THE ENEMY WITHIN

“enemy aliens”

• non-naturalised residents of Australia who had been born in countries that were now the enemy.

• With the outbreak of war in 1914 a government proclamation (issued on 10 August) required German subjects in Australia (soon extended to include Austrians as well) to report to their nearest police station. By 1916 the War Precautions (Alien Restriction) Regulations required all aliens (that is, non-British subjects) aged fifteen and over to register

• The 1911 census showed that there were 33,381 German-born residents in Australia, most of whom lived in South Australia and Queensland. These German citizens had to register at local police stations.

• During the First World War 6,890 Germans were interned, of whom 4,500 were Australian residents before 1914; the rest were sailors from German navy ships or merchant ships who were arrested while in Australian ports when the war broke out, or German citizens living in British territories in South-East Asia and transported to Australia at the request of the British Government.

Pointing the Finger

• Since it was impossible to intern all enemy aliens resident in Australia, the Government pursued a policy of selective internment. They targeted the leaders of the German Australian community — including honorary consuls and pastors of the Lutheran Church, businessmen and the destitute. Some internees had been accused of being disloyal by neighbours or had come to the attention of the police by accident

Internment CampsTorrens Island, SA, 1914

HOW MANY AND WHERE?

Enoggera, Queensland (suburban Brisbane) 137

Holdsworthy, NSW (south-east of Liverpool)

1342

Langwarrin, Victoria (south-east of Melbourne)

420

Torrens Island, S.A. (in the harbour of Port Adelaide)

355

Rottnest Island, W.A. (Indian Ocean, near Fremantle)

628

Bruny Island, Tasmania (south of Hobart) 58

TOTAL 2940

Internment Camp, Holdsworthy, NSW

Life in an Internment Camp

• In the camps the internees arranged their own entertainment and many cultural and sporting events. They formed choirs and orchestras, and had theatrical productions. Dr Maximilian Herz directed many successful productions at Trial Bay. At Berrima the sailor prisoners built many different model boats and had regattas and boat exhibitions on the Wingecarribee River. At one exhibition early in 1918 the local public were surprised to see a Venetian gondola, a scale model of the sailor-training ship Preußen, a Chinese junk and a submarine. The Berrima prisoners were also allowed to work for money on local farms

Internees in one of the camp kitchens at the Holsworthy during

World War I,

• The Holsworthy camp at Liverpool in western Sydney was the largest and longest running internment camp. At its peak it housed 6000 men, both internees and prisoners of war. A range of nationalities was represented in the camp: Japanese, Italians, Slavs and Germans as well as naturalised British subjects and Australians of German descent.

• The camp grew from a collection of tents to a small town of huts complete with theatres, restaurants and cafes, other small businesses, an orchestra and sporting and educational activities. Physical conditions in the camp were difficult. Living conditions were overcrowded and sanitary facilities were basic. There were also reports of corrupt or brutal guards working in the camp.

• Holsworthy camp remained open until the last internees and prisoners of war were repatriated in 1920.

• Of all the camps Holdsworthy was the harshest and resembled a prison in the true sense of the word. A strict regime of control was enforced by the camp authorities and a prisoner was killed during an attempted breakout

Holdsworthy Guards with machine gun c.1916

Holdsworthy Internees working in the quarry c.1916.

Roll Call at Berrima

The internees lived in the stone gaol cells and additional barracks, but were allowed to move freely within a two-mile radius of the gaol during the day. This allowed them to build small huts and grow flowers and vegetables on the banks of the nearby Wingecarribee River. The

river also provided a popular recreation area. The Berrima camp was closed in 1919 after the end of World War I

Trial Bay

Life at Trial Bay

• The Trial Bay camp was situated in an old gaol near the entrance to the Macleay River in northern New South Wales. The camp housed internees and prisoners of war of wealth and social standing, such as consular and military officers, physicians, businessmen and other professionals. Most were Germans or Austrians brought to Australia from the Pacific, China and South-East Asia. At its peak, the Trial Bay camp held 580 men.

• Internees were housed either in the stone gaol cells or, for those with higher ranks, in huts outside the gaol itself. The men made an effort to make themselves comfortable in the camp. They made their own furniture, held regular concerts and theatrical performances, read in the extensive gaol library and studied a variety of subjects.

• The camp was located on a peninsula, separated from the mainland by a boundary fence. Inside the boundary internees were free to swim, fish, sunbathe or play tennis on the courts they had constructed. They were allowed to leave the camp to collect wood for the kitchen or bring water from the well on the hill behind the camp.

A Sense of Isolation

• The shock of life in gaol cells created a new identity for men who had been removed from their families and communities. Most of the internees experienced feelings of isolation, and suffered because of the monotony and lack of privacy.

• “Causes for friction are popping up everywhere and you have to pull yourself together all the time in order to avoid confrontations. Things get easily out of dimension and people become irritable and touchy due to the long imprisonment. You just can’t avoid it. Some days the mood is following the course of the war, one day there’s high tension and then again one is doomed to wait and wait.”

•- W. Daehne, diary entry, Sunday 21 April 1918, ML

• The most difficult problem of camp life for internees was sexual frustration, engendered by being confined in an all male environment for years on end. The enforced celibacy led to a number of psychological problems. Many internees experienced the symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders. Dr Max Hertz, one of the prominent internees at Trial Bay, who was also camp doctor and an internationally renowned orthopaedic surgeon from Sydney, reported on ‘self abuse’

A weekly, handwritten and illustrated periodical issued by Germans interned on Torrens Island, during World War One. Three issues are held by the State Library: No.1 (12 June 1915), No.2 (19 June 1915) and No.3 (26 June 1915). Torrens Island is located at the mouth of Adelaide's Port River, in South Australia

Handling the Alien Threat

• People with German sounding names were targeted regardless of whether they were actually German or of German descent.

• German businesses were boycotted. • Many place names were Anglicised such as Germantown Hill became Vimy

Ridge and Grunthal became Verdun. • German shepherd dogs were called Alsatians. • German sausage (Berliner) became known as Devon. • German language schools and German church schools were closed. • The Department of Education ordered that no German speaking teachers or

those with a German background be employed for fear of propagandising the students.

• Elected officials with German backgrounds or surnames were forced to resign. • Trade with Germany ceased and the traders went out of business and this had

the immediate effect of increasing Australian beer sales.

Business Competitors & Union Troublemakers

• In World War I the Australian Government wanted to stop companies run by businessmen of German descent from competing with "British" companies, in case companies run by German-Australians could somehow help the German war effort in Europe. An easy way to do this was to intern the directors and managers of such companies, even if they were naturalised British subjects.Examples:

• Franz Wallach and Walter Schmidt of the Australian Metal Company (subsidiary of a German company) in Melbourne;

• Oskar Plate of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Steamship Company in Sydney;

• Edmund Resch, the Sydney brewer (who had been in Australia for 50 years)

• Australian workers and self-employed small-businesspeople needed to feel that they were also contributing something to the Empire's war effort - by recommending to the government that a German-Australian be interned they were being patriotic, but naturally they were especially keen to do so if that eliminated one of their competitors in business

•

Anti German Leagues

• The Victorian Anti German League began in November 1915. Members signed the following;

• “I hereby sincerely and conscientiously promise a) not to knowingly purchase, use or consume German or Austrian goods of any kind

• b) Not to employ a German for either domestic or commercial purposes

• c) Not to place contracts with any German owned or controlled company or to send goods or travel in German ships

• d) To boycott and assist boycotting of any trader who persists in stocking Austrian or German goods.

At the end of the war, 6150 Germans and other enemy alien

nationals were deported.