Stalag VIIIB/344 Prisoners of War

I have some information about NZ doctors at Stalag VIIIB/344.  One, Dr John Borrie was serving as a doctor with the New Zealand army in Greece when he was captured by the Germans, and ended up at Lamsdorf. He wrote a book called Despite Captivity - a Doctor's Life as Prisoner of War. It is possible to get copies second-hand, but they are very expensive (around £80 or more).

Other New Zealand doctors there included Captain Stevenson-Wright Captain Foreman and Major S. G. de Clive Lowe. 

These links provide a lot of information:

(They relate to the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre: www.nzetc.org) 

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2PMed-pt2-c5-1.html

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2PMed-pt2-c5-3.html

The hospital facilities at Stalag VIII-B were among the best in all Stalags. The so-called Lazarett was set up on separate site with eleven concrete buildings. Six of them were self-contained wards, each with space for about 100 patients. The others served as treatment blocks with operating theatres, X-ray and laboratory facilities, as well as kitchens, a morgue, as well as accommodations for the medical staff.

The lazarett was headed by a German officer with the title Oberst Arzt (Colonel Doctor), but the staff was made up entirely of prisoners. They included general physicians and surgeons, even a neuro-surgeon, psychiatrist, anaesthesiologist, radiologist.

The Lazarett at Lamsdorf was run on the lines of any other German hospital, with a German area Chefarzt, having the rank of Oberstabsarzt, but with a British (that includes Commonwealth) staff of specialists and assistants under him – some fourteen British medical staff in all, including 3 surgeons, 1 assistant surgeon, 3 physicians, 3 psychiatrists, 2 anaesthetists, 1 radiologist and 1 padre. The chief dispenser was a German.

The hospital, opened on 13 October 1941, was planned to serve the needs of over 30,000 men and was undoubtedly the best designed and equipped hospital for British prisoners of war in Germany. It occupied six acres of flat land in a forest and its eleven concrete buildings were fitted with double windows and wooden shutters. In every room was a large, efficient tiled stove. Six buildings were self-contained parallel blocks of wards, each holding from seventy to one hundred patients. The five service buildings were the staff, administrative and treatment blocks, kitchen and morgue. In the area was a large brick Red Cross as a sign for aircraft.

The ward blocks were divided up into large and small wards, with service rooms as in a modern hospital with the necessary sanitary conveniences. The operating theatres were well equipped with efficient sterilising and full X-ray and laboratory facilities. Although the overall control was in the hands of a German medical officer, full control of the clinical work was eventually given to the British medical officers working under a senior British officer. The nursing orderlies were all British and lived at the hospital, while a daily party of general duty men was drawn from Stalag VIIIB. There was a German chief dispenser in control of the stores, but otherwise the staff of the service departments was British. Besides physicians and surgeons there were British anaesthetic, ophthalmic, radiological, neurosurgical, psychiatric and ENT specialists available either on the regular staff or visiting the hospital from time to time.

When Lazarett Lamsdorf opened the staff largely consisted of British Expeditionary Force medical orderlies. A few early arrivals in Germany from Greece, New Zealanders and others, were also chosen for the staff. These men were particularly keen; and, encouraged by their medical officers, who gave them regular courses in nursing, anatomy, physiology, etc., they rapidly achieved a remarkably high standard of nursing. The ‘ward charges’ were fully qualified state registered male nurses, who ran their wards with precision be they medical, surgical, infectious or mental. The office staff, too, trained in the BEF general hospital, had no difficulty in coping immediately with the German hospital methods. The special departments also, i.e., X-ray, theatre, dispensary, laboratory, massage, pack store, kitchens, were all run with a high and pleasing standard of efficiency. The quarters given to orderlies there were better than they had ever dreamed of in their philosophies as prisoners of war, and none wished to return to the squalor of the main stalag. There was, therefore, an incentive to work well.

A mixed medical commission visited the hospital twice yearly to inspect and also to determine which patients should be repatriated. Full case records were kept, with copies available for the Germans and the original for the United Kingdom, German forms being used. Admissions from the camp were arranged from a waiting list drawn up by the senior physician and surgeon at clinics in the camp, and urgent cases were admitted at any time. Special accommodation was provided for the infectious and mental cases. The rations supplied by the Germans were meagre, but the Red Cross parcels enabled a satisfactory diet to be maintained and four meals a day were served in the wards.

Entertainment and sport were permitted freely. In general, the Germans appear to have provided an excellent hospital, with all supplies satisfactory except the rations, and to have allowed the British medical personnel to carry out their work with a minimum of control.

Captured with the British prisoners were several specialists of note who were employed in their own specialities. Major Henderson, RAMC, a neurosurgeon, was resident for four months on two occasions at Lazarett Lamsdorf doing nerve suture work. Major Cuffy, Rome, visited Lazarett Lamsdorf  in 1942 and 1943 from Obermas-feld to do ear-nose-throat surgery, and Major Wright-Thomson was in charge of the ophthalmic services for Stalag VIIIB.

Their services were invaluable to captors and captives alike.

Dental Treatment: Fortunately for the prisoners of war there were dentists among their number in captivity, and many hospitals had a dentist attached. In captivity there was considerable deterioration of teeth due probably to, first, lack of regular maintenance work, and, second, to a high carbohydrate diet. The volume of work offering was beyond the capacity of the few dentists available. From the point of view of the prisoners it was a blessing that the New Zealand Mobile Dental Unit was captured in Greece, as its officers did magnificent work throughout the length and breadth of Germany, and their training and efficiency was found to be of a much higher standard than that of dentists of other nationalities.

A similar mixed 600-bed hospital was commenced at Tost (not far from Lamsdorf) in May 1944, functioning until the area was liberated by the Russians in January 1945. It was under command of Major S. G. de Clive Lowe, NZMC.