Tunnellers of Holzminden (with a side-issue)

B&W photographs, maps, diagrams. Prev ownership on front blanks, mark on cover (see image). Second Edition.

This is the story of the escape by 29 British officers from the Holzminden Officer Prisoner of War Camp in Hanover, Germany.

Holzminden had been established in September 1917 and Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer was the commandant. He had spent 17 years in the United States before the war and had a good command of the English Language. Niemeyer prided himself on the fact that he had made Holzminden so secure that escape was impossible. He was also an arrogant and vindictive man, who taunted his captives, often handing out extreme punishments, including solitary confinement, for petty infringements of the camp rules and minor offences. Hauptmann Niemeyer also siphoned off a portion of the prisoners food and pilfered their food parcels.

Karl Niemeyer had however, underestimated the ingenuity of his British captives. Within a month of the camp’s establishment 17 officers escaped, but all were swiftly recaptured. Other attempts followed, but these also failed with the officers being returned to their confinement. It was against this backdrop that a small group of thirteen British officers devised a plan an escape by digging a tunnel. These thirteen officers were: Lieutenant Mardock, Lieutenant Lawrence, Captain Gray, Lieutenant Butler, Captain Langren, Lieutenant Wainwright, Lieutenant Macleod, Captain Bain, Captain Kennard, Lieutenant Robertson, Lieutenant Clouston, Lieutenant Morris and Lieutenant Paddison.