Dr Anne Schwan (Edinburgh Napier University, IASH): German Internees Writing the First World War: Identity, Border Crossings and Creativity in Stobsiade
This talk considers Stobsiade, a German-language magazine produced by German internees at Stobs camp near Hawick in the Scottish Borders between 1915 and 1919. Stobsiade was first published by civilians (imprisoned as ‘enemy aliens’) and then by prisoners of war after the civilian internees had been moved elsewhere. Eclectic in approach, the magazine’s content ranges from first-person accounts of interpersonal relations in the camp to reflections on the role of reading and other forms of creativity during confinement.
By recovering the creative outputs of ‘minor’ historical agents that remain a little-known aspect of First World War history, the research provides a fuller picture of how those most closely impacted by internment responded to their experiences, outside of official military history and beyond the writings of major literary figures associated with the First World War in Britain, such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. The presentation will also contextualise Stobsiade in prison writing and the literature of internment as a genre and explore to what extent the magazine was able to function as a vehicle for inter-cultural communication and reconciliation.