Jul 012014
 

THE GERMANS ARE COMING 

The impact of another foreign war unleashed in British India any number of related manifestations and consequences for all. The many ideals, sentiments and causes of the British, the Germans and the Indians frequently found a stage in the Indian setting. As a heightened example, the Marathi town of Ahmadnagar reflected the British-German contention. Regardless of the Indian population or the labours of foreign missionaries in Ahmadnagar for nearly a century, the town became synonymous to the central ‚concentrated‘ camp of German nationals resident in British India. 

For much of September, and even into October, as the accommodations at the Ahmadnagar barracks became available, German missionaries, German businessmen, German Jewish refugees and emigrants, as well as Austrian and other nationals, continued to flow in from all parts of India. Once the British and the Indian troops had been transferred, the internees arrived to take their places. Their reception at the internment camp by the military officers had little of the courteous treatment which the Government originally desired. 

To regress briefly, in the year 1833 the Evangelicals of England had achieved „the opening of India without restriction to missionary enterprise.“5 The East India Company, with the renewal of their Charter in that year, grudgingly unlocked their doors to non-British Societies as well, and it marked the heginning of an expanding Christian Missions era. Also in the year 1833 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM, Congregational) established a work in the town of Ahmadnagar.6 The American Board developed a most encompassing ministry with the Boys‘ and the Girls‘ Schools, a college, a training school, the sisal fibre industry, as well as the church congregation.

The American Board mission compounds were situated on both sides of the main road between the Ahmadnagar railroad station and the large cantonment facilities east of the town. It was not difficult to observe the comings and goings of the increased traffic due to the war. September, 1939, Roy and Edna Long were resident missionaries at Ahmadnagar, along with other American workers. Edna Long offered this first-hand knowledge of those days when the town had a population of 30,000; and it also had the 

… British military cantonment where several thousand English soldiers were in training. Although radios and television sets were nonexistent, there were newspapers and telegraph services, so we knew about the conflict in Europe. The atmosphere was tense with rumours. The British feared that the Indians might take advantage of their military involvement in Europe and gain control of their government. Their regiments might be called back to fight there. …7  

The war introduced rumours as well among the Indians. Again Edna Long remembered this simple scene which took place at their mission bungalow, when their milkman Rama informed them in the Marathi language: 

The Germans are coming. … I saw jeeps full of English soldiers going to the railroad station to get them. Everyone says they will be in a prison behind the barracks.8 

Her consoling word to the milkman was helpful; „There is nothing to worry about, Rama, . . . these are German civilians, . . . not soldiers. They won’t harm anyone.“9 Yet representative of Indian thinking, the milkman felt strongly; „But why should they bring them here when we haven’t enough grain or milk for our own people? It’s bad enough having the British army here.“10 

Throughout September the British and the Indian soldiers departed from the Ahmadnagar barracks, while German nationals arrived at the railroad station. The group of German men from Jubbulpore were fortunate to be fetched from the station. „We were packed into lorries. We were very tightly packed. We had to stand all the way from the station to the gate of the camp. We were really made to feel like convicts,“11 so was the opinion of one internee. 

A much larger contingent of German nationals from St. Thomas Mount Cantonment were made to trudge the main road; 

The only hard-surfaced road in Ahmadnagar linked the British military post with the town’s railway station. . . . Indian men in white homespun Gandhi caps and shirts, women in pastel saris and barefoot children stood in clusters on the edge of the thoroughfare.12 

The Leipzig missionary Johannes Wagner remembered the trek; 

It was a relatively long stretch out there, to be marched through the city and out to the camp. . . . 

At any rate, it was something unpleasant. I had some uncomfortable shoes on and my feet were chafed. But truthfully speaking, the English soldiers pushed us quite hard, and that on top of the heat. Once we were in the camp it was much better.13 

A glance at a map of Ahmadnagar shows that the internees‘ march was a distance of over eight kilometeres (5 miles) to the East Ridge Barracks. 

Thus, in the heart of the Deccan plains of Bombay Presidency a most unique phenomenon was witnessed as one group of German men arrived at Ahmadnagar. Edna Long recorded this unforgettable scene, as grim as it may sound; 

The music increased in crescendo … as the procession drew near to our house. There were hundreds of German men in civilian clothes, flanked by English soldiers carrying rifles. Heads erect, they sang in perfect harmony. 

There was a short pause between songs when we heard only the beat of a thousand feet and then (the) prisoners began to sing again; „Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott“, … „A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. …“ 

Tears blurred our vision as we watched from our vine-festooned verandah, yet we recognized some German missionaries among the marchers. …14 

The American Board personnel likely recognized the men of the Basel and Leipzig Missions. In the pre-war years on the south Indian hillstations of Kodaikanal, Kotagiri, etc., the German missionaries had ample occasion to associate, to study languages and to worship with them while on holiday. 

Once behind the barbed wire of the Ahmadnagar Internment Camp, the commandant’s welcome was more in the tougher military language. The Gossner Borutta noted this event: 

In Ahmadnagar, I can recollect quite clearly, as we arrived there the commandant presented himself before all of us and held his talk in English. … It was Williams, and I can still see him before me. …15

In one of those memorable statements, Williams defined his conditions: „If you behave yourselves, we will treat you well; and if you don’t, we will treat you like convicts.“16 The commandant had stated his rules for keeping his German internees orderly, but much more, he had set the mood for them in their camp years in British India. 

In Germany the missionary societies found it exceedingly difficult to gain any information from India. As late as November, 1939, the Leipzig monthly (ELMB) reported: „Out of India we have received the news that our missionaries are interned in one prisoner-of-war camp all together. Regarding their stay we nevertheless are not able to write anything.“17 Then in January, 1940, the larger and more representative Evangelische MissionsZeitschrift in its very first publication stated: 

In British India all the German male personnel of the Basel, Leipzig, Gossner and Breklum Missions are quartered in the ‚Prisoners of War‘ camp at Ahmadnagar. Their treatment and working conditions are good.18 

Of course, this was the news which could pass the strict censoring in the country, and though only partial, it appeared as encouraging news. Upon receiving the news from one of their missionary ladies, the British Quaker monthly, The Friend, noted: „The internment of two of our own workers … has brought the troubles of the Western World very close to us. …“19