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Signed indistinctly, dated ‘10th February 1915’ and inscribed with title
Pencil with white highlights on brown paper, 9 3/4 x 12 3/4 in. (24.7 x 32.4 cm.)
Size:
Height – 24.7cm x Width – 32.4cm
This drawing depicts a German P .O.W. camp for French officers, with their
names marked on the bedheads. It is interesting to note that certain luxuries,
including bottles of wine, have been accorded to the French prisoners; such
privileges would have been less likely as the war progressed.
A
German soldier , visiting Zossen P .O.W. camp in 1915, described the
French prisoners as being of every sort of training and temperament,
swept here like dust by the war into common anonymity.We saw Frenchmen
sorting mail in the post-office, painting signs for streets, making
blankets out of pasted-together newspapers – everywhere they were
treated as intelligent men to whom favors could be granted. And, of
course, there was this difference between the French and English of the
early weeks of the war – the French army is one of universal
conscription like the German, and business men and farmers, writers,
singers, and painters were lumped in together. ‘ (Extract taken from Des
Deutschen Volkes Kriegstagebuch, On Visiting Zossen POW Camp, 1915).
The Germans held 2.5 million prisoners during the Great War .
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