South Australia 'enemy alien' Germans among 300 interred at camp on Torrens Island camp during World War I

A German "enemy alien" is taken to the Torrens Island internment camp near Port Adelaide during World War I.
Image courtesy Paul Dubotzki/Dubotzki Collection

Soldiers in 1914 rounded up about 300 South Australian “German” or “enemy alien” citizens.

Those arrested included German and Austro-Hungarian citizens, some Australian-born: a mix of farmers, intellectuals and Lutheran pastors. With them were some from Sweden, the Netherlands, and one from the United States of America  – all neutral countries.

At first, they were interned in a barbed wire compound at Keswick Barracks. As the numbers grew, they were taken by boat to Torrens Island, nearly deserted except for a 19th Century quarantine station.

The prisoners were interned in tents under armed guard in what was officially called a concentration camp. It was uncomfortable but not harsh. The internees were housed in tents and made to grow and cook their own food. The inmates organised cultural events and entertainment, and even published a camp newspaper, Der Kamerad.

In 1915, treatment of the detainees deteriorated under a new commander, Captain G.E. Hawkes, who encouraged the guards to be offensive and violent.Prisoners were punished by being exposed to the weather in an open barbed wire compound. They were habitually prodded with bayonets, and illegally stripped, handcuffed and publicly flogged. The flogging of an American detainee forced the USA government to demand an enquiry that brought conditions into the open.

The camp was quietly closed in 1915, many internees released, and others were transferred to a more humanely-run camp at Holsworthy, New South Wales. None of this became public knowledge in Australia until after the war. But the story of the incident had reached Germany and returning Australian prisoners of war told of being threatened with reprisals. Official records and any trace of the Torrens Island camp were destroyed.

Internees in the camps were deported to Germany after the war.