International Central Office for Prisoners of War

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1200 volunteers in front of the Rath Museum, 1914–1918
Start of work in the Palais du Conseil Général, around 1940 (photo from the documentary)

The International Central Agency for Prisoners of War (IPWA) ( en. International Prisoners-of-War Agency IPWA, fr. L'Agence internationale des prisonniers de guerre AIPG ) was a branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) , which was founded in August 1914 until 1923 and reopened in 1939. During the First World War , this central information center for refugees was set up in Geneva to find prisoners of war and displaced persons of all nationalities, to establish contact with their families and to be able to forward them letters and parcels despite the obstacles between warring countries.

history

Telegram, central office in Basel during the Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871

By 1900 the ICRC was one of 280 charitable organizations in Geneva. The committee consisted only of a ten-member group of middle-class families who performed administrative tasks in their free time and dealt with martial law and war victims. They played an important role in the more than 50 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies around the world that had been established since the ICRC was founded in 1863, and they enjoyed the trust of governments.

The First World War was a great challenge for the ICRC, which could only be mastered thanks to the volunteers in Geneva and the close cooperation with the national Red Cross societies. The initial fighting in Germany, France and Belgium quickly led to the dead and wounded and hundreds of thousands of soldiers arrested by the warring states.

On October 15, 1914, within weeks of the outbreak of war, the ICRC set up a central office for prisoners of war on the initiative of Gustave Ador . It was the successor to various offices and agencies that the ICRC had set up in previous conflicts: 1870 Central Office for Information and Assistance to the Wounded and Sick in Basel, 1877 Central Office in Trieste, 1912 Central Office in Belgrade.

The members of the ICRC demanded lists of prisoners from all warring countries and were soon receiving up to 16,500 letters a day. These could no longer be dealt with by the Central Office for Prisoners of War, which was initially run by friends and acquaintances of the ICRC members, and they had to seek support in the wider area. At the end of 1914, there were already 1,200 volunteers employed. From 1916 to 1919 the central office was housed in the Musée Rath in Geneva . Their activities continued after the war.

Organization and activities

“Commission de Direction” meeting of the Central Office (1914–1918). From left to right: Renée-Marguerite Cramer, Frédéric Ferrière, Georges Werner, K. de Watteville, Alfred Gautier, Frédéric Barbey, Edmond Boissier, Etienne Clouzot, Jacques Chenevière
Central Office for Prisoners of War, First World War: Gustave Ador, Paul des Gouttes (standing), Frédéric Barbey, Odette Micheli and her father, 1920

During the four years of the First World War, the volunteers created around 7 million index cards that recorded traces of the fate of two and a half million prisoners of war. The card index was part of a comprehensive reference system that was developed to handle the flood of information requests. The card index helped the ICRC to establish contact with people who had been separated during the war. The ICRC organized inspections of the prison camps, brokered the exchange of around 200,000 prisoners and stood up for the protection of war victims.

In the course of the war, the central office sent around 20 million letters and messages, 1.9 million parcels and donations of 18 million Swiss francs to prisoners of war from all countries involved.

Organization of the central office in the First World War

The following services were set up in the central office founded in August 1914 (the statistical figures refer to the period from October 15, 1914 to January 31, 1915):

  • Reception service: with up to 400 visitors per day, a total of 26,473 people were received.
  • Correspondence department: received (as of September 1914) 900,000 letters. Sector 1: Incoming mail, letter processing in German, French, English, Eastern states, Sector 2: Letter post forwarding sent 400,000 letters, 1,554,000 printed forms, 360,000 letterheads with envelopes and 38,000 registered letters, Sector 3: Parcel post sent 38,000 from Geneva and 720,500 parcels as transit.
  • File processing: Sector 1: General review and preliminary work, Sector 2: French files (800 boxes with 520,000 white and 280,000 green French-English-Belgian cards), Sector 3: German files (180 boxes with 95,000 white and 85,000 pink cards)
  • Telegrams (as well as radiograms transmitted by radio) and telegraph service: 17,000 telegrams sent.
  • Typewriter service
  • Statistical service
  • Financial administration: 400,000 Swiss francs were transferred to prisoners.
  • Civil Personnel and Health Department: 90,000 letters received were processed, 60,000 index cards were created and 104,498 information was given to families. Sector 1: Office for Civilians, Sector 2: Health Service.

