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Description: | Concept: propaganda, military personnel, POW, atrocities / war crimes, torture, empire / commonwealth Description: whole: the image occupies the majority. The title is separate and positioned across the top edge, in black. The text is separate and positioned in the lower quarter, also in black. All set against a white background. image: a full-length depiction of a British Prisoner of War tied to a post, his head hanging down over his chest. In the background stands the silhouetted figure of a German guard. text: RELEASED! AN ENGLISHMAN'S END IN GERMANY. DRAWN by Jacques Touchet[sic], an actual Eye-witness of the tragedy at the prison camp of Gustrow, Mecklenberg[sic]. 'Major Bach, as if suddenly inspired, conceived a fiendish means of accentuating the agony of a prisoner condemned to this punishment. The man would be tied to the post about the middle of the morning. The summer sun beat fiercely to the post, and the man's hat was removed. Consequently, as the poor wretch's head dropped forward on his chest, its crown became exposed to the fierce heat of the sun. Thus to the pain of the torture inflicted by the tightly-tied ropes (round wrists and ankles) and the strangling sensation produced by the throat pressing against the restraining rope was added the racking torment of intolerable heat playing on a sensitive portion of the body.... 'When a prisoner was in the height of his torment the eminent commandant would stroll up, and from a couple of paces away would stand, legs wide apart and hands clasped behind his back, surveying the result of his devilry with the greatest satisfaction. As the prisoner groaned and moaned he would fling coarse joke, bandinage and gibe at the helpless wretch and when the latter struggled and writhed in order to seek some relief, though in vain, he would laugh uproariously, urge the unhappy man to kick more energetically, and then shriek with,[sic] delight as his advice was apparently taken to heart, only to accentuate the torture.' - 'Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons.' by Mr. H. C. Mahoney. Published by the British Empire Union, 346 Strand, W.C.2 Printed by the County Printers, Colchester. Object: post, rope, rifle, bayonet | Subjects: | poster | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Touchel, Jacques Printer: County Printers, Colchester and London EC4 Publisher/Sponsor: British Empire Union | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=3304... | Go to resource |
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