Sources

Hindostan and El Dschihad

Hindostan and El Dschihad were propaganda newspapers for South Asian, Caucasian, and North African prisoners of war in the Halbmondlager in Wünsdorf and the Weinberglager in Zossen. These periodicals…

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Themes: Religion; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, Arabic, Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, Hindi, Jihad, Language, newspapers, official documents, orientalism, orientalists, Ottoman Empire, pan-Islamism, POW, pow-camp, Propaganda, religion, revolution, Russian, Tatar, Urdu

Shipment for prisoners of war

French parcel label addressed to Mohamed ait Menca from the 5th Algerian Tirailleurs Regiment who was imprisoned at Zossen.

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Theme: Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, Mobility, POW, pow-camp, western front

Personal information form related to sound recording no. 271

The so-called Personalbogen (personal information form) was created by the members of the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission to assist in the process of recording the voices of POWs held in…

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Themes: Recording; Language; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: Colonial Troops, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, Language, Mobility, POW, pow-camp

Letter to the captain

Letter purportedly by two Christian prisoners of war interned in the Halfmoon camp requesting permission to go to church on Christmas Day in 1917. This forms part of Otto Stiehl's photographic…

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Themes: Religion; Propaganda; Letter; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, Halfmoon Camp, India, Letter, religion

Interned British soldiers in Groningen crafting picture frames from cigar boxes to sell to British companies

A photograph taken in the English camp at Groningen during World War I. Members of the British navy are depicted crafting picture frames from cigar boxes.

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Themes: Photograph; Neutrality; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Captivity
Tags: Camp, Great-Britain, Neutrality, POWs, Soldiers, The Netherlands

Love song performed by the Moroccan prisoner of war Kadr Ben Hamed at the Halfmoon camp in Wünsdorf

This song was recorded in the Halfmoon camp in Wünsdorf in 1918. Biographical details of the singer are in the PK-files. A translation was produced by Samir El-Moussati in 2014.

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Themes: Recording; Race; Propaganda; Captivity
Tags: Arabic, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, Language, POW, pow-camp, Sound Recording

Personal Information Form 325, Sound recording, Armenian-Georgian song

The voice of the Russian soldier Levon Altunov was recorded in a prisoner-of-war camp in Chemnitz on 16 June 1916. The recording, inventoried as PK 325, is of a song in Armenian that speaks of…

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Themes: Recording; Language; Captivity
Tags: Armenian, Colonial Troops, Folksong, imperial strategy, Mobility, POW, pow-camp, Propaganda, Race, Sound Recording

Memoir On to Bagdad by Sisir Prasad Sarbadhikari

The above extract evokes the everyday milieu at the hospital in Aleppo where Sisir Sarbadhikari, after being taken as a POW, worked as a medical orderly in 1917. While the Turks are often described as…

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Themes: Mobility; Memoirs; Captivity

Frenchmen, Belgians, Senegalese Tirailleurs, Zouaves, and Turkos captured near to Ypres

The picture displays a group of prisoners of war (possibly recently captured) close to Ypres, one of the most embattled cities on the Western Front. The soldiers seem to belong to different branches…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Postcard; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-French, Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, imperial strategy, Photograph, postcard, POW, Propaganda

L’Echo du Camp de Rennbahn: Rennbahn-Münster’s prisoner camp newspaper

Collection of the newspaper L’Echo du camp de Rennbahn from issue 1 (10 June 1916) to the issue 85 (15 June 1918). Each issue contains 3 sheets (6 pages) with both texts and cartoons. The articles…

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Themes: Newspapers & Magazines; Captivity
Tags: English, French, newspapers, POW, pow-camp, western front

Halfmoon Camp in Wünsdorf

The sketch depicts the mosque which was erected in the Halfmoon Camp in 1915. In the foreground, human silhouettes are identifiable. They appear as if wearing traditional turbans and cloaks. Other…

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Themes: Religion; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, anti-French, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, Jihad, painting, POW, pow-camp, Propaganda

Shipment from England for prisoners of war

Parcel label for a delivery of bread, addressed to Indian prisoners of war at Halbmondlager, Zossen.

