The Better Germany in War Time: Being Some Facts Towards FellowshipPicton, Harold W. (Harold Williams)
History
The Better Germany in War Time: Being Some Facts Towards Fellowship
Picton, Harold W. (Harold Williams)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals, charities, etc.; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
GERMAN PROFESSORS.
Attention is again drawn to the excellent work of Prof. Stange at
Göttingen. “He has an office in the camp at which he is present for two
hours every day, during which time he can be consulted by any prisoner,
and has formed classes of study, which are well attended.” At Giessen,
too, “Prof. Gmelin of the local university has taken a great interest in
the prisoners and visits them regularly with a view to providing for
their instruction.”
A CONTRADICTION.
The following is important and I quote it in full. _Mr. Osborne to Mr.
Gerard._ (_February 23, 1916_) (l.c. p. 62.):
In accordance with your instructions and with reference to the
article in the London _Times_ of February 7, stating the report
of an exchanged British prisoner of war that two British
prisoners at the detention camp at Güstrow, in Mecklenburg, had
been bayonetted for smoking in a forbidden vicinity, and that
one had died and the other was still in hospital, I have the
honour to inform you that I visited the camp at Güstrow on
February 12, 1916. I did not notify the camp authorities of my
arrival. I was shown every courtesy and received every facility
for speaking to the British prisoners out of earshot of the
Germans. I talked with a large number of British
non-commissioned officers and with some of the men, and all were
unanimous on two points; first, that if such an occurrence as
the one mentioned had taken place, they would certainly have
heard of it; and, second, that they had heard of no such
occurrence. I visited the lazaret, through which I was taken by
a British N.C.O., who is an assistant in caring for the sick,
and spoke to every British patient under treatment there, not
one of whom could possibly have been suffering from a bayonet
wound. It seems to me quite out of the question that the
occurrence mentioned in the English newspaper accounts could
have actually taken place at Güstrow.
In point of fact, instead of complaints at Güstrow, I heard
rather praise of the camp from the British interned there, and
praise of the British prisoners from the camp authorities. The
men were all well fitted out with clothes of all sorts, and
seemed particularly cheerful. The authorities stated that it
had never been necessary, in recent times at least, to place a
British prisoner under arrest. On the whole, the camp struck me
as being as nearly ideal as it is possible for a place of
detention of this kind to be.
The discrepancy between the last sentence in Mr. Osborne’s report and
the _Times_ article is a striking one. It should give one pause in
placing too much reliance upon untested accusations, or upon newspaper
articles based upon them. We forget sometimes that all the bias is
_against_ an enemy, and the only stories likely to be free from
exaggeration are those told in his favour.
A MILITARY PRISON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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