Meeting the Enemy

by Richard van Emden

  His face grew hard and his voice metallic, and he brought out those last words as if he were biting grit. And something cold shivered down my spine as I felt what this being of seemingly steel and iron was enduring.

  ‘Get your country to see that they ask an impossibility; they will if things are explained.’

  Noske was a member of the Social Democratic Party and was seen as a moderate figure. Yet, in Germany’s turmoil, he had used his hidden inner steel to ruthlessly crush a myriad communist uprisings in 1919 while working as closely as he dare with the army’s traditional right-wing officer class.

  After dinner, Noske offered to give Roddie a lift back to the Adlon Hotel and Roddie told the Defence Minister about the precautions his batman had taken. ‘“Well,” Noske said, putting his hand in his coat pocket and producing a deadly looking automatic, “you are not as careful as I am. Not that this would save me, but I should like the satisfaction of having a shot at whoever got me.”’ The necessity of carrying a gun, and the seriousness of Noske’s words, were not lost on Roddie who reported back what he had seen and heard. He was immediately ordered to England to meet senior military officers, including Field Marshal Henry Wilson, and politicians of the stature of Winston Churchill and Sir Arthur Balfour. ‘Mr Churchill appeared to me to be the most alive to the seriousness of the internal conditions in Germany,’ Roddie wrote in his memoirs, adding that he believed his evidence was circulated within the Cabinet.

  Roddie could not know whether his evidence was key to modifying British policy on the prosecution of war criminals, but it seems likely that it had some unquantifiable effect. Less than four weeks later, in March 1920, Roddie had a two-hour private meeting with Ludendorff in Berlin. Roddie became convinced that the ageing Field Marshal was as fearful of, and as trenchant against, the baleful influences of Bolshevism as any British politician. Incredibly, Ludendorff even suggested to Roddie the merit of a joint Allied/German army under the command of Field Marshal Haig that could march on Moscow.

  Despite Gustav Noske’s fear, Ludendorff was not a man that the British were about to arrest and bring to trial. Continued German protests encouraged the Allies to shorten their lists, with the Germans paying especial attention to cajoling the British, who were rightfully seen as diffident prosecutors, and the country seen as amenable to rational argument.

  When the Allies demanded the surrender of Germans for trial, the British fought to persuade the French and Belgians simultaneously to hand over the right to try the accused to the Germans. ‘It was,’ wrote an observer, ‘simply a case of Germans being tried in Germany by a German court for offences against German law.’ When these rights were reluctantly granted, the Germans, not surprisingly, chose to try defendants in the Supreme Court in the Saxon town of Leipzig, a city about as far away from Allied influence as it was possible to get.

  In March 1919 the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Infantry Labour Company bade farewell to his men. It was two years since Major William Renwick had been ordered to take command of a unit made distinctive by its composition primarily of men with German surnames. Although Renwick may once have seen this appointment as a dubious honour, in the intervening time he grew both to respect and rely on the men under his command.

  It was time to leave, and Major Renwick wrote a letter to be posted on the barracks notice board. Renwick was returning to civilian life. He had been in the army since 1914 and had served three years in France away from his wife, children and business, but in saying goodbye to his men, he made clear his feelings.

  I feel regret that I sever my connection with such a splendid Company, which I had the pleasure and honour to command from its formation. During the whole time I was C.O. I was most loyally supported by all ranks, and few men had an easier task. That the company had a good name for discipline, work, appearance and efficiency was in no manner due to me, but the credit lies with my platoon commanders, senior NCOs, and men who combined so well to make the Company a name.

  We had to fight down a prejudice and I think I can truthfully say we did so . . . to the end of my time I will look back with pleasure to the days which brought me into close association with so many good fellows, and no words I can express here will convey the thanks I should wish to tender to you all for the support I always looked for and never failed to receive.

  Renwick was genuinely proud. In September 1917 he had been recommended for the Military Cross while three others, Company Sergeant Major Wiehl, Company Quarter Master Sergeant Korhaus and Corporal King were put up for the Meritorious Service Medal. Renwick received his MC but of the others only King received any recognition, being Mentioned in Dispatches. A case of the prejudice he had fought hard against? Maybe. But the next year, in May 1918, Meritorious Service Medals were awarded to Privates Malzer and Kriehn of 1st ILC.

  Major Renwick might be going home but the men under his command were remaining in uniform, at least for the time being. In mid-January 1919, a confidential memo was received from the Adjutant General that personnel from these companies were ‘on no account to be demobilized’ until further instruction. No reason is given for the order but the general dissatisfaction among the British Army’s rank and file at the slow pace of demobilisation had to be addressed and the ILCs were unlikely to receive preferential consideration. In the febrile anti-German atmosphere apparent in early 1919, no one could be sure what the future held for these men. It was better, perhaps, that they stayed together rather than return to Britain to disperse to all corners of the country. Many of these men, including the 1st, 2nd and 4th ILCs, remained in and around the Ypres Salient and near Courtrai until November, when commanding officers received orders that no more leave was to be allotted as instructions were anticipated ordering the companies back to Britain.

