Rudi Kuhnbaum
German prisoner-of-war

This image, taken in about 1946, is of former German prisoner-of-war, Rudi Kuhnbaum. It shows a man who, having survived the privations of war, including two years fighting the Russian Army on the Eastern Front in the most severe conditions imaginable, is facing the future with courage and even joy. As such, it perfectly illustrates the character of the man himself. In 2008, our staff had the privilege to interview Rudi for our oral history collection. Forced to join the German Army in 1939, he was captured by the British on his 25th birthday, in August 1944 and sent to camps in Northumberland to work on the land. Eventually he was billeted at a farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall, working alongside the Laws family until his release in 1949.

Rudi’s former home in Germany was now behind the Iron Curtain and his family dispersed, so he decided to remain in Britain. He went on to marry a woman from Scotland, settling in Newcastle to raise a family and run a successful pork butcher’s shop. Listening to people’s experiences as told in their own words conveys their individuality in a way that documents seldom can. Rudi’s interview, one of more than 700 oral history recordings in Northumberland Archives, preserves his remarkable story, expressed with humour and warmth, for future generations.