HTML Transcription © F.Coakley , 2018
Interned early in 1915 at Knockaloe. Arrived in England, aged 17, in July1913 to learn English at the suggestion of his father, a civil engineer from Silesia, who was something of an Anglophile - having enrolled on a language course in Margate he was staying with a friend of his father in Stoke Newington when war was declared, his father wanted him to go to the USA to stay with relatives but the Home Office refused an exit permit. Arrested shortly afterwards he along with several hundred others were interned at Olympia and then after some weeks was moved to the Royal Edward one of the ships moored near Southend. The Gillman's suggest that the Douglas Camp shootings in November 1914 triggered a rethink of the internment process with Lord Kitchener writing to the then Home Secretary "I feel strongly that we must clear these camps quickly of those to whose release there is no objection ..", some 2700 were released in the next month. Wehner was one of those released after promising not to take any action prejudicial to the safety of the British Empire etc. He returned to Stoke Newington and his pacifist father told him to remain in England, however in May 1915 following the sinking of the Lusitania he along with many others were re-interned and sent to Knockaloe. As discussed elsewhere the loss of the Knockaloe register makes it difficult to confirm this but his name appears in a list sent to the International Red Cross giving a Camp number of 2471 and an entry date of 19150301 - the quoted dates are those of departure for Knockaloe and thus was one of the 600 who came on the Duke of Connaught (my group C1), registered on 19150303 and placed into Camp 1 Compound 3 - his name appears in an article about chess in the camp newspaper Lager-Echo of 10 July 1918 but without any Camp number.
Wehner's recollections of life in Knockaloe were recounted to the Gillmans in 1979 some 60 years post release - his anecdotes include the distribution of an illicit veal stew by certain individuals followed the next day by enquiries about the disappearance of the commandant's pet dog, the import into the camp of black market bacon by one internee which being hidden in the wash house attracted the longtails and the internment of some Duala tribesmen from the Cameroons after Britain captured the German colony to be guarded sometime later by members of the same tribe who had volunteered to fight in France but were found to be of too short a stature. Towards the end of his four years in Knockaloe Wehner found some farm work outside the camp tending pigs and digging potatoes for a local farmer - he comments that the physical exercise and temporary release saved him from the 'barbed wire disease' seen in many other internees.
Post release after a somewhat difficult journey back to Frankfurt via Rotterdam he studied history at Frankfurt University and armed with a doctorate became a successful journalist and writer until the rise to power of the Nazis and their restrictions on a free press when he thought it opportune to leave Germany for London in 1936 - he was again interned at the start of WW2 with another imposed stay again at Olympia before being taken to the recently built Butlin's Holiday Camp at Clacton. He, along with his German born wife, were then moved yet again to the Isle of Man but this time to the Married Aliens Internment Camp at Port St Mary - they were released at Christmas 1943 and allowed to move back to Streatham where post war he remained as London correspondent for several German newspapers until his retirement in 1979.
There were interned Cameroonians - some were missionaries but there must have been others as one of the compounds in Camp4 was used for them along with the 'boys' (usually young cabin boys taken off captured ships). Wehner's comments on the use of Duala tribesmen at Knockaloe, possibly recountered second hand, may relate to the following excerpt from Mona's Herald 2nd June 1915 from the Piquant Pars column (something of a gossip/local colour column) - it also shows the then current attitude of many both towards the civilian internees but also a patronising attitude to blacks:
The other day, a score of West African natives were drafted over to re-inforce the guard. They were fine-built men, but they were removed after a few days duty at Knockaloe
I am told, I do not know with what amount of accuracy, that the "blackmen" wanted to keep the "gentle Huns" in their proper places.
One of the West Africans, who had lost two brothers on the "Falaba," was on duty, when a scowling Hun came up, put his face to the wires, and called his keeper a "a black pig."
Without any more ado, the black man let out a bony fist and the Hun saw more stars than ever shone over the Fatherland!
It is also said that one of these worthy blacks was being instructed as to what to do in case of a riot. They were told first to fire in the air, then at the legs of the rioters, and that if these measures proved to be ineffectual they were to shoot into them.
These elaborate measures did not suit one of the niggers, who exclaimed, "No, no; me shoot right off. Me no waste ammunition!"
So it was thought better to send them out to the trenches, where that spirit is appreciated.
Mona's Herald 26th May 1915 noted :
On Wednesday night [19th May] the guard at Knockaloe were suplemented by about 200 National Reservists. Among the arrivals were thirteen natives of the West Coast of Africa, who were, previous to the war, sailors on English vessels.
The Falaba, named after a small town in northern Sierra Leone, was a small passenger liner of the Elder Dempster line with 145 passengers and 95 crew bound from Liverpool to Sierra Leone which was sunk by U28 50 miles west of St David's Head off the coast of Southern Ireland on the afternoon of 28th March 1915 with the loss of 104 lives (54 of whom were crew) - one of the passengers was an American mining engineer Leon Thraser returning to the Gold Coast - America being then neutral reacted badly to this new form of warfare involving non-military vessels. Though U28 stopped the vessel and allowed some time for evacuation prior to sinking it, the time was cut short when the Falaba started to put out distress signals and fired rockets, photographs showed that U28 fired two torpedoes from its stern tubes as it made its escape from the alerted naval patrol - it is likely that the Falaba was carrying high explosives in its hold and these exploded. The body of Leon Thraser was washed up along with those of the Lusitania sunk six weeks later. U28 itself had the distinction of being sunk in 1917 by being hit by a truck blown off the deck of another of its victims the Olive Branch when its gunfire caused the explosion of a cargo of amunition..
The Elder Dempster line had for that period an enlightened attitude employing many Africans in its fleet as well as insisting
that African passengers be treated no differently than whites whilst on board. Possibly the thirteen reservists were ex
Elder Dempster sailors.
[see http://www.jeffreygreen.co.uk/065-the-sinking-of-the-falaba-march-1915]
Peter & Leni Gillman Collar the lot! How Britain interned and expelled its wartime refugees London: Quartet 1980 ISBN 0-7043-3409-9
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