  Only in mid-December did the men of the 3rd Infantry Labour Company receive permission to disband and a final message of farewell was read out to the men.

  Now that the time has come for you to leave the army and go back to civilian life, I wish, both personally and officially, to thank you for the service which you have given.

  You take away with you the priceless knowledge that you have played a man’s part in this Great War for freedom and fair play. You take away with you also your remembrance of your comrades, your pride in your Company, and your love for your Country.

  You have played the game: go on playing it and all will be well with the great Empire which you have helped to save.

  I wish you every prosperity and happiness.

  F.O. Clarke for O.C. 80th Labour Group

  Unlike Renwick’s heartfelt message, this ‘farewell’ must have sounded perfunctory. It could have been written for any disbanding company, and probably was. Not that these men would have cared; they were going home but it was over a year since the Armistice and six months since the Versailles Peace Treaty and the question must have been on the lips of many: what were they going home to? Would attitudes to Germans have changed, would there be work for these men? The omens were not good.

  Although life had to move on, public bitterness against Germans bubbled below the surface, and, as politicians tend to do, they fell into line with public sentiment. One manifestation of this attitude was a deliberate policy of obstruction, hindering the return of naturalised British nationals of German birth, and there was no better example of this than the ongoing saga of Carl Fuchs, world-renowned cellist and friend of Sir Edward Elgar.

  Carl Fuchs had been detained in Germany since the outbreak of war and his British wife had made a determined effort to have her husband exchanged, but to no avail. On his release from open detention, Nellie Fuchs applied for a British passport for her husband. However, the British government, aware that returning citizens would have to pass through neutral Holland, advised the Dutch government to withhold facilities from such people as the British government deemed them only ‘technically British subjects’.

  There was a pervasive belief in the Home Office that such individuals wished purely to esc
ape the dire economic situation in Germany and would become a burden on the British taxpayer. It was important to ensure that anyone who returned was considered a ‘suitable person to receive a British passport and the protection therein’, a useful delaying tool if required. By February 1919, Nellie Fuchs was exasperated.

  ‘Sir,’ she wrote to the Home Office, ‘May I remind you that I am still without a reply to my letter of January 10th, the receipt of which you acknowledged on January 11th. I urgently asked for a passport for my husband, Professor Carl Fuchs, to enable him to return to England and support his family . . . A request for a passport was sent on December 10th . . .’ Only in March was permission grudgingly given and authorisation passed to the Dutch Legation in Berlin to issue a passport to Fuchs. Later that month he returned to Britain, almost five years after he had left to visit his sick mother.

  Politicians were almost as one in their desire to see all such enemy aliens sent home and government policy was to repatriate Germans. In December 1918, just days before the General Election, Andrew Bonar Law, the Coalition’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a speech promising action over the subject of repatriation. ‘I do not believe that people who have had to be locked up in our time of deadly peril are good citizens and if this Government is returned to power at the conclusion of peace, we shall send them back to their own country . . .’

  The government was returned to power and repatriation carried out as quickly as shipping facilities permitted. Bonar Law had good reason to want Germans repatriated: he lost his two eldest sons in the fighting. And while all MPs were mindful of the electorate, many others had lost sons, too, including the new Home Secretary, Liberal MP Sir Edward Shortt, whose only son, Lieutenant William Shortt of the Scots Guards, had been killed in October 1917. As Home Secretary, Sir Edward regularly updated an interested House on the repatriation of enemy aliens, and the figures were startling.

  By February 1919, the number of internees had fallen from around 24,250 to 19,800. By March, Shortt told the Commons that just six internment camps remained operational, holding 12,500 internees, of whom 10,500 were German. By October 1919, 84 per cent of all enemy alien internees had been sent back to Germany and Austria.

  In a Statement made by Shortt in April 1919, he told the House that only forty-one internees had been released from detention and granted leave to remain in Britain on the recommendation of an Advisory Committee set up to look at all cases. This left around 5,000 Germans who were unwilling to leave Britain. Of these nearly 3,900 were granted permission to remain, usually on grounds such as family ties or long residence. Of course, many thousands more uninterned Germans stayed, too. In July, Shortt, in response to MPs’ questions, revealed that, of those, 5,785 males and 5,965 females were exempted from repatriation on advice since 1915. The net result of government policy cut the German population in Britain from 57,500 in 1914 to 22,250 by the end of the decade.

  The strategy of repatriation did not extend to providing passage for German British-born wives and children to leave alongside their husbands. These wives followed or in some cases preceded their husbands, although no British-born wives were sent away against their will.

  The offices of the Friends Emergency Committee had remained busy throughout the war, helping families of enemy aliens as they struggled to survive in Britain or, often reluctantly, left British shores to return to Germany. In October 1919, the FEC issued its seventh and final Report, revisiting its work in the previous year including the plight of women whose husbands had been interned. The Report’s author referred to the Armistice and the hope, expressed through a flood of letters written to the FEC by these women, that normal life would be restored: a hope misplaced.

