Marlag und Milag Nord

Marlag und Milag Nord was a Second World War German prisoner-of-war camp complex for men of the British and Canadian Merchant Navy and Royal Navy. It was located around the village of Westertimke, about north-east of Bremen, though in some sources the camp's location is given as Tarmstedt, a larger village about to the west. There were also American merchant seamen detained here as well as some U.S. Navy personnel.

Status of merchant seamen

Of more than 5,000 Allied merchant seamen captured by the Germans during the war, most were held at Marlag-Milag. As civilian non-combatants, according to Section XI, Article 6, of the 1907 Hague Conventions, merchant seamen "...are not made prisoners of war, on condition that they make a formal promise in writing, not to undertake, while hostilities last, any service connected with the operations of the war." The Germans, however, always treated Merchant Navy seamen as POWs (as did the British from 1942). In 1943 the Germans suggested an exchange of equal numbers of Merchant Navy prisoners, but this offer was refused by the First Lord of the Admiralty A. V. Alexander on the grounds it would be more to Germany's benefit, as it would provide them with a large number of men suitable to be used as U-boat crews, of which they were desperately short.

Camp history

Stalag X-B

Initially, prisoners from the Merchant and Royal Navy were confined in several camps in Northern Germany. In April 1941 they were gathered together at Stalag X-B at Sandbostel and housed in two compounds designated Ilag X-B (Internierungslager, "Internment camp") and Marlag X-B (Marinelager, "Navy camp"). At the instigation of the U.S. and Swiss governments, the International Committee of the Red Cross put pressure on the German government not to keep civilian non-combatants in a POW camp. The Germans complied, selecting what was originally a small Luftwaffe training camp consisting of six barracks and a small airfield at Westertimke. In July 1941 the prisoners of Ilag X-B were set to work dismantling their barrack huts at Sandbostel, then rebuilding them at Westertimke, finally completing the Milag camp in February 1942. Marlag camp was not completed until July 1942.

Marlag and Milag Nord

Marlag, the Royal Navy camp, was divided into two compounds; "O" housed officers and their orderlies, while "M" held petty officers and ratings. The majority of prisoners were British, but there were also small numbers of other Allied nationalities.

Milag (Marineinterniertenlager, "Marine internment camp"), the Merchant Navy camp, was to the east of Marlag. This also divided into two separate compounds for officers and men. The area in between contained the guard house, a prison block, fuel bunker, and the camp hospital.

The POWs occupied themselves in various ways. There was a camp theatre in Marlag and the POWs performed concerts and plays. Each camp had its own sports field and there was also a library with around 3,000 books. Prisoners ran courses in languages and mathematics, as well as commercial, vocational, economic and scientific subjects. Sports equipment and textbooks were obtained from the Red Cross and YMCA. POWs were allowed to send two letters and four postcards each month. There were no restrictions on the number of letters a POW could receive. Naturally all incoming and outgoing mail was censored.

Under normal conditions the camps had a capacity of 5,300. According to official figures in April 1944 there were 4,268 men held there. Initially the camp was guarded by Naval troops. Later they were replaced by Army reservists. They finally left the site in 1993, since when it has been redeveloped as a business park. having been smuggled to neutral Sweden on a ship from Bremen.

Another successful escaper from Marlag was Lieutenant David James, RNVR. In December 1943 James slipped out of the shower block, but was arrested at the port of Lübeck. In late 1944 he escaped again and this time made it to Sweden.

Notable prisoners

Lieutenant David Hunter RM, captured at Calais in May 1940, he twice escaped from Marlag X-B at Sandbostel, and ended the war at Colditz.
Lieutenant Ivan Ewart RNVR, captured in January 1942 after his MTB was sunk off Boulogne. After two escape attempts from Milag-Marlag, he was transferred to Colditz.
Captain Micky Burn, No. 2 Commando, captured in March 1942 after the St Nazaire Raid.
Able Seaman Bjørn Egge, later a major general of the Norwegian Army, captured in April 1942 after an attempt by Norwegian merchant vessels at Gothenburg, Sweden, to reach Britain. ("Operation Performance").
Lieutenants Donald Cameron RNR, and Godfrey Place RN, commanders of the X class submarines X-6 and X-7, captured in September 1943 after the attack on the Tirpitz.
Lieutenant John Worsley RN, captured in November 1943 during a landing on Lussinpiccolo. Also an official war artist, Worsley painted several portraits of his fellow POW, and made sketches of the camp, as well as creating "Albert R.N." a life-sized dummy, that ensured that any escaper would not be missed in the daily head-counts.
Captain Peter J. Ortiz USMC, serving with the OSS, he was captured in France in August 1944.
2nd Lieutenant Walter W. Taylor USMCR, another member of the OSS, also captured in France in August 1944.
Pat Landy, ML306, Royal Australian Navy.
Leslie McDermott-Brown (1925-1993), a merchant marine cadet, was the UK's youngest POW in 1940, captured age 15 after his ship the SS Kemmendine, which had sailed from the Clyde, was sunk by the German surface raider Atlantis in the Bay of Biscay. Leslie spent the next five years in captivity in Germany, aged 15-20, finally being liberated from Milag Nord in 1945. Despite this set-back in life, Leslie went on to be a managing director of hotel company in Plymouth Devon during the 1950s to 1980s and is survived by his three sons.

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