This ‘souvenir book’ is the work of British prisoners of war interned at Döberitz near Berlin. Download and/or read it via the link on this page.

Although dedicated to ‘our friends and benefactors’, the book’s anecdotes and cartoons of camp life and in-jokes about living conditions and well-known characters in the closed world of Döberitz suggest that its true audience was the internees themselves.

The introductory essay about life in ‘Doberidge’ sets the tone of upbeat humour tinged with occasional melancholy. Curiously there is little mention of the Germans either as prison guards or as the wartime enemy, and the book’s military anecdotes focus more on peacetime service in the colonies than on the war currently being waged.

Words from British Library.