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German Prisoners of War in Britain, 1940-1948: Policy and Performance

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_________________________________________________________________________Swansea University E-Theses German prisoners of war in Britain, 1940-1948: Policy and performance. Clarke, Gillian S How to cite: _________________________________________________________________________ Clarke, Gillian S (2006) German prisoners of war in Britain, 1940-1948: Policy and performance.. thesis, Swansea University. http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42278 Use policy: _________________________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence: copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. The copyright for any work remains with the original author unless otherwise specified. The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder. Permission for multiple reproductions should be obtained from the original author. Authors are personally responsible for adhering to copyright and publisher restrictions when uploading content to the repository. Please link to the metadata record in the Swansea University repository, Cronfa (link given in the citation reference above.) http://www.swansea.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/ris-support/ German Prisoners of War in Britain, 1940-1948: Policy and Performance Gillian S. Clarke Submitted to the University of Wales in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Swansea University, 2006 ProQuest Number: 10797986 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10797986 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 l ib r a r y Summary Towards the end of the Second World War the British government embarked on an ambitious policy involving the large-scale employment of German prisoners of war in various sectors of the British economy, particularly in agriculture. By the autumn of 1946 it had succeeded in shipping more than 400,000 of these men to Britain from the Continent and America specifically for this purpose. Contrary to the requirement of the 1929 Geneva Convention, which stated that POWs should be repatriated ‘as soon as possible after the conclusion of peace’, thousands of these prisoners remained in this country as a supplementary labour force until 1948. Consequently, Britain’s actions in this respect raise a number of important questions, which the present thesis seeks to address. Through an examination of a variety of primary source material, including official documents of the British and Canadian governments, parliamentary debates, commentary by contemporary informed observers, as well as a body of valuable secondary literature, it explains why officials believed that such a radical policy was necessary, the many practical difficulties that had to be overcome to bring it to fruition, and how, considering her international treaty obligations, Britain was able to justify legally the retention of POWs for three years after the war’s end. Among the conclusions drawn is that Britain’s POW policy was bom of a selfish desire to alleviate a complex mixture of psychological, economic and political pressures, which came to bear on the country as a result of the war and its aftermath. Since the needs of the prisoners themselves were rarely taken into account, or what they, and others, felt to be their right to return to their homeland at the end of the war, the episode shows how British government officials were prepared to compromise Britain’s moral standing in the wake of a global conflict which had, above all, been fought and won by the Allied powers on moral and ethical grounds. DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed candidate) Date Statement 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the corrections is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliogranhv is annended. Signed.. .(candidate) Statement 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisation « Signed., .(candidate) Date Acknowledgements My thanks to all those who gave me encouragement and support while writing this thesis. I am particularly indebted to my supervisor and mentor, Jill Lewis, whose knowledge, enthusiasm and constructive criticism throughout helped me to ask the right questions and to identify what was important. My special thanks, also, to Eleonor Breuning, who generously gave up endless hours of her time in order to provide me with intellectual and moral support - this thesis has benefited enormously from her efforts. Finally, I would like to extend my gratitude to the Arts and Humanities Research Council whose assistance, financial and otherwise, made the production of this thesis possible. Contents List of Abbreviations Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE....................................................................................................... 18 The Employment of Prisoners of War in Britain Before 1945 CHAPTER TWO........................................................................................................46 Changing the Status of German Soldiers Captured at the Surrender: German POWs, Surrendered Enemy Personnel (SEPs) and Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs) CHAPTER THREE.....................................................................................................68 Labour Reparations CHAPTER FOUR..................................................................................................... 87 Meeting the Demand for Reparations Labour, 1945-1946 CHAPTER FIVE..................................................................................................... 117 The British Labour Movement and the Employment of German POWs from July 1945 CHAPTER SIX........................................................................................................ 157 The Re-education of German Prisoners of War in Britain CHAPTER SEVEN..................................................................................................200 Repatriation Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 236 Bibliography 248 Abbreviations ARC Allied Reparations Committee BAOR British Army on the Rhine BBC British Broadcasting Company CCG Control Commission for Germany CCG (BE) Control Commission for Germany (British Element) CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff CSDIC Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre CDU Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union) DEA Department of External Affairs DEF Disarmed Enemy Soldiers DPs Displaced Persons EAC European Advisory Commission FORD Foreign Office Research Department FRPS Foreign Research Press Office GMWU General and Municipal Workers’ Union HDSE Home Defence Security Executive ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschland (Communist Party of Germany) MAF Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries MOI Ministry of Information MOL Ministry of Labour NCO Non-Commissioned Officer NFU National Farmers’ Union NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party) NUAW National Union of Agricultural Workers PID Political Intelligence Department POW Prisoner of War POWD Prisoner of War Department PWE Political Warfare Executive RAP Royal Air Force SEP Surrendered Enemy Personnel SHAEF Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany) SPD Special Projects Division (Office of the United States’ Provost Marshal General) TGWU Transport and General Workers’ Union TUC Trade Union Congress UN(O) United Nations (Organisation) USSR Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics WLA Women’s Land Army YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association Introduction In October and early November 1939 discussions were already taking place within the British government over whether enemy prisoners could be used as a labour force. Requests from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) and the Ministry of Supply (forestry) for the allocation of prisoner-of-war (POW) workers were, however, refused by the Ministry of Labour and National Service on the grounds that there was still a relatively high level of unemployment among unskilled British workers and that, as a result, such moves would be opposed by the trade unions and, consequently, politically
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