I have been asked to help with the identification of some photographs belonging to a local Shropshire family. They are in the family album of a now deceased lady whose grand daughter would like to know more about them. This is all the information I have: "The attached photos were in a family album of a local woman who knows of no reason why they would be there. Around WWII, the family lived in a very rural area so it is possible that the men depicted in the photos were employed on local farm work from a local POW camp, but I take your point that such external work was less likely available to German POWs but that there may have been a family member employed at a camp who was given the photos. The 3 photos are of two military men. Each photo has been printed as a British Postcard, none of which has been through the postal system. One of the photos shows a man in uniform and the others are of both men, apparently, dressed in POW attire. The writing on the back is in old German. I have had them translated in Germany and the writing on one of the postcards remains illegible. On another, the local museum in Lauchhammer, Germany states that it shows the name and address: Willi Schulze Bockwitz NL Kreis Liebenwerda Hauptstraße 6 In the early 1950s, Bockwitz and other adjacent communities were combined to form the modern Lauchhammer and the part that was Bockwitz is now named Lauchhammer-Mitte. There is a Hauptstraße in Lauchhammaer-Nord but the old Hauptstraße, in Bockwitz, is now thought to have been re-named and the street numbering system has also changed, reducing the possibility that a direct approach might reach the old address. Unfortunately, the name, Willi Schulze, is probably the most common in Germany. As the card is addressed to him he is likely to have been a relative (father, brother) of the man depicted in the photo, so it is such a long shot that records of military personnel from that era might be able to identify either of the men depicted". If anyone can help me identify Willi Schulze, including his regiment/unit and any other information about how he came to be in Shropshire I will pass it on to the family concerned.
Hello HW do you have the village/town Shropshire Prisoner of War Camps No doubt Bob will be along in a minute to assist you regards Clive
With today's Data protection laws in place, to research relatives in these days is almost impossible. to go from Bockwitz to Liebenwerda is only 30 minutes by car but to find a person in a pretty remote place from where I live is a nightmare. I can make a couple of phone calls next week and see what happens. Stefan.
You should be aware that after December 1944 it was very likely that German POWs would be not only employed on farms but also living on them. Many POW camps were converted to hostels and POWs allowed to travel escorted to and from the place of work and were supervised by German NCOs. German POWs became preferred to Italian POWs and farmers were charged more for their services. German POWs kept in guarded camps were those deemed high risk these included U-boat crews, Luftwaffe aircrews and those suspected of a high adherence to the Nazi ideology including Waffen SS. I live in Worcestershire but our local POW camp also supplied labour to farms in Shropshire the POWs crossing the RiverTeme on a temporary bridge thrown up by the Royal Engineers. There are still a number of families in the area who are descended from POWs who married local girls after the war. I have just completed my MA thesis on the home front in the Teme Valley and the evidence from those who can still remember the German POWs living on the farms is that they got on very well with them. The documentary evidence supports this. In 1945 there was a desperate shortage of agricultural labour. Wartime moves to arable farming had made it more labour intensive and at the same time many men had gained skills and traqining in the forces that allowed them to take up jobs in industry when demobbed. The government hung on to the POWs as long as possible. The last were repatriated in 1948
Thank you for your helpful replies. Does anyone know of a centralised list of German POWs in British hands? Presumably we must have kept records. I would also imagine that the Germans would keep similar records but whether these have survived or not, I would not know. Presumably the Red Cross would also have kept records but. I doubt that these would be in the public domain.
The IRC were notified when a POW was taken and kept informed when he moved location. This applied to both British in German hands and German in British. AFAIK these records still exist and are accessible via the IRC. However it should be noted that they do not regard accessing these records as very high on their list of priorities and getting information from them is said to take an incredibly long time. I suspect that there is little funding for it. If there is a list still extant in British hands it is likely to be at TNO however I suspect that such a list like an IRC one will tell you what camp was responsible for a POW and not whether he was working and even living on a farm. The process for farmers obtaining POW labour seems to have varied from county to county but in Worcestershire and Shropshire it went more or less as follows: Farmer notifies local Labour Exchange that he has a need Labour Exchanges notify County War Agricultural Committee of needs they cannot fill from their books CWAC liaises with the main POW camps who allocate POWs. Note one camp might deal with a number of CWACs - Powys in Wales supplied POWs to farms in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestersire. A main camp could have satellite camps or hostels in a number of counties. The CWAC would act as the contractual link between the Farmer and the Camp administration. Judging by various ministerial answers to a number of questions in the Commons no consolidated records of such CWAC activities were kept at a central government level. Individual CWAC records where kept are held in county archives. This is where if anywhere one may find records of which POWs went to which farms.
I have just posted this reply on the same kind of subject on another thread. It doesn't give you the answer you would really like but may help you and others starting out. Johnstone Castle POW Camp No 188
Hoping you find the answer Simon. As Robert w wrote, German pows often lived on the farms where they worked. One of my uncles was a farmer in the Borders in those days and had German pows working and boarding in the various farm buildings.. It was a better life than fighting for a losing side. They got fed too. There was also a big camp nearby. I've got vague memories of meeting some of them. Some stayed postwar and married English girls. As someone else implied open work would be more common with the Italian pows.
Although no German POWs were used until March 1944 and the numbers employed did not become significant until autumn of that year in the end far more Germans were employed in open work than Italians - from the end of 1944. The original plan had not been to bring large number of German POWs to Britain but plans to hold large numbers in France failed as the French were either unwilling or unable to hold POWs in a manner consistent with the Geneva convention and the Americans proved quite incompetent at it so Britain found herself taking over camps from the Americans and shipping POWs back to Britain. There was considerable disillusion with Italian POWs who had become increasingly difficult to manage - an internal memo in the Ministry of Agriculture stated ‘When these prisoners started work the general experience was that they were first class workers. I am sorry to report that they have steadily deteriorated ever since, particularly where the prisoners have been working in small gangs without a proper ganger…The prisoners have discovered that nothing happens if they don’t work very hard’. Problems seem to have started when the Italian POWs were not released after the Italian surrender. By October 1944 16,000 German POWs were housed in 22 work camps in Britain and working in farming and forestry.By December 1944 it had been decided that only high-risk prisoners needed to be kept in closed and guarded camps, the rest could be housed in hostels or on farms and permitted to travel unescorted. Farmers were charged more for the use of German POWs than for Italians but despite the added cost there was a preference for using Germans on the grounds that they had a stronger work ethic and their own NCOs acted as effective gangers. By the end of the war in Europe over 55,000 German POWs were working unescorted on British farms. By June 1946 there were 163,000 German POWs employed in open work.
Hi again, first Mini-results. NL stands for Niederlausitz, Today's is Lauchhammer. Tomorrow I can reach someone there. Stefan.
I now have a person in Lauchhammer looking for information on Willi Schultz or his relatives. Keep your fingers crossed. I might have to disclose your real name sooner or later. Please send me a PM Stefan.
Willie Schulze has two sons, Helmut, who moved to the island Ruegen in 1967 and Wolfgang living in Kuelungsbronn. Do you want me to check with these two sons? Stefan.
