GERMAN TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3325, 5 December 1917, Page 59

GERMAN TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.

Mr Gerard in the Telegraph relates one incident much too good—or rather much too bad—not to be noticed and remembered. He had heard of so many instances of the annoyance of prisoners by the civil population that he was quite ' pleased one day to read a paragraph in the official newspaper, the North German Gazette, which ran somewhat as follows;

The following inhabitants of (naming a small town near the borders of Den-

mark), having been guiltyv of improper conduct towards prisoners of war, have been sentenced to the following terms of imprisonment and to the following fines, and their names are printed here in order that they may be held up to the contempt of all future generations of Germans.

There followed a list of names and terms of imprisonment and fines. Thinking that the German Government had at last been aroused to the necessity of protecting their prisoners of war from the annoyance of the civil population, he wrote to the United States Consul at Kiel and asked him to investigate the case. From him he learnt that some unfortunate prisoners passing through the town (in a part °f Germany inhabited by Scandinavians) had made signs that they were suffering from hunger and thirst; that some of the kind-hearted people among the Scandinavian population had given them something to eat and drink, and for this they were condemned to fines, to prison, and to have their names held up to the contempt of Germans for all time. " I do not know of any one thing that can give a better idea of the official hate for the nations with, which Germany was at war than this." »