Blank, Missing & Empty Things: German Soldiers, November 1918

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1305

This remarkable photograph is part of an archive of World War I Underwood & Underwood News Photo Service photographs I purchased many years ago.  It shows a pile of German soldiers' uniforms--thousands of them--taken from German prisoners, the clothing headed for "cleaning and repair". 

[This photo, along with mnay others, is available for purchase from our blog bookstore.]

I didn't know before this that the uniforms were repaired--I can imagine the cleaning part, since the prisoners must wear something, and deep into the fifth year of the war it seems hardly the case that they would be given anything at all to wear except for what they were captured in. the cleaning part sounds logical too, especially as the cleaning was being done by the prisoners themselves (pictured here).  Clean clothing makes for more sanitary conditions in mass compounds for thousands of prisoners, and lowers cost for the health maintenance for the prisoners in the short and long run.  And so far as repairing goes:  attached buttons make for closed coats; closed coats allow prisoners to have a better chance at staying healthy in the coming cold months. Just ask Napoleon about the cost of thread on the buttons of his army's overcoats in the march towards Moscow.  (The thread that wasn't used cost very little; the cheaper thread that was used cost everything.)

And the detail:

And closer still:

And the text that was provided by the photo service company to be used along with the photo wen (or if) it was published. 

The cleaning and repairing went on, the prisoners kept coming in--even for those involved, the scent of the end of the war was in the air, though I doubt that the majority felt that it was only a week away. 

Comments

[Joseph Neumann]

In Curzio Malaparte's The Skin, about his participation in the Allied occupation of Naples (as a liaison officer from the post-Mussolini Italian army), he describes wearing a "recycled" uniform with patched bullet holes. I assumed that since his books are pretty heavily fictionalized this detail was made up, but this photo makes me wonder...

[John F. Ptak]

Thanks Joseph Neumann for the reference to "The SKin", which I don't know but will check out. I've never really thought about clothing for prisoners--particularly repairing them--before seeing this photo, either.

[Jeff Donlan]

I think even a fictionalized detail such as that, if it was one, is necessarily true. It's hard to believe that everything we can imagine, and some we can't, has happened in the thousands of wars among millions and millions of men. Certainly clothing, helmets, weapons--and boots for sure--have been recycled. I think I recall an instance of a found journal being continued by the finder, which would make a fascinating thing to read and hold. But that might be a specious memory.