It was in April 1914 that Paul Madsack moved to Paris to paint, accompanied by his family: his wife and child and Anna, a housemaid.

In July 1914 he travelled to Brittany for a vacation. In Ploumanac’h he rented a summer cottage where the outbreak of the Great War came as a complete surprise.

After having spent a month under an increasingly strict house detention in Ploumanac’h, subject to an ever more hostile population, he learned of the possibility to depart for Spain. He seized this opportunity and filed a respective application which was granted. In September 1914 the family left Ploumanac’h by carriage, at first to Lannion and then on to Brieuc. From there they took the train to Irun (Spain) via Nantes, Bayonne and Bordeaux, in constant fear of being uncovered as Germans. This nerve-racking journey lasted three days.

Madsack spent the following eight months (autumn and winter of 1914 and the spring of 1915) in Spain. His wife and child as well as the housemaid were permitted to return to Germany by ship. He would have liked to do the same but had to stay for the time being.

With fellow sufferers he tried to purchase a boat to escape to Italy which in 1915 was still a neutral country. When he saw the small boat, however, he considered the endeavour to be too dangerous and therefore decided to look for a larger one. Later he would learn that the others had safely reached Sicily and from there proceeded to Germany.

By the end of April he and seven other Germans boarded the “Milano“, a freight sailer bound for Italy transporting bones. After some eight days, on May 4th, 1915, this ship was seized by the French navy near Toulon.

For eight days the Germans were jailed in Toulon’s military prison. Afterwards they were moved to Marseille to be imprisoned in the “Ponton“. At the beginning of June they were transferred to Uzès where Madsack would remain till May 1916. This would be the longest time of his being interned.

To date, we know the names of 3068 civilians who were interned on Île Longue. 795 of those had previously been interned in Uzès where they were housed in former cavalry barracks. One of the reasons for so many men being transferred to Île Longue was the closing of the camp in Uzès by the end of the year 1916, probably because of unbearable conditions. The camp was completely overcrowded – being laid out for about 300 prisoners it actually housed 1,000. Another reason might have been the despotism and incompetence displayed by the camp’s authorities.

It is not only Madsack [1] who describes the unbearable conditions in Uzès but also C. W. H. Doetsch [2], Hellmut Felle [3] and Adolf Freiherr von Weichs [4] who were in this camp at about the same time as Madsack – from summer 1915 through summer 1916.

It is likely that these conditions were known to the inspectors of both the International Red Cross and the USA as well as the German government. Once the internment camp had been closed, the buildings in Uzès were converted into a camp for imprisoned officers which, according to the International Red Cross, was exemplary.

In May 1916 Madsack was transferred to Île longue as part of a group of 150 internees, mostly men of poor health, probably in an attempt to conceal these sick men from the eyes of the inspectors of the Swiss Red Cross. It took them 100 hours by train to reach Brest, a very trying trip.

After a final night in Brest they were ferried over to Île Longue. Right away, Madsack was reminded of his pleasant stay in Ploumanac’h and immediately felt that Île Longue was worlds apart from Uzès. Like many others he probably had already heard this on the grapevine. Although he would write of Île Longue as the “Land of the Lotus-Eaters“ the six weeks he should spend there did not show the camp at its very best: the internees’ weekly “Die Inselwoche“ had been forbidden for months and there was no hope to launch it anew. The internees had not yet obtained permission to “open“ a theatre. Still, his report is well worth reading, and we’ve attached an extract of his book.

Due to his poor health Paul Madsack was moved to Lyon where he had to wait five long months before he was transferred a last time – to Davos/Switzerland.

About Paul Madsack

Paul Madsack (1881-1949) was the oldest son of publisher August Madsack. He was a lawyer as well as a painter, a poet, an associate of a publishing house and the leading literary editor of the „Hannoverscher Anzeiger“. When he died, both Germany’s most prominent magazine „DER SPIEGEL“ and the distinguished weekly „DIE ZEIT“ deemed him worthy of an obituary. Madsack is the author of three novels: “Die metaphysische Wachsfigur“ (“The metaphysical wax figurine“), “Der schwarze Magier“ (“The black magician“) and “Tamotua, die Stadt der Zukunft“ (“Tamotua, the city of the future“).

We discovered another book, “Vae victis – Meine Erlebnisse in Spanien und Frankreich während des Weltkrieges“ (“Vae victis – the author’s experiences in Spain and France during the Great War“) in the university library in Tübingen as E-Book. Published in 1918 in Leipzig by the house of Klinkhardt & Biermann, it features 14 drawings and four illustrations by the author himself. “Vae victis“ is Latin and means “Woe betide the vanquished!“.

To date, we have not found a personal file referring to Paul Madsack. There is no entry for him in the official databank. However we have found several references to his story. Eventually his seven fellow sailors of the “Milano“ would also reach Île Longue, albeit some of them would arrive there after Madsack had already been transferred to Lyon.

The “crew“

It is possible to reconstruct the “crew“ with the help of the archives.

The archives have also revealed both the name of the freight sailer (“Milano“) and the exact date of its seizure (May 4th, 1915). Neither was mentioned by Madsack.