Thus the
commander in the district where the camp of Doeberitz was situated
issued an order directing reprisals against prisoners under his
command on account of what he claimed to be the bad treatment
of German women in England. It required constant vigilance to
seek out instances of this kind and cause them to be remedied.
I did not find the Germans at all efficient in the handling of
prisoners of war. The authority was so divided that it was hard
to find who was responsible for any given bad conditions. For
instance, for a long period of time I contended with the German
authorities for better living conditions at the civilian camp of
Ruhleben. I was promised time and again by Colonel Friedrich,
by the camp commander and by the Foreign
Office that these conditions would be remedied. In that camp men
of education, men in delicate health, were compelled to sleep
and live six in a box stall or so closely that the beds touched
each other in hay-lofts, the outside walls of which were only
four feet high.
I finally almost in despair wrote identical personal letters,
after having exhausted all ordinary diplomatic steps, to General
von Kessel, Commander of the Mark of Brandenburg, to the commander
of the corps district in which the Ruhleben camp was situated,
and to the Minister of War: and the only result was that each
of the officers addressed claimed that he had been personally
insulted by me because I had presumed to call his attention to
the inhuman conditions under which the prisoners were compelled
to live in the Ruhleben camp.
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