Author Topic: To London from Germany....and back again?  (Read 8693 times)

Offline loo

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #9 on: Thursday 06 July 06 10:57 BST (UK) »
Yes, they definitely deported them.  However, it took several years of dickering about how they were going to do it before they actually deported them.  You are quite right that it would have been difficult to send them directly to Germany.  The first deportations occurred in October 1918, on Dutch vessels, to Rotterdam, in The Netherlands.  (J.C. Bird, Control of Enemy Alien Civilians in Great Britain 1914-1918.  London: Garland Publishing, 1986.  p.189ff.)
ARMSTRONG - Castleton Scot; NB; Westminstr Twp
BARFIELD - Nailsea
BRAKE - Nailsea
BURIATTE
CANDY - M'sex, Deptford
CLIFFORD - Maidstone
DURE(E) - France, Devon, Canada
HALLS - Chigwell
KREIN, Peter/Adam - Germany
LEOPOLD - Hanover, London
LATTIMER, MAXWELL - Ldn lightermen
MEYER - Lauenstein
MURRAY - Scot borders
STEWART - Chelsea; Reach
SWANICK - Mayo & Roscommon; Ontario
WEST - Rochester & Maidstone
WILLIS - Wilts, Berks, Hants, London
WOODHOUSE - Bristol tobacconist, London
WW1 internees

Offline carol8353

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #10 on: Thursday 06 July 06 11:04 BST (UK) »
Now that is interesting- I wonder where they stayed in the meantime?
No wonder my cousin tells the story of her rellie being stoned in London during the war for marrying a German man. Sounds like she had many years of it before being allowed out to move on to his homeland.

No wonder they chose never to come back.

Carol
Census information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline throckenholt

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #11 on: Thursday 06 July 06 11:06 BST (UK) »
In London I think I heard lots of the men were kept at the Crystal Palace.

Offline Rena

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #12 on: Thursday 06 July 06 11:39 BST (UK) »
Your story is very interesting.  You might, when you have time, find some interesting reading in the bibliography I have posted on WW1 internments:  http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,112434.0.html   

It is my understanding that men could never gain citizenship by marrying British women during the 19th C., but that many of them chose to pretend they had acquired it by listing themselves as British Subjects on census forms (no verification of the information they reported was required for the census).  If I could lay my hands on the source of this information, I would happily give it to you!  However, the version of the immigration act which was current at the time would be the authority.  Kew claims that all naturalisations during this period are recorded there, but there are many more people listed as naturalised on the census than have records at the PRO, including some of my own rellies.  The fact that Rena's ggf had to report regularly demonstrates that he was an alien, not a naturalised Brit, as far as I know.
It's true that the women also lost their citizenship automatically, and also lived with restrictions, but I don't know of any being interned.  The book on St. Stephen's House discusses the plight of the wives and children at some length in Chapter 7.

I can't account for the cousin being interned, except if he was considered to be of an age where he could be militarily useful but was still living in his father's household and therefore could be seen to be subject to his father's will.  They did not bother with male children who were not old enough to fight.

Kew do not have denizen papers for my gt.grandfather and informed me that the majority have been lost for various reasons.  My uncle was called up when he was 18 and still living with his German father and English mother in Hull.  His medal cards and that of 2 of his brothers show they were using their German surname 'Flemme'. Their oldest brother, a bachelor was called up, using his anglicised name 'Fleming', for the final last gasp, aged 41.  As for the cousin; my link is with the mother and I'm not privvy to his life and activity, excepting that his father and uncle had been sailors and there was a ship's captain in the family.

Rena
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie:  Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke


Offline loo

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #13 on: Thursday 06 July 06 19:16 BST (UK) »
That's very interesting.  I had assumed, from some previous correspondence with Kew, that they were telling me that they did hold all (or virtually all) naturalization records.  But I have re-read their response, and see that it is not really clear.  I am going to ask again.

With reference to one of the other things I said above, here is part of a note I received a few months ago from Janet Dempsey at the National Archives:
"Naturalisation was an expensive process which was not necessary for normal residence in this country. The vast majority of immigrants did not naturalise at all. Sometimes a census will give the information 'naturalised British' or similar. It is not always the case that the subject actually went through the legal process of naturalisation."

