Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R by Ernest Robert Zimmermann

Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R Reviews

• 
  Czarny Pies

  "The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior" tells the story of Camp R located on the premises of a bankrupt paper mill in Red Rock, Ontario, Canada where 1186 supposed German POWs were interned between July 1940 and October 1941. It is somewhat ironic that the book is essentially a waste of paper. The book is worth five stars if you are from Red Rock. I am giving it three stars because my summer chalet in Greenstone is 200 kilometres from the site. Deduct an additional star from the rating for every additional 100 kilometres separating you from Red Rock.
  The authors present the rather dubious argument that the history of Camp R demonstrates that the British were guilty of deceit and anti-Semitism. The British were deceitful in that they told the Canadians that they would be receiving POWs when in fact they sent them civilians who had been detained as enemy aliens. They were anti-Semitic in that they included in the group 78 Jews who had fled to Britain in order to escape persecution by the Third Reich. The British appear to have believed that once the Germans invaded England, the Jews would rally to the German cause because their German nationality would mean more to them than their political differences with the Nazis. In the words of one British government memo: that "ancestral blood lines would be stronger than political convictions." (p 21.) The facts make a strong case for incompetence and a lack of candour on the part of the British. However, the authors harp continually on their accusations of anti-Semitism and lying.
  There were in fact no prisoners of war (POWS) among the internees detained at Camp R. The largest group (roughly 800) was composed of merchant seamen. In this group, there were approximately 80 members of the radical socialist ISU (International Seamen's Union) who like the Jews were strongly anti-Nazi. The most vociferous Nazis were from the former German South-West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika) which is currently Nambia but which at the time that WWII started was part of the British Empire.
  The Canadian soldiers who had been expected German parachutists were shocked and disappointed by the lack of military bearing of the internees. What was particularly frustrating was the internees had never been drilled and could not march in formation.
  The internees arrived in July 1940. By September, the camp officers realized that they were detaining only civilians. By January 1941, the Jewish Internees had been relocated to a refugee camp in Montreal. In October 1941, the camp was closed because of problems relating primarily to the physical condition of the facility.
  Life in Camp R was quite agreeable. The Red Cross conducted three inspections and determined that during the period that Camp R operated, the internees gained on average 20 lbs (slightly less than 10 kilograms) during their stay at the camp. The internees were allowed to swim in Lake Superior and skates were provided in the winter.
  "The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior" is beautifully illustrated and contains many amusing anecdotes. Its thesis that the British were Anti-Semitic and deceitful towards the Canadians is loopy at best. It fails utterly to place Camp R within the broader context of the internment of POWs or treatment of refugees in the British empire during WWII. The book fails as a case study of Canadian's camps internment because Camp R was in operation for only a small portion of the time that Canada operated camps. "The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior" is simply local history. Three university professors managed to produce a book that would be scarcely defensible as a Master's thesis.
• 
  Alexander Kosoris

  It may seem a stretch to believe that an intriguing statement was all it took to launch the late Ernest Zimmermann, then a history professor at Lakehead University, into countless hours of research and investigation that eventually led to the publishing of The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior, but that’s the story, as he told it. As it turns out, his students’ assertion that there was a prisoner of war camp in Red Rock during the Second World War wasn’t horribly far off the mark. The internment camp at Red Rock, Camp R, did, in fact, exist, but it never housed any captured soldiers.
  
  With The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior, Zimmermann gives an account of the political, societal, and military landscape at the start of WWII, that eventually led up to mass hysteria in the U.K., and the subsequent internment of any and all civilians of German ancestry, including vocal anti-Nazis and Jewish refugees. Not wanting to deal with these “undesirables,” they were eventually shipped to Canada, where they were treated with caution and hostility, due to England's deception that they were sending “dangerous enemy aliens,” rather than civilian refugees. In framing the book in such a fashion, Zimmermann not only presents an extremely detailed history of Camp R, but gives readers a great frame of reference as to how people who, looking back, appeared to pose no danger to England––or, in some cases, were actively trying to aid in the fight against Nazi Germany––could be sent away to the “Siberian wastelands” of Canada, to live in constant fear amongst the Nazi majority in Camp R.
  
  After Zimmermann’s untimely death in 2008, it was unknown if The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior would ever come to fruition, but, with the hard work of quite a few people––including the editors, Michel Beaulieu and David Ratz, whom Zimmermann requested finish the work if he was unable to––it’s here for all to see. If you have any interest in the history of the Thunder Bay region, the book is hugely interesting, readable, and comes highly recommended from yours truly.
• 
  Margaret Sankey

  In this posthumous book, Zimmerman recounts the short existence of Camp R at Thunder Bay, Ontario, where the British government shipped out a careless assortment of interned German nationals (and the mind-boggling process by which a local board of antisemitic grandees would brand someone Jewish a dangerous alien for fleeing Germany and being unpatriotic to their Fatherland, or a Communist for being anti-Fascist). For the year or so it was open and house about 1,000 people, Nazis within the camp, including celebrities like Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengel, terrorized Jews and ran rings around the administrators who tried to limit their escapes, propaganda and highlighted the unworkable way the Canadian and British governments had thrown this plan together to the detriment of both security and the people they needed to protect.
• 
  Danny

  It was really well written and very informative. I learned a lot about Canada's role in WWII and some of the darker truths.