Clausthal-Zellerfeld

Mm.

Recently I've done a tiny amount of research in Clausthal in Germany, and, uh, I just relied on the city archivist to tell me where the one house I was interested in was located, and I think there's some very complex system which was not a street and number, but I think it was a number assigned to the house as far as every house in the city had a number.

They weren't necessarily next to each other.

Yeah.

I did, at any rate.

Long and I had been less than three weeks in this place when all those flying officers who had been captured on the Somme were removed from Gudersloh to Clausthal.

Looking back on the life at Gudersloh, one thing strikes me more now than it did whilst I was there, and that is the fact that all the officers, with the exception of a small section of the Russians, had apparently abandoned all hope of escaping.

The defences of the camp were not strong enough to be any reason for this lack of enterprise, and I can only attribute it to the encouragement and opportunities given by the Germans for game-playing, which successfully turned the thoughts of the prisoners from escaping.

Of the journey to Clausthal in the Harz Mountains, I only remember that it was quite comfortable and that we arrived at night.

The camp was about a mile up from the station, and we were let through a barbed-wire fence and into a wooden barrack.

For the next eight days we remained shut up in this place, and it was only with difficulty that we were allowed to have the windows open.

After eight days' quarantine we were let out into the camp.