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Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp was a World War I prisoner-of-war camp for British and British Empire officers (''Offizier Gefangenenlager'') located in Holzminden, Lower Saxony, Germany. It opened in September 1917, and closed with the final repatriation of prisoners in December 1918. It is remembered as the location of the largest PoW escape of the war, in July 1918: 29 officers escaped through a tunnel, of whom ten evaded subsequent recapture and managed to make their way back to Britain. The prisoner-of-war camp is not to be confused with Holzminden internment camp, a much larger pair of camps (one for men, and one for women and children) located on the outskirts of the town, in which up to 10,000 civilian internees were held. The internees mainly comprised Polish, Russian, Belgian and French nationals, as well as a small number of Britons. ==The camp== The prisoner-of-war camp opened at the beginning of September 1917, under the auspices of X Army Corps, headquartered in Hanover. Other camps for officers under the command of X Corps, all smaller, were those at Clausthal, Ströhen and Schwarmstedt. Many of the initial intake of prisoners were transferred from these camps, and others at Freiburg and Krefeld, which had become overcrowded.〔Hanson 2011, p. 35.〕 The camps of X Corps came under the authority of General Karl von Hänisch, who encouraged a harsh regime. The Kommandant at Holzminden when it opened was the elderly Colonel Habrecht ("a kindly old dodderer of about seventy"〔Durnford 1920, p. 18.〕); but he was replaced after less than a month by his second-in-command, Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer, who remained Kommandant until the camp's closure.〔Winchester 1971, pp. 191-8.〕〔Hanson 2011, pp. 46-53.〕 Niemeyer was one of a pair of twins: his brother, Heinrich, was Kommandant of the camp at Clausthal. The brothers had lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for 17 years (until the spring of 1917, when the United States entered the war), and as a result Karl was able to speak English. However, his language was filled with idiomatic errors and slang terms: it was described by one prisoner as "bar-tender Yank";〔Durnford 1920, p. 37.〕 while another stated that Niemeyer "talked broken American under the impression that it was English".〔Harvey 1920, p. 225.〕 The prisoners constantly ridiculed him, and nicknamed him "Milwaukee Bill". One error, which became notorious, was his assertion that "You think I do not understand the English, but I do. I know damn all about you."〔Durnford 1920, p. 37. "Damn all" is a colloquial expression in English meaning "absolutely nothing".〕 The camp held between 500 and 600 officer prisoners.〔Numbers of officer prisoners were recorded as 560 in the autumn of 1917: Hanson 2011, p. 35. Other rougher estimates were 550 (Durnford 1920, pp. 27, 78); 500 (Crawford 1955, p. 141); and 600 (Hanson 2011, plate opp. p. 229; Cook 2013, pp. 32, 52). About 100 newly captured officers entered the camp following the Spring Offensive of March 1918: Durnford 1920, p. 103.〕 There were also approximately 100–160 other ranks prisoners, designated orderlies: these men acted as servants to the officers and performed other menial tasks around the camp.〔Numbers of orderlies were recorded as between 140 and 160 in the autumn of 1917 (Hanson 2011, p. 35); but elsewhere as "over 100" (Durnford 1920, p. 78); and as 80 (Hanson 2011, plate opp. p. 229). For orderlies' roles, see Hanson 2011, pp. 27-30.〕 The camp occupied the premises of a cavalry barracks erected in 1913.〔Hanson 2011, p. 23.〕 The principal buildings, in which the prisoners lived, were two four-storey barrack blocks, known to the Germans as ''Kaserne'' A and ''Kaserne'' B, and to the British as A House and B House. Although the greater part of both blocks housed officer prisoners, both were partitioned internally: the western end of ''Kaserne'' A formed the ''Kommandantur'', in which the German garrison was quartered; while the eastern end of ''Kaserne'' B was occupied by the orderlies. The basements included cells in which prisoners could be held in solitary confinement as punishment. Several wooden single-storey buildings in front of the barrack blocks accommodated service facilities, including the cookhouses, woodshed, bath-house, and parcel-room. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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