“ It is a house, no bigger than any other in town, not astonishing in any other sense or beauty. But now, in these three years, it was the soul, it was the heart of Europe. In invisible surf, the fear, the worry, the questioning need, the screaming horror of millions of peoples streams every day. In invisible ebb, hope, consolation, advice and news flow back to the millions here every day. Outside, from one end to the other of our world, the crucified body of Europe is bleeding from innumerable wounds. But his heart still beats here. Because here the truly inhuman suffering of the time is answered by an eternal feeling: human compassion. "

- Stefan Zweig: The heart of Europe. A visit to the Geneva Red Cross, 1917

  • Letter processing around 1918

  • Prisoner of War package in transit

  • Tracing Service, Franco-Belgian Section

  • Correspondence service for letters to prisoners of war

Reopening of the central office during World War II

Service Watson: IBM tabulator made available to the ICRC in October 1939

The International Central Office for Prisoners of War, which is provided as a central information point in the Geneva Conventions (version from 1929), was reopened by the ICRC in 1939 in the Palais du Conseil Général , Musée Rath and other buildings with a total of 11,000 m² of office space in Geneva.

As in the First World War, their activities focused on exchanging information about prisoners and missing persons, monitoring the prisoner-of-war camps and helping the civilian population. During the course of the war, 179 delegates made 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Office for Prisoners of War employed 2585 people, 1676 of them volunteers. In June 1947, your card index contained 36 million cards and 120 million messages were sent.

The headquarters had the following organizational structure:

  • Headquarters Commission
  • Headquarters management
  • General services: Lists, photocopies, typewriter department, pre-sorting and evening shift, auxiliary sections, external work, visitor reception, "Watson service" ( IBM / Hollerith - punch card machines ), statistics
  • National services each with the following tasks: mail distribution, mailing and archive processing, file processing 1 (organization, instruction, control, statistics), file processing 2 (group leader, work on card boxes), file card search (pointage), sending messages, processing information / inquiries / Correspondence, opening and dunning of surveys, communication with applicants, death reports, regimental surveys, telegrams, civilians.
  • Special services: health service, news civilians, various interned civilians (CID), immigration to Palestine (IMPA), internment in Switzerland and dispersed families
  • Financial management

The following national departments were set up during the war years.

  • 1939 Polish, French, British, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin American
  • 1940 Scandinavian, Belgian, Luxembourgish, Dutch, Colonial French, Italian, Greek
  • 1941 Yugoslav, USSR, Czechoslovak, USA
  • 1942 Japanese
  • 1943 Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Finnish, Baltic, various,
  • 1945 Austrian

In 1956 the Central Office had 47 million identity cards for 15 million individual cases. In the same year she received 75,013 mail items, which concerned around 90,000 cases, and sent 88,146 letters.

  • Inbox and triage , around 1940

  • Viewing correspondence, 1939

  • Typewriter department, around 1940

  • Dutch service, around 1940

Concordance proceedings and research

Service of deaths: photocopies of documents and radiograms

The names of the research cards (requests) and the information cards (documents received) were entered alphabetically and phonetically by the central office on index cards and classified accordingly in the files of the national departments. This enabled cards that refer to the same person (military and civilians) to be linked using the so-called concordance procedure , despite the different spelling of the name in the documents in different languages .

If a positive result was obtained from the careful identification of the common elements, the ICRC was able to notify the national offices, the national Red Cross societies and the families, providing them with the positive information received or further information that would enable the inquiries to be continued.

In addition to the concordance procedure, the central office researched both in Geneva and abroad for information (certificates) about the wanted persons from military comrades (regimental surveys), from local authorities in the contested areas or from lists of names of gravesites. The transfer of the information received to their home countries could put an end to the families' uncertainty about the whereabouts of the missing persons.

Particular attention was paid to the document accuracy of the index cards with the original documents, which was made easier by the photocopying technology . From 1940 onwards, all important information was transferred to the index card, so that the original no longer had to be used. The methods of investigation remained the same in both world wars. From 1939, IBM punched card machines came into use, which greatly improved the speed and efficiency of surveys and list production.

" If the cards with the names of two people who belong together but have not yet been able to find each other meet in the large index room of the search center, then - then the reunion is not far away either ."

- Worksheet from 1947

Central tracing service

Tracing Service 1914–1918, German section

The Central Tracing Agency ( L'Agence centrale de recherches ) of the ICRC searches for traces of prisoners or displaced persons from conflicts in order to re-establish contact with their relatives. Various services have been set up over time to carry out these tasks or parts of them inside or outside the ICRC:

  • 1870 Central office for information and assistance to the wounded and sick ( Agence internationale de secours aux militaires blessés et malades ), in Basel
  • 1877 Information office for the victims of the Russo-Turkish War, in Trieste
  • 1912 International Information Office, in Belgrade
  • 1914 International Center for Prisoners of War of the ICRC, in Geneva
  • 1914 Julie Bikle's private “investigation center for missing people, Winterthur”
  • 1936 Information Office for Spain ( Service d'Espagne de l'Agence )
  • 1939 International Center for Prisoners of War of the ICRC, in Geneva
  • 1939 National Information Office ( Bureaux nationaux de Renseignements )
  • 1944 International Tracing Service (ITS), Bad Arolsen , Germany
  • 1955 Mandate to head the International Tracing Service (ITS) by the ICRC
  • 1961 Acquisition of the current name “Central Tracing Service” (ZSD) in Geneva ( L 'Agence centrale de recherches )
  • 2012 ICRC hands over the management of the International Tracing Service (ITS)
  • today: ICRC family reunification and search for missing persons (tracing service)

