'Totally un-English'?: Britain's Internment of 'Enemy Aliens' in Two World Wars

217 Pages·2005·1.13 MB·English

by  Richard Dove

‘TOTALLY UN-ENGLISH’?

BRITAIN’S INTERNMENT OF ‘ENEMY
ALIENS’ IN TWO WORLD WARS
THE YEARBOOK OF THE RESEARCH CENTRE FOR
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN EXILE STUDIES

7

INSTITUTE OF GERMANIC AND ROMANCE STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Editorial Board

Charmian Brinson, Richard Dove, Anthony
Grenville, Marian Malet, J.M. Ritchie, Jennifer
Taylor, Ian Wallace

The aim of the Research Centre is to promote research in the field of German-speaking exiles
in Great Britain. To this end it organises conferences and publishes their proceedings, holds
research seminars, and publishes its own Yearbook. Its members cooperate in the writing of
scholarly studies, including Changing Countries: The Experience and Achievement of
German-speaking Exiles from Hitler in Britain from 1933 to Today (London: Libris, 2002)
and Wien-London hin und retour (Vienna: Czernin, 2004), a study of the Austrian Centre in
London, 1939-1947. Though the Research Centre has primarily concerned itself with the
German-speaking refugees from Nazism in Britain, it aims to extend its scope to include
German-speaking exiles of other periods and comparable groups of European refugees. Given
its location near the heart of the principal centre of settlement of the refugees from Germany,
the Research Centre readily provides advice and useful contacts to scholars and postgraduates
working in the field.

Amsterdam - New York, NY2005
‘TOTALLY UN-ENGLISH’?

BRITAIN’S INTERNMENT OF ‘ENEMY
ALIENS’ IN TWO WORLD WARS

Edited by

Richard Dove
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of
‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence’.
ISSN: 1388-3720
ISBN: 90-420-1658-2
Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY2005
Printed in The Netherlands
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 7

Introduction

‘A matter which touches the good name of this
country’ 11
Richard Dove

A Marginalized Subject? The Historiography of
Enemy Alien Internment in Britain 17
Panikos Panayi

Internment in the First World War

Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian, Military
and Naval Internees during the First World War 29
Panikos Panayi

Behind the Wire: the material culture of civilian
internment on the Isle of Man in the First World
War 45
Yvonne Cresswell

Die Bedeutung der Musik für 26.000 internierte
Zivilisten während des Ersten Weltkriegs auf der
Isle of Man 63
Jutta Raab Hansen

Civilian Internment in Scotland during the First
World War 83
Stefan Manz

Internment in the Second World War

‘Loyal to the Reich’: National Socialists and Others
in the Rushen Women’s Internment Camp 101
Charmian Brinson
6 Table of Contents

‘Wer sie nicht erlebt hat, der begreift sie nie.’ The
Internment Camp Revue What a life! 121
Richard Dove

‘Something to make people laugh’? Political
content in Isle of Man Internment Camp Journals
July-October 1940 139
Jennifer Taylor

The Internment of Italians 1940-1945 153
Lucio Sponza

After the Prison Ships: Internment Narratives in
Canada 165
Nicole M. T. Brunnhuber

The Dunera Boys: Dramatizing History from a
Jewish Perspective 179
Birgit Lang

Exile, Internment and Deportation in Norbert
Gstrein’s Die englischen Jahre 193
J. M. Ritchie

Index 205
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank German Life and Letters for generous
financial support for the production of this volume. Grateful thanks are also
due to Manx National Heritage and to the Imperial War Museum for
permission to reproduce images used in this publication. Finally we are
indebted to David Newton for the technical expertise without which none of
it would have happened.
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Introduction