Prisoners of war, often shortened to POW, are soldiers who have been captured and held prisoner by enemy forces during an armed conflict or war.

Enemy forces captured and held POWs for a number of legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Reasons include, to isolate soldiers away from their own side; to show they have won the conflict; to punish or prosecute soldiers for war crimes; to exploit them for labour; to collect military and political information about their opponent; and to recruit the POWs to their own side.

The Third Geneva Convention gives POWs many different rights. The original Geneva Convention dated from 1864 and was added to in 1899, 1907 and 1949 (after the Second World War). The earlier conventions defined the expected treatment of injured enemy soldiers by the international powers that signed them. The Hague Convention of 1929 was the first to address the needs of prisoners of war. 

POWs rights under the Third Geneva Convention include:

• They must be treated decently, with respect.
• They must be allowed to tell their families and the International Committee of the Red Cross that they are a POW.
• They have the right to communicate with their families and get packages.
• They have the right to keep their clothing, eating utensils, and personal things.
• They must be given adequate food, clothing, housing, and medical attention.
• If their captors make them work, POWs must be paid for the work they do.
• If they are going to be charged with a crime, they must be given a trial.
• If they are very sick or hurt, prisoners of war have the right to be let go.
• After a war ends, all POWs must be let go quickly.

Prisoners of war also have the right not to:

• Give their captors any information, except for their name, age, rank, and service number (a military identification number).
• Have their money or valuable things stolen.
• Do forced labour, military work, or work that is dangerous, unhealthy, or degrading.

English Heritage have identified over 1000 possible sites of Second World War POW camps in the British Isles. Including seven in Northumberland (see link to Guardian article): 

• Featherstone Camp near Haltwhistle 
• Darras Hill, Ponteland 
• Wooler Camp, Wooler 
• Hetton House Camp, Chatton 
• Kitty Brewster Camp, Blyth 
• Lord Mayor’s Camp, Amble 
• Byrness Camp, Redesdale, Otterburn 

Wylam was not included on this list, even though we know that there was a camp in the village. Wylam was a small camp and may well have been seen as a part of one of the larger camps in the area. 

Around 400,000 POWs lived in British camps during the Second World War. When they were finally released, large numbers decided to stay in this country. Some estimates say 25,000 former prisoners made a new life for themselves here. 

The British government encouraged POWs to stay in this country. Especially if they were working on farms producing food (see Hansard link). Conditions for ordinary people in Germany were hard. Most of the towns and cities had been heavily bombed, food and other essentials were scarce. 

Boredom was the main problem for most inmates in prisoner of war camps during the Second World War. Rudi Kuhnbaum’s photographs and oral history show that the prisoners at Wylam passed their time by making a miniature castle and a fountain for the village. The prisoners at Featherstone produced the Die Zeit am Tyne newspaper. 

Die Zeit is a German newspaper which was first published in Hamburg in February 1946. Die Zeit am Tyne was published between June 1946 and March 1948 (after the end of the war). Die Zeit also means “the time” – this was probably a play on words as the German prisoners had lots of time to fill in the camps. “Am Tyne” means “on the Tyne”.

Two pages of the newspaper can be seen here. The earlier one from June 1947 (NRO 4906/12), shows a cartoon of the habits and traditions of English people that the German prisoners saw and found strange: “The British Character”. The second paper shows the front page of the last edition of Die Zeit am Tyne. 

The main headline “Der Weg ins Freie: mit den Augen des Heimkehrers” translates as “The Way (or Path) to Freedom: with the eyes of the home comers”.  The article is made up of the view of men from the camp about being set free and what their plans for the future are. 

The other article on the page is under the headline “Zum Abschied” (farewell or leaving taking). It puts the men into three groups: 

• Those keen to leave the shame and lethargy of being a prisoner and start to help rebuild Germany. 
• Those who found security in being a POW and dreamt of Germany in a perhaps unrealistic way. 
• Those who intended to stay in England.