“ Seven years after the war, we - the citizens of the free world - still manage these archives of horror from which hope and faith are drawn. We serve the living and the dead, men, women and children regardless of nation, race, belief or political conviction, without any financial or other conditions attached. May this archive, which serves to make reparation to the victims and their families, be a warning to all future generations not to let such calamities come to mankind again. "

- Hugh G. Elbot, Head of the International Tracing Service (ITS), 1952

Civilians

The newly established central office of the ICRC for refugees was intended exclusively for prisoners of war due to the mandate on the occasion of the 9th Washington Conference in 1912 (Resolution VI).

Contrary to the advice of the other committee members, who were of the opinion that the Red Cross should adhere to the conventions signed by many states, its Vice-President Frédéric Ferrière was of the opinion that searches by civilians should not be left unanswered. He founded a private civil section of the IPWA, which was helped by people close to him and which was soon joined by hundreds of volunteers from all walks of life. The French writer Romain Rolland volunteered from October 1914 to July 1915 and when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915, he donated half of the prize money to the central office. Despite the legal vacuum, this section was soon perceived as an organ of the Red Cross. The rapid growth of this branch marked a positive turning point in the popularity of the Red Cross and its development.

Since the end of 1919, the IPWA has been administratively integrated into the ICRC, while the civil section continued its activities until the beginning of the 1920s. On September 14, 1939, a central office for prisoners of war was opened in Geneva, which had a civilian department headed by Suzanne Ferrière , a niece of Frédéric Ferrière, with the same services as the Central Tracing Service.

With the new version of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, civilians could be formally integrated as a mandate of the Red Cross.

Archives of the International Central Agency for Prisoners of War

Card index in the Geneva Red Cross Museum

During the First World War, the IPWA received information on prisoners of war and civilian internees from prison camps and national agencies. The information was compared with inquiries from relatives of missing soldiers or civilians in order to establish contacts.

The index of the central office, which was created between 1914 and 1923, contains around seven million index cards. In around two million cases it led to the identification of prisoners and thus to contact between the prisoners and their relatives. The entire file can now be viewed on loan from the ICRC in the permanent exhibition of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva.

The archive of the central office includes diplomatic correspondence with the warring countries on the protection of prisoners and reports on visits by ICRC delegates to prison camps. In addition to the index cards, the collection consists of lists totaling 500,000 pages. The archive has been publicly accessible on the Internet since August 2014.

recognition

  • In 1917 the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • The archive of the International Central Office for Prisoners of War from 1914 to 1923 with index cards of over 4.8 million prisoners of war was recognized by UNESCO as a World Document Heritage on June 19, 2007 .

Literature and film

Web links

Commons : International Prisoners-of-War Agency  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ ICRC: 150 years of humanitarian aid - the First World War
  2. ^ Swissinfo: The ICRC and the prisoners in World War I
  3. ^ Comité international de la Croix-Rouge: Organization et Fonctionnement de l'Agence internationale des Prisoniers de Guerre à Genève 1914 et 1915. Au siège du Comité international, Genève Février 1915.
  4. ↑ First published in "Neue Freie Presse", Vienna on December 23, 1917
  5. ↑ Art. 123 (formerly Art. 79) A central information point for prisoners of war is to be created in a neutral country.
  6. ↑ Rapport du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge sur son activité pendant la seconde guerre mondiale (1st September 1939 - 30 June 1947), Issue 2: Central Office for Prisoners of War
  7. ↑ International Tracing Service ITS, dictionary: "Watson Service" , named after Thomas J. Watson , the IBM President who made the machines available to the ICRC
  8. ^ ITS Inventory Search , United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  9. ↑ L'Agence Centrale de Recherches du CICR: un peu d'histoire
  10. ^ Central Tracing Service 1967
  11. ↑ Official homepage ICRC family reunification and search for missing persons (tracing service)
  12. ↑ Out to nowhere. In: NZZ Folio . January 1993
  13. ↑ Nicole Billeter: Words against the desecration of the spirit !: War views of writers in the Swiss emigration 1914/1918 . Peter Lang Verlag, Bern 2005, ISBN 978-3-03910-417-8
  14. ↑ Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, concluded in Geneva on August 12, 1949
  15. ↑ Red Cross Museum Geneva, permanent exhibition: The International Central Office for Prisoners of War (1914–1923)
  16. ↑ ICRC: Individual prisoner of war data from the First World War with online search facility
  17. ↑ UNESCO: Archives of the Central Office for Prisoners of War 1914–1923