  Peace had come at last, their husbands would be set free then and there and they would see the end of all their anxieties and trials! But husbands were not released as they expected, and suspense weighed down the women more than all that they had endured in the past had done. Later, as the repatriation of interned men was accelerated, many more of our acquaintances had to face a dreadful dilemma - should they join their husbands in lands where food was terribly scarce, where, even if the man had work and was earning well, household effects were unobtainable, or only to be bought at prohibitive cost? Or, if they delayed the family reunion and remained in Britain, what would they live on when the special grants ceased? Must they become paupers? Would delay possibly lead to permanent separation? It speaks volumes for the courage and devotion of these women that numbers of them never hesitated, but were only too anxious to start off at once for a strange country so that they might be with their husbands at the earliest moment possible. Those who find it most difficult to come to a decision are English-born wives with older children settled in employment here, or with sons serving in the British Army. They have to face the fact that, if they join their husbands abroad, these children are left behind them; so, naturally, they are strongly drawn both ways at once.

  Such terrible problems as these are often put before the visitors who have become very valued friends to many desolate women. Indeed our visitors form a most important personal link between committees and their cases in all manner of vicissitudes, and a wonderful work has been done by them in ministering to moral and spiritual needs, in addition to physical wants. When, in consequence of talks with some of the mothers who were going to rejoin their husbands, it was realised how greatly they dreaded the plunge into the unknown which they were yet determined to make, a series of teas, with talks from helpers who knew Germany, were arranged in the office. At these, Mrs Schmidt, shall we say, a native of East London, gleaned some details of such mythical places as Hanover or Berlin, and of everyday life there. Classes for simple conversational German were also arranged, so that the women should be able, on arrival in their new homes, at least to ask for the necessaries of life. Expressions of gratitude from the women we have helped grow more frequent, as they realise what benefits they receive from ‘St. Stephen’s’ friends.

  Ethel Druhm and her eight-year-old daughter Elfreda were resigned to leaving London for a new life in Germany. Since their hairdressing shop had been smashed by a baying mob in autumn 1914, the family had lived with chronic hardship. Richard Druhm was interned and his wife and child largely abandoned by the rest of her English family, a family that had always disapproved of Ethel’s pre-war marriage. By reverting to her maiden name of Norris, Ethel found work in London but while she was willing, temporarily, to give up her married title, she was not about to give up her husband, as Elfreda recalled.

  When the war was over, my father was sent back to Germany, directly. Now the wives could easily have divorced their husbands and stayed in England. Some did and some didn’t. My mother wouldn’t, so she left for Germany, and of course I went with her. I was very close to my mother, and very trusting, and what she did was right.

  It was February, and it was really cold, making it a terrible journey. Miss Elsie Hope, my mother’s one dear friend, came and saw us off from the station. She loved me as if I was her daughter and she brought me an eiderdown, a coat and a pair of boots because she knew it would be cold. But my grandmother and my mother’s sisters didn’t come to the station to wave goodbye. There was bad feeling about that for many years; they knew we were being sent to Germany.

  When we were in Germany in 1919 we kept contact with some of the families Father had met in the internment camp. Stalenbrusher was one family we met up with, another family was the Stemlers. They used to live nearby and they had a daughter whom I used to meet. But she went back to England. Germany was terrible in those days with the riots and skirmishes and the food situation being so awful, that Frau Stemler left her husband and went back home taking their daughter with her. She couldn’t stand it any longer.

  I do not recall the crossing but the trains we went in on the other side were war-damaged, with their windows all broken and no heating; it was pretty bleak and freezing. We went through Holland and each evening we got out of the train where the Quakers
or Dutch Red Cross helped us until we got into Germany. It took nearly a week to get there, waiting in Germany for trains to take us on towards Berlin and the little town of Lugenwaldt, about 50 kilometres south of the city.

  We went to the place where my father’s parents were, and they welcomed me. My grandfather sat me on his lap and tried to teach me a few words of German. They said the best way for me to learn the language was to go to school, so the week after, they took me to school. The first lesson we had was French, imagine, out of German into French, and I only knew English. Yet the children were so nice they rivalled each other to take me around, there was no anti-English feeling whatsoever. They really couldn’t do enough for us.

  It was nearly a year since Richard Noschke had chosen to be repatriated. He missed his wife and five children and was unsure when he would see them again even though there was peace. In his memoirs, written after returning to Germany, he had had time to think.

  Now that I am here safe, away from all the horrors of this terrible war I have time for reflection. I often wonder how was it possible that the English people, after being resident in that country for 25 years with an English wife, a grown up family, the best of character, 20 years in one situation, could be so bitter, but the answer I have never found. I have made many friends, as I had spent the best part of my life over there, but I am sorry to say, that nearly all, with very few exceptions have turned against me . . .