More memorials to World War Two PoWs
It appears
there were over 1,000 Prisoner of War camps in Britain, and quite a few of these were in Leicestershire. Many are listed
in this
article and associated databank (2020) which includes the following:
o Barkby Camp, Barkby Lane, Leicester, No.616 (previously a heavy anti-aircraft battery)
o
Farndon Road Camp, (Harrington Camp), Farndon Fields
Farm, Market Harborough, No.49,
(German working camp, standard type/caravan site)
o
Garendon Park, Loughborough,
No.28
o
Gaulby Road, Billesdon, No.94 (German working camp, standard
type)
o
Hathern Camp, Pear Tree Lane, Hathern, No. 590 (farmland)
o
Knightthorpe Camp, Loughborough, No.28 (German working camp)
o
Old Dalby Camp, Old Dalby Lane, Melton Mowbray, No.613 (large RAF depot with huts converted to
accommodation)
o
Old Liberal Club, Charnwood Road, Shepshed, N0.152 (German working camp)
o
Quorn Camp, Wood Lane, Quorn, No.9/183 (Base camp, standard type)
o
Scraptoft, Thurnby, Leicester, No.4 (Base camp)
o
Shady Lane, Stoughton, Leicester, No.167 (Base camp)
There is, however, some debate as to whether or not Knightthorpe and Garendon were
actually the same place: Garendon Hall was originally used as the headquarters for local munitions, but both seem to be known as Camp 28, with the main camp being towards the south of the estate lands.
Last week we
looked at some of the PoW camps close to Loughborough, and one in Stoughton
which had a Loughborough connection. Let’s stay with the Leicester area, and a
camp in Billesdon for a moment as there are more Loughborough connections,
before moving closer to Loughborough.A report in
the Leicester Evening Mail of 6 October 1947 carried a report of the
death of Peter Leugner. He was born on 17 September 1902 in the Ukraine, and
died on 4 October 1947. Leugner was found hanging in a room at the Scraptoft
PoW camp. The article says:
“It is understood
that he was due for repatriation.”
Leugner has a memorial stone in Loughborough cemetery.
Earlier in
1947, an inquest took place in Market Harborough on the death of Corporal
Konrad Schubert. Schubert was born on 30 July 1906 in Paszowice, Poland, and
died on 19 January 1947 in the camp at Billesdon. According to a report in the Leicester
Evening Mail of 23 April 1947, Schubert was depressed following the death
of his mother and sister, and worried about his two children who were living in
the Russian part of Germany. His own ill-health had meant that he had been
unable to work on the farm, and this made him more unhappy, although his fellow
PoWs had not ever heard him talk about taking his own life. Mr Tempest
Bouskell, the coroner for South Leicestershire, pronounced that Schubert had committed
suicide whilst the balance of his mind had been temporarily disturbed, and
passed on his sympathy to Corporal Schubert’s fellow prisoners.
Schubert has a memorial stone in Loughborough cemetery.
We shall now
leave these distant Leicestershire camps, and return closer to home, where we
find a camp at Quorn which was used as such until about 1948. In the Nottingham
Evening Post 12 August 1947, the following report appeared:“A German prisoner-of-war,
Baumann Hubert, died suddenly at the Quorn Camp yesterday. The body was removed
to the Loughborough mortuary and the facts reported to the Coroner for North
Leicestershire.”
Listed as Hubert
Baumann on his memorial stone, Corporal Baumann was born 27 October 1924, died 11 August
1947, and has a memorial stone in Loughborough cemetery.
A report of a
sad event appeared in the Daily Mirror of 18 September 1945:
“COMEDIAN
HANGED HIMSELF BECAUSE HE WAS LAUGHED AT.
A German
giving evidence at a Loughborough, Leicestershire, inquest yesterday on a fellow
prisoner of war who hanged himself at a camp said that the dead man had
complained that other men in his working party made too much fun of his acting
on the camp stage. He was a comedian.
Other
prisoners said that the dead man, Sargeant Herbert Bruhn, 29, of Hamburg, had
been unhappy for the last two weeks – they didn’t know why.
A police
witness said he found no suggestion of either foul play or bullying. Recording
a verdict that Bruhn hanged himself while his mind was disturbed, the coroner
said it was difficult to understand the mind of a German, particularly a
prisoner.”
Sergeant Herbert
Bruhn, was born 28 January 1916 in Hamburg, died 16 September 1945, and has a memorial
stone in Loughborough cemetery, but I have no idea which camp he was held in, nor in which camp he died.
The following report appeared in the Sunday Post 1 April 1945:
“Allies
sentence German boy to death. Karl Punzeler, of Monschau, 16-year-old boy,
former leader of the local Hitler Youth, has been found guilty of espionage.
Sentenced to death. This is an extract from ‘Die Mitteilungen’, the Allied
newspaper, which is being distributed free in occupied Germany. It’s one of a
list of sentences passed by Allied Military Government on civilians, and reported
in the paper.”The report
continues with a list of misdemeanours, perpetrators, and punishments, in which
we find the following:
“Franz Franke
and Helmut Engel – for refusing to work as directed with a labour gang – 60 days.”
I believe Private
Helmut Engel was born 30 April 1926 in Berlin-Neukolln, and died in Ankle Hill camp
at Old Dalby, in Melton Mowbray, on 22 August 1947. The camp, which as well as housing over 3,000 soldiers, housed around 300 PoWs, during WW2. Quite why Helmut Engel has a memorial headstone in Loughborough cemetery, I’m not sure.
I have been
unable to trace much information pertaining to Dr Karl Theodor Reuter, other
than that which appears on his memorial headstone in Loughborough cemetery. Dr Karl Theodor
Reuter, was born 24 March 1914 in Herdecke, Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis, Nordrhein-Westfalen,
Germany, and died 11 December 1946 in Leicestershire, in the Thurnby Camp at
Scraptoft.
Corporal Leonhard
Rademacher was born on 24 May 1910 in Monchengladbach, died on 17 September
1946 in Garendon Park/Knightthorpe Camp, No.28, in Loughborough. He has a memorial
headstone in Loughborough cemetery.
It will be noted
from the death dates found on the memorial headstones that the majority of
these eight people died in Britain after the end of the Second World War. There
are likely to many and varied reasons why they still found themselves in
Britain, rather than returned to their homeland: according to this
article, published on the occasion of VE Day in May 2020, some stayed and
integrated themselves into the British way of life because they had made good
friends, or had fallen in love. Other reasons may have been that conditions in
Germany were very difficult, and there was a delay in repatriation, but also perhaps
because the British government resisted sending them home as the country was
short of workers. Indeed, the final German PoW returned home as late as 1948.
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| The bridge at Shepshed watermill from a distance |
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| Pear Tree Lane, approach from Derby Road |
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| Site of the Pear Tree Lane PoW camp |
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| Site of the Pear Tree Lane PoW camp |
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| Site of the Pear Tree Lane camp |
Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 17 January 2021
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