at the expense of the captors: When the American police called at Bowmanville to inform the camp’s administration of the recaptured escapees, they were told that according to the last roll-call no prisoner had been reported missing from the camp. To cover their absence, two couples of men carried dummy puppets between them in step while parading before the roll-call officer, apparently convincingly enough to fool the guards.
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