Maurice L. Ettinghausen collection of Ruhleben civilian internment camp papers

Ruhleben Gefangenenlager (British Civilian Internment Camp) was established after the outbreak of the First World War at a racetrack in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin, and remained in operation until Armistice Day, 1918. At its peak, the camp held some 4,500 male civilians of military age who had been living or traveling in Germany when war was declared. Prisoners were housed in stalls originally intended for racehorses. Most internees were British, but there were also other nationalities including: French and Italians, as well as Indians, Jamaicans, West Africans, and Zanzibarees, most of whom had been crewmembers of British merchant ships docked in German ports. About 300-400 internees were Jewish.

The internees established their own camp organization, mail service, social and sports clubs, cultural and educational programs, relief programs, religious services, and hygienic measures.

Born in Paris and raised in England, Ettinghausen had been working for rare book dealer in Munich since 1905 when the war started. On November 6, 1914 he was arrested and transferred to Ruhleben. He was there for the duration of the war. As camp librarian he lead the effort to obtain books for the camps two libraries. Another effort he undertook was to collect whatever he could that documented the camp and, as he says in his memoir, Rare books and royal collectors; memoirs of an antiquarian bookseller, he "had the pleasure of seeing the whole collection smuggled out bit by bit under the noses of the German guards." He considered the collection "source material showing how a British township organized itself in a democratic way."