In an earlier email, she said this:
"All naturalisations up to 1935 are searchable by name on the catalogue.  It should be borne in mind that not all of the people who claimed to have been naturalised actually had gone through the legal procedure. This is particularly true where a census states 'naturalised'."

I think that for now we must conclude that if there is no record, then we simply don't know whether they were naturalised or not, but the odds are that they were not (given the costs and lack of documentation.).

ARMSTRONG - Castleton Scot; NB; Westminstr Twp
BARFIELD - Nailsea
BRAKE - Nailsea
BURIATTE
CANDY - M'sex, Deptford
CLIFFORD - Maidstone
DURE(E) - France, Devon, Canada
HALLS - Chigwell
KREIN, Peter/Adam - Germany
LEOPOLD - Hanover, London
LATTIMER, MAXWELL - Ldn lightermen
MEYER - Lauenstein
MURRAY - Scot borders
STEWART - Chelsea; Reach
SWANICK - Mayo & Roscommon; Ontario
WEST - Rochester & Maidstone
WILLIS - Wilts, Berks, Hants, London
WOODHOUSE - Bristol tobacconist, London
WW1 internees

Offline loo

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #14 on: Thursday 06 July 06 19:39 BST (UK) »
Now that is interesting- I wonder where they stayed in the meantime?
No wonder my cousin tells the story of her rellie being stoned in London during the war for marrying a German man. Sounds like she had many years of it before being allowed out to move on to his homeland.

No wonder they chose never to come back.

Carol

The answer to where they stayed is quite varied.  I am trying to compile a list of the various places where they stayed, but have only fragmentary info at this time.  I believe that the Crystal Palace was indeed a site. 

During both wars, there was an issue about where to house them.  The government of the day was very eager to pick them up, but less clear about where to put them.  Some even ended up on individual farms, rather than in camps per se.  The major camp on the Isle of Man was formerly a holiday camp, hastily converted.

Violence towards Germans in Britain, especially in the cities, was widespread, particularly strong immediately following the Lusitania incident in May 1915.  If you check the newspapers in the area where they were living, especially the smaller community papers (if they were in a big city), you may find quite a bit of information, especially if your rellie was a small-businessperson, as many businesses were ransacked or torched.  It was illegal to "trade with the enemy", so most Germans in Britain lost their businesses. The articles and books by Panikos Panayi listed on my bibliography make for very interesting reading on this topic.  He is a British scholar with Cypriot roots at de Montfort University, and these resources are well-researched.

I am not sure if the stoning to which you refer occurred in Britain or in Germany.  But sometimes the British women who had married Germans (my ggm did it twice!) were seen as traitors by other Brits.  Many wives, who had been living in decent circumstances before the war, were reduced to utter poverty and dependence on charity when their husbands were interned or their businesses destroyed.  Many had to abandon homes they could no longer afford, but had great difficulty finding alternative accommodation because landlords would shun them because of their German surnames.  Beginning in Nov.1914, several weeks after the round-ups began, the women (in London at least;  less in outlying areas) received a government allowance of 10s + 1s 6d for each child;  during the course of the war this was raised somewhat.  (all of this from the book on St. Stephen's House.)
ARMSTRONG - Castleton Scot; NB; Westminstr Twp
BARFIELD - Nailsea
BRAKE - Nailsea
BURIATTE
CANDY - M'sex, Deptford
CLIFFORD - Maidstone
DURE(E) - France, Devon, Canada
HALLS - Chigwell
KREIN, Peter/Adam - Germany
LEOPOLD - Hanover, London
LATTIMER, MAXWELL - Ldn lightermen
MEYER - Lauenstein
MURRAY - Scot borders
STEWART - Chelsea; Reach
SWANICK - Mayo & Roscommon; Ontario
WEST - Rochester & Maidstone
WILLIS - Wilts, Berks, Hants, London
WOODHOUSE - Bristol tobacconist, London
WW1 internees

Offline scottw67

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #15 on: Thursday 20 July 06 22:55 BST (UK) »
Hi

I have a similar story...

