Published by anti-Fascist German POWs in Fanara, Egypt: the Tribune of European intellectual life in exile

Lühr, Manfred (ed.). Tribüne des europäischen Geisteslebens. 2. Jahrg. 6. Folge.

€ 4,000.00

Extremely rare publication by German POWs in Fanara, Egypt: a lengthy and cerebral POW camp publication densely packed with articles on anti-Fascism, Nietzsche, Wagner, Fichte, Dostoevski and a discussion of German exile literature.

Although the title-page announces this as the sixth issue of the journal's second year, this Christmas 1947 issue is in fact the only one that can be traced at all in libraries internationally and is probably the only one to have been published (ZDB lists four copies: in the Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, DNB Leipzig, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, and the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Bremen). A handful of German institutions hold the newsletter of the neighbouring Camp 307, also edited by Manfred Lühr.

Prior to their capture by British military forces, most of the prisoners at Fanara had served in North Africa in German penal military units, to which they had been transferred for holding anti-Nazi ideas. The POW camp in Fayed was one of ten such camps in the Canal Zone located in the Bitter Lake area between Suez and Ismailia. Over 50,000 men, mainly German, Austrian, Italian and Yugoslavs, were housed in these camps. They worked for the British Army on the construction of quarters, in the workshops repairing vehicles, tanks and airplanes, on road construction, and as drivers and orderlies throughout the Canal Zone. While repatriation began in 1946 with 6,000 men being shipped home, many remained in captivity until the end of 1948, as the local British authorities held the manpower of the POWs to be indispensable.