THE PRISONERS
Reading edition
In the first days of the war it was undoubtedly and unfortunately true that prisoners of war taken by the Germans, both at the time of their capture and in transit to the prison camps, were often badly treated by the soldiers, guards or the civil population.
The instances were too numerous, the evidence too overwhelming, to be denied.... From him (U.S. Consul at Kiel) I learned that some unfortunate prisoners passing through the town (in a part of Germany inhabited by Scandinavians) had made signs that they were suffering from hunger and thirst, that some of the kind-hearted people among the Scandinavian population had given them something to eat and drink and for this they were condemned to fines, to prison and to have their names held up to the contempt of Germans for all time.
I do not know of any one thing that can give a better idea of the official hate for the nations with which Germany was at war than this.
James W. Gerard in “My Four Years in Germany.”