My Great Grandfathers family (Gerngross) come from Germany to settle in Hull around 1892. He marries an English girl and moves to Grimsby where my Grandmother is born in 1910. The Gerngross family live in Hull & Grimsby until the outbreak of the first world war where they all seem to move on mass to Leeds. His father dies in 1917 and interestingly on his death certificate it states his occupation as  Munition Worker & seaman.

I've been told my GGF joined the army during the WWI but I've not found any proof. I'm guessing he could have been Interned. After the war my GGF leaves his wife and family in Leeds and returns with his sister & her family to Germany where he remarries and starts a new family.

Could internment or the threat of internment have forced the family to move from Hull & Grimsby to Leeds and could they have been made to work in one of the munition factories in Leeds ?

If my GGF was interned does anyone have ideas which camp it would have been?

hope this make sense

thanks in advance

Scott




Offline Rena

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #16 on: Friday 21 July 06 00:03 BST (UK) »
Hi Scott,
When WWI broke out and the men went to war, some of the married mothers with young children in my family left Hull and went to live in surrounding villages such as Hedon and further afield Thorngumbald to get away from the threat of being bombed and to work on the land.
If your ancestor was a sailor out of Grimsby and Hull, I'll hazard a guess that with his German name your gt.gt.grandfather chose or was requisitioned WWI to go further inland to work in a munitions factory and possibly his English daughter-in-law also worked in a munitions factory also.  Having seen old newsreels of the assembly lines of the women working on the bombs it's amazing how dexterous they were and how dangerous the job was.
I had trouble finding the WWI records of one of my family - maybe you need to be more imaginitive when searching through the medal card surnames.
Cheers,
Rena
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie:  Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke

Offline loo

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Re: To London from Germany....and back again?
« Reply #17 on: Saturday 22 July 06 16:04 BST (UK) »
I can't supply any details on the Hull area situation, but it's likely that they moved to where the jobs were;  war is always a great stimulus for the economy.
Obviously I can't say what happened to your ggf during the war for sure, but the idea that he both "joined the army" (presumably the British army) during the war, and then left the country immediately afterwards to go back to the land of the "enemy" does seem improbable, don't you think?  It's possible that the family invented the idea that he joined the army in order to save face and not have to tell people that he'd been interned, especially if he had come to England as a child and did did not speak with an accent.
Most of the internees seem to have had little to do in terms of work while interned (although some worked on farms).  Utter boredom, even leading to insanity and sometimes suicide was more the norm, especially on the Isle of Man, where the majority were located.  I have not heard of them being made to work in munitions factories, but perhaps someone else has some info on that. 
As I said earlier, many of the internees were deported to Germany towards the end of the war and in the years immediately afterwards.  It was not uncommon for their English wives to refuse to go with them. 
As to camps, I am not sure where he would have been, but I do know that the internees were sometimes moved around from one place to another.  The National Archives at Kew has most of the records that survive for internees, if you have the opportunity to go there.  Other than that, you could join the Anglo-German Family History Society;  they keep lists and continue to do research on this topic, and will search your family name on their records for you, for a small fee.  They also have a journal, which has articles on this subject from time to time, which you might find interesting.
ARMSTRONG - Castleton Scot; NB; Westminstr Twp
BARFIELD - Nailsea
BRAKE - Nailsea
BURIATTE
CANDY - M'sex, Deptford
CLIFFORD - Maidstone
DURE(E) - France, Devon, Canada
HALLS - Chigwell
KREIN, Peter/Adam - Germany
LEOPOLD - Hanover, London
LATTIMER, MAXWELL - Ldn lightermen
MEYER - Lauenstein
MURRAY - Scot borders
STEWART - Chelsea; Reach
SWANICK - Mayo & Roscommon; Ontario
WEST - Rochester & Maidstone
WILLIS - Wilts, Berks, Hants, London
WOODHOUSE - Bristol tobacconist, London
WW1 internees