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Updated: April 30, 2025
We were "clinked" in Klingelputz, as the Cockney expressed it, on November 6, 1914, and were kept in a state of terrible suspense. At last one morning the prison officials entered and called out the name of the three managers of the large works at the village in which K resided, who had been imprisoned with us.
But we were speedily disappointed. All of us without the slightest discrimination were placed under restraint. Directly we entered Klingelputz and had passed into the main building I could not restrain my curiosity. This penitentiary was vastly dissimilar from Wesel.
"Damn it all, Mahoney, that's the 'Black Maria! We are going back to Klingelputz or somewhere else!" It was indeed the Teuton "Black Maria," and we were hurried upstairs to be tumbled into it.
We were consigned "British Prisoners of War for internment at Ruhleben!" Home was now farther from me than ever! It was 4.30 in the morning of November 12 when the blare of the bugle echoed through the long, dreary passages of Klingelputz Prison. To the British prisoners in fact to all the aliens that crash was of fearful import.
Reaching the Prasidium we were ushered into an outer room, the two officials proceeding into an inner room armed with our papers. While we were waiting K turned to me and remarked: "I hope they'll get us fixed up jolly quickly. Those two officers told me that to-morrow all aliens are to be sent from Klingelputz to the internment camp at Ruhleben.
It averaged about fourteen cubic inches! We rumbled into the courtyard at Klingelputz, dejected and somewhat ill of temper at our disappointment. We were worrying because apparently the alien prisoners were to be dispatched to Ruhleben on the morrow. Unless we received our "passes" in time the chances were a thousand to one that we should be doomed to the self-same camp.
We were not kept in doubt as to our future for many minutes. We learned at the Polizei Prasidium that we were to be immured in Klingelputz prison. Many of our number were gathered there, having once been released on "pass," and from the circumstance that they were business men in practice and residence in Germany the confident belief prevailed that after re-registration all would be released.
Certainly it was scrupulously clean, for which we were devoutly thankful, while on the table an oil-lamp was burning. Life at Klingelputz would have been tolerable but for one thing the prison fare. At six o'clock we were served with a basin of acorn coffee and a small piece of black bread for breakfast.
Normally, I suppose, each cell or cage is designed to receive six prisoners, one to each sub-division, in which event circulation in the dividing open space would be possible. But the facilities of Klingelputz were so taxed at the time that every morning further prisoners were brought from the masonry cells below and locked in this open space for the day.
The sanitary arrangements in Klingelputz were on a level with those of other prisons. Two commodes, with ill-fitting lids, sufficed for ten men, and in the underground apartment to which we were condemned, and of which the ventilation was very indifferent, the conditions became nauseating.
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