Letters and descriptions written by South Australian and Queensland internees of German descent make heart-breaking reading. The internees at Liverpool camp formed the Association of Interned Australian - born subjects and in November 1916, a petition was sent by them to the Defence Minister, protesting at the injustice of their internment without trial and denying that they had committed acts or spoken words of disloyalty. The petition demanded that definite charges be laid against them, as was their right as British subjects. It is significant that they claimed their internment was the result of personal animosity or business jealousy. Examples of this can be read in the Tanunda Police Station Correspondence book for 1916/1917. It is full of letters alleging disloyal conduct by German speaking members of the community, written by local busybodies whose gossip in peacetime would normally have been ignored. A typical case is that of a German schoolteacher named Witt, who was named by an informant for sabotaging the War effort by failing to distribute a sufficient number of tickets for a Red Cross concert. Witt distributed three dozen tickets for the concert, but another nine dozen were found in his home. His explanation was that he had been too busy to distribute them. The official conclusion drawn was that he was a saboteur. The Tummel family of Greenock suffered greatly from local amateur 'spies'. Although two of their relatives were
serving the Australian Army, one as a lieutenant, information laid against them led to three male members of the family being interned in Australia. A letter from the internees at Liverpool to the Defence Minister, reveals the personal agony and frustration of men put behind wire because of gossip and War hysteria:
'We, who are mostly from the State of South Australia and Queensland, are denied the privilege of seeing our families owing to distance and expenditure, and our allowance for correspondence is so scanty that an unscaleable wall of separation divides us from those who are dear to us...' In his reply, the Acting Secretary at the Defence Department, T. Trumble described their letter as'...
purporting to be written by Australian-born subjects', and curtly informed them that 'Your internment is in accordance with the law'. On October 31, 1917, Trumble said the Cabinet had reviewed the question of Australian-born internees and had decided that they should remain interned. ‘It is not expedient in the public interest to reveal the evidence against you', he told them.
It was not until January 1918, that the Australian - born internees were acknowledged as being Australian citizens by the Secretary of Home and Territories, Atlee Hunt. The dependants of those internees whose businesses were closed were to throw themselves on the authorities for support. Wives like Ottilie Goers, of Tanunda, wrote to the General Staff Officer at Keswick Barracks:
Will you please give me a weekly allowance of ten shillings for my daughter and me, since my husband was taken to Liverpool in May 22, 1916. We have tried to continue in our home, as my husband's wages were stopped since he was taken away from us. I am nearly 50 years of age and cannot earn anything.
Please, Sir, give me back my dear husband and my daughter's father. He will work for himself and for us and we need no help.
An anonymous internee at Liverpool wrote of the imprisoned Germans:
With complete disregard for their personal, family or business interests, they have been literally torn from their homes and families, escorted by guards with fixed bayonets through public streets. Imprisoned in police cells and in military clinks intermingled with drunken soldiers, exposed to the jeers and taunts of unthinking crowds. Some of their fathers and grandfathers were expressly invited by the agents of the different Australian Governments to make their home in Australia, and they did so in full confidence, never dreaming that their children would be treated in such a fashion.
By August 1918, internees of the Naturalized British Subjects Association at Holdsworthy Camp, New South Wales, were in a state of utter despair, as the following letter to the Minister of Defence illustrated:
“The mental torture and resulting frailty of physical health is so pronounced in the case of those who are unfortunate enough to have been interned for any lengthy period, that the time has arrived when an urgent appeal on the grounds of humanity must be made for the consideration of our cases with some sense of fair play and justice. All we ask is a civil
trial.---That of such occurrences are possible in the twentieth century in such an advanced democracy as of Australia seems hardly credible. But it is so, and there is being registered in Australian history a chapter which all real Australians will some day heartily wish could be expunged”.
This in fact almost happened. At the end of the War, all material relating to Torrens Island was called in by the military authorities to Melbourne. A spokesman at the Australian Archives in Adelaide, described the absence of material on Torrens Island as 'very mysterious', and the Australian Army can find no substantial record of the camp. Two people, who were concerned with the matter, both stated that the files were burnt in an attempt to destroy Australian history of this ‘shameful chapter’.
Following the end of the War, it took several years for the distrust which was built up on both sides to disappear, but by the late 1920s, the community was almost back to normal, ceasing to discriminate between British and non - British descent. Gradually German descendants were re-elected into local government, parliament and public office. Trade between Germany and Australia again started and consular exchange was restored. n 1928, more than 70 per cent of Lutheran services were again held in the German language. In 1935 the place names of 3 towns were changed back to their original German names: Klemzig, Lobethal and Hahndorf.
But the wounds inflicted on the South Australian German community were deep. They had not been accepted as Australians; it appeared only Australians of British descent had that right; their contribution to the foundation of the state was ignored, and their culture despised. These things could not be forgotten easily. As a South Australian of German descent wrote in 1922 (Flaeming, 19340):