Now! Then! Two months after the Treaty of Versailles, the Daily News reports the arrival in a Sheffield garden of a balloon released by German POWs in Skipton

20 August 1919: Two months after the Treaty of Versailles, the Daily News reports the arrival in a Sheffield garden of a balloon released by German POWs in Skipton

Daily News. 1919/08/20. Paper Balloon Propaganda Get it:

Excerpt

The red and yellow pieces of paper are certainly composed in an effective propaganda style, e.g. “Housing is bad in England. Hundreds of families could live in our camp. Therefore send us home!” There is no shortage of emotional appeals. The writer, whoever he might be, has sought to use expressions that shock, and at the end we are never without the refrain “Send us home!” “The German mothers are lamenting,” says one leaflet, “Wives and children are crying. Peace has come, but our unfortunate imprisoned soldier-boys do not come yet. Send the poor prisoners home!” “What would an English mother say had her son been in Germany after signing of peace? Send the prisoners home!” “What pains German mothers, wives and children must suffer, who have not seen their sons, husbands and fathers, their indispensable bread-winners, for five years. Send the prisoners home!” The meticulous German has not forgotten to include political appeals and cunningly touches on the question of unemployment. He emphasises that “30,000 German prisoners of war are working in England depressing the wages on your labour market.” Another leaflet states: “According to Mr Churchill, the prisoners of war are unproducing people who want a body of 100,000 soldiers to guard them.” One more leaflet should be mentioned, in which a sarcastic touch is conveyed in a well-executed sketch. A bird – is it the emblem of peace? – is shown in the air, and on the ground, behind barbed wire sits a man in chains. At the bottom is the word: “Peace?”

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Via Anne Buckley et al’s translation of Kriegsgefangen in Skipton (Buckley 2021). It appears that the British authorities, despite the financial cost of maintaining German POWs, were delaying repatriation because of doubts re Germany’s intention to implement the Treaty of Versailles.

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Original

A large, coloured-paper balloon, attached to which was a sack full of leaflets typed and signed “The German Prisoners of War”, landed in recent days in the suburban garden of a Sheffield businessman, John Biggin of Clarendon Street.

The leaflets contained a series of appeals, skilfully drafted to win our sympathy. If they are really, as seems likely, documents of genuine human sentiment, entrusted to the air by German prisoners of war, they represent the first attempt to gain freedom through propaganda. The red and yellow pieces of paper are certainly composed in an effective propaganda style, e.g. “Housing is bad in England. Hundreds of families could live in our camp. Therefore send us home!”

There is no shortage of emotional appeals. The writer, whoever he might be, has sought to use expressions that shock, and at the end we are never without the refrain “Send us home!” “The German mothers are lamenting,” says one leaflet, “Wives and children are crying. Peace has come, but our unfortunate imprisoned soldier-boys do not come yet. Send the poor prisoners home!” “What would an English mother say had her son been in Germany after signing of peace? Send the prisoners home!”

“What pains German mothers, wives and children must suffer, who have not seen their sons, husbands and fathers, their indispensable bread-winners, for five years. Send the prisoners home!”

A Nod to Politics
The meticulous German has not forgotten to include political appeals and cunningly touches on the question of unemployment. He emphasises that “30,000 German prisoners of war are working in England depressing the wages on your labour market.” Another leaflet states: “According to Mr Churchill, the prisoners of war are unproducing people who want a body of 100,000 soldiers to guard them.”

Whoever the author is, he not only knows the English language, but also English ways. He puts forward many and varied arguments for repatriation.

One more leaflet should be mentioned, in which a sarcastic touch is conveyed in a well-executed sketch. A bird – is it the emblem of peace? – is shown in the air, and on the ground, behind barbed wire sits a man in chains. At the bottom is the word: “Peace?”

378 words.