NIEMEYER.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 70, 22 March 1919, Page 17

NIEMEYER.

! THE HUN PRISON BULLY

\ A TRtTE PRUSSIAN TYPE,

i I Rased on the Diary and Pcrsun.ll Narrative of Lieut. EDGAK GARLAND ! R.A.F.). . I ,| The most astounding thing about Vie- | mover-the Bully of Holzminden—was i his voice. It was the voice of a savage ! —deep, powerful, guttural; it expressed j the volcanic violence of his character jlt proved him to be a true Prussian type; i—noisy, arrogant, boastful, with all the j J average Prussian's pertinacity and o'osti- • [ nacy of will, love oi power, arbitrariness ! , and childish delight in spectacular and ' i theatrical display. j Lieutenant Garland, with other odl- ! ' eer prisoners, arrived at Holzminden ! . Camp late one autumn afternoon. After ; 1 a twenty minutes' march to the camp j ; they were paraded in a courtyard. Nk- j i raeyer strutted out, saluted, anj said in I 1 good English: "Good afternoon, gentlemen; I guess j . you are tired. Would you like some j • chairs to sit down on? it will be very ! ■ icold here soon; you must write for haH ! ' and warm clothing to your relatives in ■ J England." | This was hie invariable formula with ' . newcomers—the cat playing with the i .! mice. i i In less than ten days Garland and his 5 friends knew Xiemeyer for what he was 5, — a tyrant and a bully. r i 1 He had lived in America for many .years: could speak English fluently— 2 though he occasionally made laughable ~ i mistakes; and boasted'that he had tray- , elied through England during the war in disguise, collecting information for his Government.

J Three hundred officer prisoners arrived i one afternoon from Scharmstedt, practically everyone of whom had made two or more attempts at escape. They were : marched into the big square before ! being searched. Niemeyer examined the I face of each man carefully, striving to I recognise his old enemies — people to whom he had given long spells of mi

prisonment in the cells. He had started bellowing at one officer whom he thought he recognised. "Oh, shut up, Niemeyer!'' said the oSicer.

"Did you tell mc to shut up? - ' Niomeyer asked, white to the gills with rage. " Yes, I did,"' replied the officer quietly. " Then 1 will have you arrested immediately, in live minutes,'' shouted Niemeyer. Whereat the whole crowd of officers cheered and jeered him. The guard was turned out, and. with fixed bayonets, formed up behind the group. Niemeyer, fuming with indignation, ordered all prisoners into barrao'-s, and locked the doors for the rest of the day. Then he drilled the guard, marching them up and down the square. Many of the younger officers crowded to the windows, shouting, " Left, right!" as the luckless German soldiers—-a iio detested Niemeyer as cordially as the prisoners did —paced up and down with slow, ridiculous. Prussian precision. Niemeyer yelled out an order for all the windows to be dosed, his great voice booming with rage. One subaltern remained at the window a second longer than he ought to have done: Niemeyer flung up his hand, the sentries tired, and a volley of bullets spattered the walls, bre.iking several windows, and narrowly missing officers in the rooms looking on to the courtyard Lieutenant Garland made his first attempt to escape from this camp disguised as a German Landsturm sold : er. The uniform was made for him by his orderly who, in pre-war days, had been a tailor. He was caught, however, in the street outside the camp, and haled before Niemeyer. The bully swaggered in, a huge cigar in his mouth, his Kaiser moustache bristling, his cheeks flushed with drink and anger. " I suppose you know," he shouted, " that you will be court-martialled for having a German uniform on —the property of the Imperial Government? - ' Then he quietened down somewhat, obviously with a view to finding out exactly how Garland had managed to get hold of his disguise, and what method he had employed in getting away from the camp. This latter was termed —in ! the picturesque parlance of Holzminden —"breaking the Jug," a man who suc- [ ceeded in effecting his escape being called | a " Jug-breaker." j When Garland refused to divulge anything, Niemeyer took his revenge in orthodox Hun style. Garland's haversack was opened and emptied on to the : floor. Niemeyer then deliberately j walked over the heap of food, laboriously collected during many weeks, rubI bing his boots in the biscuits, crunching the chocolate-cakes to dirty fragments, j blending the cocoa with the dust of the I floor. j Finally, he ordered a couple of sol- | diers to hold Garland's trench coat in | front of him the while he slashed at it with a super jack-knife, tearing it to | pieces.

. Garland received four months' solitary ;| conlinemcnt in the cells for thie esca;p.ide. which time he spent in maturing ■ further plans of escape. I He eventually got dear a couple ot j months before the armistice was signed, . after having made seven unsuccessful attempts and being transferred to no .! fewer than a dozen prison-camps in > Uermanv. lj ■ .I Garhnd was twice at Holzminden. t|On his arrival the second time Nierneyer I j failed to recognise him. Then came the , i famoiin Holzminden tunnel ■"stunt."' ]l For nearly ten months the prisoners I had been digging a tunnel leading from one of the cellars of the barracks out under the concrete flooring to the I farther side of the stone wall whicM ,! surrounded the camp. The tunnel 1 finally emerged in the centre of a small wheat field. By dint of immense labour it was completed. Two days before. Xiemeyer, boasting , of the camp arrangements, had said: — "Well, gentlemen, if you want to .' escape you must first give mc two days' ' notice." i' They didn't f»ive him notice, but two days ' later —almost to the hour — ■ twenty-nine officers crawled through the ■ tunnel: and ten of them got clear away ito England —a record escape from any i camp in Germany during the war. i

I When the Hun -ergeant-major on the 'morning following the e.-capt reported: | "Twenty-nine missing. Heir Captain!' ! ■Niemeyer wasj within an ace of losing i i his reison. He stunned and raved, call-j big out the guard and commanding j 'them to tire on any British officer who. ■dared so much as to look out of the' . windows. Iheii lie ordered a parade op. the' 'sqti.ro. Ma.l with pride he -cut several! ,! shu .r officers to the cells for coining on. ,1 parade in shoe- instead of boots or for' I other offences equally childish. j It was decided next day as a reprisal I that all the officer prisoners should i come on parade, from colonels down- | wards, without either hat or tunic. 1 Then Niemeyer showed his true colours, I his true Prussian colours—arrogant in I victory, servile in defeat. Fearing a mutiny he ordered the I sentries to charge. The sentries, how- . ever, hated Niemeyer more than the I prisoners, and the "charge" was a 1 laughable melodramatic fiasco. The only • officer to suffer —as Cudmore—an Aus-j '; tralian airman—who. hampered by the| ! fact that lie had a wooden leg, could not; 'get into the barrack; in time. He was! 'I arrested and remained three weeks "in | ! the Jug." Niemeyer. hated by soldiers and j civilians alike, became the laughingJ stock of Holzminden. ! | The "tunnel" was dug up on orders j from Berlin. The episode knocked Nic- j : meyer'.- pre-tige on the head. He wasj ' | never quite the same afterwards. lie [' often tried to bluster and bully. But ho! had been found out. Even in Germany! ' i they laughed at him -the man who pro-1 'tended t.. be a gentleman, yet showed! i such a stupid ignorance in dealing with I gentlemen.—"Daily Mail." I