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Themes: Neutrality; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, India, POW, pow-camp

The Bayram Feast at the Muslim Internment Camps in Wünsdorf (1916)

Short German documentary showing religious celebrations at the end of Ramadan in the internment camps in Wünsdorf near Zossen. https://www.filmothek.bundesarchiv.de/video/2535

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy; Film; Captivity
Tags: Camp, film propaganda, Germany, Muslims, The Netherlands

Greenmantle

Published in 1916, the novel Greenmantle was a wartime bestseller written by the English author John Buchan who also worked as a high-ranking propaganda official at the British propaganda office,…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Mobility; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-colonialism, Camp, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, Great-Britain, imperial strategy, Jihad, Muslims, novel, orientalism, Propaganda, South Africa, Wellington House

Drawings of Hindu deities made by an Indian prisoner of war in the Halfmoon camp

These three drawings made by Ganga Ram Gurung in spring 1917 in the Halfmoon camp are preserved in one of the photo albums of Otto Stiehl at the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin. They depict…

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Themes: Religion; Propaganda; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-colonialism, Halfmoon Camp, Hindu, imperial strategy, India, painting, POW

Second plan of work for Bangkok by Ernest Douwes Dekker

In this report addressed to the German Foreign Office, the anti-colonial Indonesian writer and politician Ernest Douwes Dekker (image 1) describes his secret mission to travel from Rotterdam to…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Mobility; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, Berlin Indian Independence Committee, colonial intellectual, Dutch East Indies, Ernest Douwes Dekker, German Revolutionary Program, Germany, Imperial identity, imperial strategy, India, Java, nationalism, Neutrality, The Netherlands

English letter by Nellie Zerhusen

Letter written probably to Otto Stiehl, captain of the Halfmoon Camp in Wünsdorf. This forms part of Stiehl's photographic album and within it are complaints about English soldiers who claim to be…

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Themes: Letter; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-British, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, Ireland, Irish, Letter, Non-Combatant, POW, pow-camp

Halfmoon Camp in Wünsdorf-Zossen. Three-legged race

The postcard shows a group of prisoners of war and their guards in the propaganda camp in Wünsdorf. They are shown supposedly in their leisure time; some of them doing a three-legged race, others are…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Postcard; Photograph; Captivity
Tags: colonial intellectual, Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, Jihad, Muslims, Personal Encounters, Photograph, postcard, POW, pow-camp

People who stayed at home and prisoners of war harvesting the hay

The picture shows a number of people helping to store the hay in a barn. On the right, an elderly man supervises. On the left, a man, presumably a French prisoner of war, holds a scythe and watches…

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Themes: Propaganda; Postcard; Captivity
Tags: Labour, painting, Personal Encounters, postcard, POW, The Other

Envelope addressed to Naik Haider Khan in Zossen

The envelope is addressed to an Indian prisoner of war who served in the 129th Duke of Connaught's Own Baluchis infantry regiment. It is stamped with censorship marks for both Britain and Germany. It…

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Themes: Letter; Language; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, English, Halfmoon Camp, Letter, POW, pow-camp

From one of our Muslim prison camps. Dolce far niente in the sunshine

The photo shows a group of North African prisoners of war, two prisoners of unknown origin, and an officer, all in front of barracks. The prisoners are arranged in a way that shows them to be…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Postcard; Photograph; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-colonialism, anti-French, Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, Jihad, Muslims, Personal Encounters, Photograph, postcard, Propaganda, The Other

Trench Notebook of Indian Soldier

A couple of pages from the trench notebook of Jemadar Mir Mast, found in a sealed envelope marked 'His Majesty's Service'. It contains a hand-drawn trench map, a series of casual jottings and numbers,…

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Themes: Mobility; Language; Captivity

Weinberg Camp near Zossen

The first picture shows the visit of an Ottoman-German delegation to the Halbmondlager. The gangways are decorated with conifer wood and the buildings with various Ottoman and German flags. The mosque…

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Themes: Religion; Propaganda; Photograph; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, imperial strategy, Jihad, Muslims, pan-Islamism, POW, pow-camp, Propaganda

German prisoners in Algiers

A postcard picturing German prisoners in Algiers. On the reverse are words printed in poor Dutch: 'One can see from the look of them that they have not suffered from their treatment' ('Men kan hat hem…

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Themes: Propaganda; Postcard; Neutrality; Language; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: Algeria, Camp, France, Germany, postcard, POWs, Propaganda, Soldiers

Of a Lost Summer by Cyriel Buysse

Of a Lost Summer is a travelogue by the Flemish writer Cyriel Buysse that documents the Western Front in France and Belgium, where he also visited the destructed towns in West Flanders where he was…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Mobility; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Captivity
Tags: Flemish, Race, Senegalese, Soldiers, trenches, war novel