Entries tagged as 'video'

"so correct and indeed friendly"

Treatment of Allied POWs (at least those from the West) in German POW camps was largely professional.

Here's the text of an excerpt (7:10-7:28) from the above interview with Walter Morison, a British former POW held at Sagan and then Colditz.

Well, you see, if you were a British officer, or, come to that, an American officer, the treatment which you received (from, in our case, primarily the Luftwaffe), was so correct and indeed friendly, really, that you didn't expect anything unpleasant.

For more information about his escapes and daily camp life, see his book Flak and Ferrets: One Way to Colditz.


(Enlisted men and those in larger camps probably had it rougher, especially in terms of food. Things also got considerably worse towards the end of the war -- and even in the immediate aftermath.)

Related Posts:
   1. Stalag Luft III; conditions in a German POW camp (May 06, 2010)
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The Colditz Glider (video)

The Allied POWs built a glider in one of the attics. It was never discovered by the guards, nor tested. But it was quite an inspiration, as illustrated above.

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Colditz Castle (Oflag IV-C): Videos

YouTube includes several interesting videos on Colditz, including several by "dewARTvideo". Here's one that provides a good overview.

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Movie (1957): The Bridge on the River Kwai

The different work requirement for officers vs. enlisted personnel was a key part of a (fictional) WW2 movie: The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Starting at about 45 seconds into this clip (with the word "officers" a bit garbled):

Time is short. All men will work. Your officers will work beside you.

The British commander objects, quoting the "other than officers" portion of the Geneva Convention. Neither wants to give in.

Lots more at filmsite ... though the quotes don't seem to match the film.

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Video (2010): POW Camps in Texas

Link to Video (2010): POW Camps in Texas
http://www.houstons55.com/postcards-from-texas/

In March, Houston's Channel 55 aired "POW Camps in Texas" as part of their "Postcards from Texas" series.

Featured in the episode:

  • Mike Waters, author of Lone Star Stalag
  • Heino Erichsen, former POW at Camp Hearne

The video was posted in 2 parts:

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Video (2003): Behind Canadian barbed wire

Link to Video (2003): Behind Canadian barbed wire
CBC.ca

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Digital Archives includes a 2003 clip from the television show Country Canada.

According to the CBC:

The first boatload of 3,000 German officers arrived in Canada in June 1940. Canada had been accepting captured German merchant seamen from England as early as Sept. 1939.

The clip, Behind Canadian barbed wire (3:54), includes commentary from writer David Carter and former German POW Max Weidauer.

Related Posts:
   1. Book (1980, 2004): POW Behind Canadian Barbed Wire (Apr 27, 2010)
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Video (1981): Canada's Posh PoW Camps

Link to Video (1981): Canada's Posh PoW Camps
CBC.ca

In 1981, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) television show Front Page Challenge featured Ed Billet, a German POW held in Canada during WWII, and author John Melady.

Included in the clip:

[Billet] looks back at his time in a camp in northern Ontario, where he was paid for his work in a lumber camp, chummed around with the guards and even romanced a local girl

and

author John Melady recalls as a young boy seeing PoWs working on his father's farm with red circles on the back of their jackets

Watch the clip: Canada's Posh POW Camps (5:32)

Interesting to note: Ed Billet was one of the first Germans to emigrate to Canada after the war.

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Video (1989): The remains of Camp 70 in Ripples, New Brunswick

Link to Video (1989): The remains of Camp 70 in Ripples, New Brunswick
CBC News

In 1989, CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) featured author Ted Jones during an investigative look at a former WWII Camp in Ripples, New Brunswick.

Interesting to note: Camp 70 was actually split into 2 camps, one for German POWs and the other for Jewish refugees.

Watch the news clip (3:19).

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Documentary: Hitler's Canadians (with video excerpt)

Link to Documentary: Hitler's Canadians (with video excerpt)
Hitler's Canadians

In 2007, Storyline Entertainment released a documentary called Hitler's Canadian's. From the press release

This one-hour documentary tells the little known story of German POWs in Canada during WW2. It features dramatic re-enactments of brilliant and hilarious escapes, the biggest prison rebellion in Canadian history and surprising interviews with former prisoners.

They explain why POWs were sent to Canada:

In 1940, before the U.S. entered WW II in 1941, the growing ranks of German prisoners in Britain presented an urgent problem. Straining to meet the Geneva Convention standards for POW treatment and with Nazi armies nearing their shores, Britain saw the POWs as a potential threat on their own soil and opted to send them to Canada.

Here's a theme that will be encountered often:

Without exception, the former POWs seen in “Hitler’s Canadians” were grateful for Canada’s hospitality and treatment. All of them realize that if it weren’t for their time behind Canadian barbed wire, they might not have survived the war.

And some hard data:

Between 1947 and 1960, 265,000 Germans immigrated to Canada. 6,000 of them were former POWs.

Klaus Conrad was one of the POWs interviewed in the documentary.

I enjoyed the video and will have more in a future post.

Meanwhile, here's an intro (1:03).

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