WW1 Prison Camp Money
Work and pay in German camps
According to the rules of war - officer prisoners did not have to work. On the other hand, enlisted men were required to do so if asked by their captors. From the parent camp, they were assigned to Arbeitskommandos (Labor detachments) in agriculture or industry. Detachment strength ranged from 10 to 2,000 men. Prisoners worked on government-funded projects such as road and bridge construction, railway track maintenance and renewal, and land reclamation work.
Large industrial companies in Germany hired British and Allied PoWs from the regional Army Corps Commands to work in steel factories, quarries and coalmines. Smaller employers hired them as stevedores, garbage collectors, foresters and in small groups as farm hands. Prisoners usually lived near the place of their employment. James Gerard said, "There were in Germany about one hundred central camps and perhaps 10,000 or more so-called working camps in summertime throughout the country."
POW Notgeld (Lagergeld)
Notgeld, German for 'emergency money' or 'not money' was issued during, and after the Great War when there was a shortage of coins and banknotes. The German state bank gave permission to towns and villages to issue their own currency from 1914 until about 1923.
Notgeld, were also
issued in prisoner of war camps. The Geneva Convention ruled that officer PoW's did not have to work, but
other ranks were required to if asked. Those who did work were paid not
with official German currency but in prison lagergeld.
Prisoners were paid at a rate, determined by their level of skill and agreement between government or private employer and Army Corps Commands. The lowest paid were farm workers, from 16 to 35 Pfennigs a day. Small industries paid 30 to 50 Pfennigs a day, while those in heavy industry received from 75 Pfennigs to 1 Mark a day. For the highly skilled and professional PoW the rate was between 2 and 3 marks a day.
Many PoW's in Germany were pleased to escape the boredom of life behind barbed wire in the parent camp and welcomed the change of scenery and the money they earned at the working camps. The money often supplemented their food rations until food parcels arrived. Although some prisoners complained about working in heavy industry, where cruelty was sometimes inflicted on them, those working on the land and on farms often ate at the same table as their employer and slept in his house and became part of the family. They were often better fed than many city dwelling Germans.
The photographic postcard on the left, depicted Allied PoW's (English, Scottish
and French at least) and others in civilian clothing with a variety of
'land-implements'. A German officer and two soldiers pose with them for the picture.The photographic postcard on the right, taken and produced by a local
German photographer, depicted a working party of four British PoW's
from an unknown camp and two farm hands. They are overlooked by an
elderly German guard.
Working prisoners did not
receive their pay in official currency, as it was feared that if they could accumulate large sums of money through
working, they could bribe guards to help them escape and then pay their
way through Germany - to freedom. Instead, prisoners were paid in Lagergeld
(camp money). This was paper money (often specially printed for individual
camps) which could only be used to purchase goods at the camp store
or credited to a prison bank account.
German POW's in Britain
Although British PoW's held in German camps
were put to work early in the war, it seems that German prisoners
held in British camps were not.
A message from General Ludendorff
In 1918, an extraordinary document signed by General Ludendorff,
was said to have fallen into British hands. In September of that year it was
published in the Morning Post and part of it read, "Capture at the hands of our
inhuman foes, in view of their unexampled brutality of treatment, which is now
proved beyond question in so large a number of cases, merely means being slowly
tortured to death."
During the German Spring Offe