The was a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

in Wünsdorf (now part of Zossen), Germany, during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The name translates as ''Crescent Camp'' or ''Half-Moon Camp'' (sometimes also used as a name in English publications) and refers to the

crescent A crescent shape (, ) is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase (as it appears in the northern hemisphere) in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. In Hindu iconography, Hind ...

, a symbol of Islam. The camp housed approximately 30,000 Arab, Indian, and African prisoners of war from the British and French allied armies. The primary purpose of the camp was to persuade detainees to wage

jihad ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...

against the United Kingdom and France, in line with the 1914 Ottoman jihad proclamation, serving as a showcase for Germany's war propaganda. To that end, "detainees lived in relative luxury and were given everything they needed to practise their faith". The camp was the site of the first

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

to be built in Germany, a large and ornate wooden structure completed in July 1915. The mosque, requested by the Grand Mufti of

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

(

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

), was financed by the Prussian Army and modeled after the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock () is an Islamic shrine at the center of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount in the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. It is the world's oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture, the List_of_the_ol ...

. It was demolished in 1925–1926 due to disrepair. About 80

Sikh Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...

prisoners and

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

s from

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

were also held in the camp, as well as around 50 Irishmen, and two

Australian Aboriginal Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...

soldiers ( Roland Carter and Douglas Grant). A subcamp, known as (Camp of Indians), was established to house prisoners from India who were not openly pro-British; those who were pro-British had been sent to other camps instead. The leader of the "jihad experiment" was Max von Oppenheim, a German diplomat and aristocrat. He established an office nearby to lead a propaganda campaign with the "show camp", "self-consciously styled as a theatre for the wider world", at its centre. Oppenheim was assisted by Shaykh Sâlih al-Sharîf, a Tunisian who had served in the

's intelligence agency. He served as a spiritual leader for the detainees. Furthermore, Oppenheim cooperated with the Berlin Committee (later: Indian Independence Committee) in order to publish a propagandist Urdu- and Hindi-language newspaper, which was distributed in the camp. Anthropologists, musicologists like Robert Lachmann and linguists used the 'favourable conditions' within the camp to conduct research. The Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission, under the auspices of the linguist Wilhelm Doegen, set out to record voice and language samples in the shape of stories, poems and songs of over 250 languages. The remaining recordings are held at the phonographic archive of the Humboldt Universität of Berlin. In 2014/15, an exhibition called ''Phonographed Sounds - Photographed Moments'' presented sound and image documents from WWI German prison camps. Up to 3,000 of the detainees from the camp were recruited into the

German Army The German Army (, 'army') is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...

to fight in North Africa and the Middle East. However, low morale and troop revolt plagued the resulting divisions, and few believed in the jihadist cause. In 1917 the remaining prisoners were forced to agricultural labour in Romania. Friedhof Halbmondlager 2

The story of the camp was largely omitted from English-language texts, until nearly a century after the war. It was discussed extensively in German history works.

References

*Gerhard Höpp: ''Die Wünsdorfer Moschee. Eine Episode islamischen Lebens in Deutschland, 1915-1930''. In: ''Die Welt des Islams'', 1996, pages 204–218. *Gerhard Höpp: ''Muslime in der Mark. Als Kriegsgefangene und Internierte in Wünsdorf und Zossen, 1914–1924.'' Verlag Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 1997, *Martin Gussone: ''Die Moschee im Wünsdorfer „Halbmondlager“ zwischen Gihad-Propaganda und Orientalismus''. In: Markus Ritter, Lorenz Korn (Hrsg.): ''Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie'', Reichert, Wiesbaden 2010, , pages 204–232. *Hanno Kabel
''Gefangen unter der Moschee''.
In: '' Berliner Zeitung'', 6 April 1996 *''Gefangene Bilder. Wissenschaft und Propaganda im Ersten Weltkrieg''. Benedikt Burkard (ed.). Petersberg, Imhof Verlag, 2014. (Exhibition catalog Historisches Museum Frankfurt in Kooperation mit dem Frobenius-Institut an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt und dem Institut français d'histoire en Allemagne / On occasion of an exhibition held at Historisches Museum Frankfurt, September 11, 2014 - February 15, 2015) *Heike Liebau:
„Unternehmungen und Aufwiegelungen“: Das Berliner Indische Unabhängigkeitskomitee in den Akten des Politischen Archivs des Auswärtigen Amts (1914–1920)
" In:
MIDA Archival Reflexicon
' (2019), ISSN 2628-5029, 1–11. *Jürgen-K. Mahrenholz:
Südasiatische Sprach- und Musikaufnahmen im Lautarchiv der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
" In:
MIDA Archival Reflexicon
' (2020), ISSN 2628-5029, 1–19. *Andrew Tait Jarboe: "Propaganda and Empire in the Heart of Europe: Indian Soldiers in Hospital and Prison, 1914-1918" in: ''Empires in World War I: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict'', (2020), 107-135. *Richard S. Fogarty "Out of North Africa: Contested Visions of French Muslim Soldiers during World War I" in: ''Empires in World War I: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict'', (2020), 136-158.

External links

* {{Coord, 52.1669, N, 13.4858, E, source:wikidata, display=title Prisoner-of-war camps in Germany World War I prisoner-of-war camps in Germany Islam in Germany

See also

References

Further reading

External links