TCD MS 10823 folio 40 recto
[Sept/Oct 1918] might have been the best and most comfortable camp in Germany but for the fact that there was a bad Commandant there the now notorious Captain Niemeyer. He and his brother were German Americans of the worst type, one was Commandant at Clausthal and the other at Holzminden. Ours went by the nickname of Mad Harry, while the other brother <was known as Milwaukee Bill>. Luckily Mad Harry was on leave when we arrived and so we had only a comparatively mild search. The camp was a larger one than Furstenberg, there being some 240 officers here, partly housed in a hotel building, and partly in three huts.
There was a roll call morning and afternoon, and twice during the course of the night we would be woken up by sentries coming into our rooms to see that we were present. There was a walk <out> for each half of the camp once a week and for some time we were only allowed along the high roads, but when it became evident that <the allies> were winning the war, many of the most vexatious restrictions were gradually relaxed.
There was always great trouble over parcels. At Furstenberg the parcels arrived very well and there were no complaints about them, but at Clausthal their arrival was most uncertain and an enormous number of them were stolen. Officers were not allowed within ten yards of the cart that brought them up from the Post Office, and the parcels were then unloaded into a room with white washed windows so that it was impossible to see what went on inside. Later on a list would be put up shewing what