Germany - Prisoner of War Camp: Müncheberg

Müncheberg was a First World War Prisoner of War Camp in Brandenburg, Germany, between Berlin and Custrin.  This was where Private A Whiteman of the 3^rd Worcestershire Regiment was a prisoner.  In November 1916 he sent a postcard to Ethel Sladden, thanking her for the food parcel which had been sent.

Starting in 1915, the German authorities put in place a system of prisoner of war camps, nearly 300 in all.  These camps were run by the 25 Army Corps Districts into which Germany was divided.  Müncheberg was a Mannschaftslager, ie an ordinary soldier's camp for private soldiers and NCOs.  These were basic camps, made up of wooden barracks holding around 250 prisoners. On the inside, a central corridor provided access on each side to straw or sawdust beds stacked two high. Furniture was kept to a minimum: a table, chairs or benches and a stove.  Camps also featured barracks for guards, a Kantine (cafeteria) where prisoners could sometimes buy little objects and additional food, a barrack for packages, a guardhouse and kitchens.  Each camp had its own particular structures, notably sanitary facilities or cultural places like a library, a theatre hall or a worship space.  All around the camp, there was barbed wire three metres high.

A pamphlet entitled “Map of the Main Prison Camps in Germany and Austria” by Mrs Pope-Hennessy was privately published in 1917 and gives brief details of the camps.  For Müncheberg it says:  “Müncheberg (BIV) – Between Berlin and Custrin.  The prison camp, four acres in extent, is in the town and is surrounded on three sides by houses.  American prisoners here.  3^rd Army Corps. ”

Una Constance Pope-Hennessy (1876-1949) was a British writer, historian and biographer.  During the First World War, she was a member of the Central Prisoners of War Committee of the British Red Cross Society.  For this work, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1920 civilian war honours.  She was the mother of Sir John Pope-Hennessy (1913-1994), an art historian, and James Pope-Hennessy (1916-1974), a writer.