Jul 012014
 

PRESSURE WITHIN THE CAMP

Infiltrating „the quiet of the camp life, which (at first) quickly brings all disquiet to an end,“109 was the constant awareness that there was an ideological war being waged in Europe, and not merely the nationalistic cause of World War I. In spite of the restricted news filtering through the camp, there was the information that the armies of Adolf Hitler had glowing triumphs. The Third Reich had grown astonishingly in the first weeks of the war. Even the declaration of war by England and France appeared to be and was „called the phony war in those days, until Germany invaded Norway (and Denmark) the following spring.“110  Among the Germans themselves there was a renewed confidence and in the camp predictions were made that Germany would win the war. 

The knowledge of an expanding Nazi Reich carried the image of a revitalized Germany. It was a radical contrast to the humiliations of World War I and the degrading Versailles Treaty. At Ahmadnagar Camp-B the Nazi activists or sympathizers made the most of Hitler’s victorious campaigns. Though „there was barbed wire between (the wings) and though there was actually little contact,“111 the mood in the camp was endangered when the Nazis started writing their laws and „continously threatened those others who were not willing to call themselves Nazis.“112 

The World War was young but the pressures of National Socialism and the practices of a totalitarian state were entrenched in its world-wide operations. The first internment at Ahmadnagar for most of the missionary brethren was a period of two to five months. Yet within this space of time a deliberate and unambiguous exertion of Nazi influence was carried out against all German internees. The Nazi leadership’s command and order only became consolidated at Ahmadnagar. The Quaker Tucher, only three months at this Deccan cantonment, sensed this influence; 

In the beginning of the war a very quick ending was prophesied, and a great many people were afraid to call themselves Germans or anti-Nazis, which in the eyes of the British people was almost the same. They liked to lump everybody under the name of Nazi who openly did not avow that he was against the Nazis.113 

The word ‚German‘ would be a term of national loyalty for the Vaterland, as differentiated from National Socialism. In this case to be a ‚German‘ in camp carried the sentiment of an in-between stance. Thus, the German missionary faced a real dilemma at Ahmadnagar, when the Nazi threats and warnings went beyond the use of mere words.114 

Living in such close quarters and with no lack of time, the internees had ample opportunity for discussing the political and military developments. Richard Lipp (Basel) had learned much from his fellow ward-patients during the six weeks at the Madras General Hospital.115 He recounts: 

I was then brought to Ahmadnagar. … You heard people talk – then the missionaries were among the others – over America. … „This time America will not join in with the Germans or the British.“ All this foolish talk. „In India a revolution will come, etc.“116 

Severed from his vocation, from his Indian fellow workers and his family, the missionary now was so squarely thrust into a political setting and under political scrutiny and judgment. Of course, as a political being, he had been brought to Ahmadnagar to defend his innocence from what might otherwise be interpreted as his non-missionary activities in India.