Captive Audience: Camp Entertainment and British Prisoners-of-war in German Captivity, 1939-1945

Authors

  • Bob Moore University of Sheffield
  • Barbara Hately University of Sheffield

Abstract

During the Second World War nearly 200,000 British prisoners of war were held inside the Third Reich. Most of the published narratives and histories focus on their road to captivity and attempts at escape but have often underplayed the importance of activities inside the POW camps, organised by the men themselves to alleviate the drudgery and boredom of everyday life. These included education and sports, but perhaps the most prominent aspect of this was the production of theatrical and musical entertainments – often in the most inhospitable circumstances. This study looks at the extent of such activities and their importance in day-to-day existence, both for officers and ordinary servicemen as they battled with the realities of long-term incarceration. 

Author Biographies

Bob Moore, University of Sheffield

Bob Moore is Professor of Twentieth Century European History at the University of Sheffield. He has published extensively on the history of Western Europe in the mid twentieth century, including The British Empire and its Italian Prisoners of War, 1940-1947 (with Kent Fedorowich, 2003), Crises of Empire: Decolonisation and Europe’s Imperial States (with Martin Thomas and Larry Butler, 2007), and Refugees from Nazi Germany and the Liberal European States (with Frank Caestecker, 2009) He has also edited a number of collections, including Resistance in Western Europe (2000) and Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace (with Barbara Hately, 2005). His latest monograph, Survivors: Jewish Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied Western Europe was published by Oxford in 2010. 

Barbara Hately, University of Sheffield

Barbara Hately is Honorary Research Fellow in the History Department at the University of Sheffield. She has published a number of articles on prisoners of war and was co-editor of Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace, (with Bob Moore, 2005). Her monograph, War and Welfare: British prisoner of war families, 1939-1945 was published by Manchester University Press in 2009.

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Published

2014-03-27

How to Cite

Moore, B., & Hately, B. (2014). Captive Audience: Camp Entertainment and British Prisoners-of-war in German Captivity, 1939-1945. Popular Entertainment Studies, 5(1), 58–73. Retrieved from https://novaojs.newcastle.edu.au/kulumun/index.php/pes/article/view/130

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2014): Popular entertainments in times of war

Section

Articles

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