Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp

Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp was a World War I prisoner-of-war camp for British and British Empire officers (Offizier Gefangenenlager) located in Holzminden, Lower Saxony, Germany. It opened in September 1917, and closed with the final repatriation of prisoners in December 1918. It is remembered as the location of the largest PoW escape of the war, in July 1918: 29 officers escaped through a tunnel, of whom ten evaded subsequent recapture and managed to make their way back to Britain.

The prisoner-of-war camp is not to be confused with Holzminden internment camp, a much larger pair of camps (one for men, and one for women and children) located on the outskirts of the town, in which up to 10,000 civilian internees were held. The internees mainly comprised Polish, Russian, Belgian and French nationals, as well as a small number of Britons.

The prisoner-of-war camp opened at the beginning of September 1917, under the auspices of X Army Corps, headquartered in Hanover. Other camps for officers under the command of X Corps, all smaller, were those at Clausthal, Ströhen and Schwarmstedt. Many of the initial intake of prisoners were transferred from these camps, and others at Freiburg and Krefeld, which had become overcrowded.

The camp held between 500 and 600 officer prisoners. There were also approximately 100–160 other ranks prisoners, designated orderlies: these men acted as servants to the officers and performed other menial tasks around the camp.

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